the [non]billable hour

Ten Resolutions for the New Year

As 2008 draws to a close, it is natural to think about New Year's resolutions.*  We think about our businesses, our clients and ourselves and resolve to do better next year.  If you'd like some help, or just some inspiration, here are Ten Resolutions for the New Year.  Enjoy:

1.  Resolve to be better to everyone.  Start with yourself.

2.  Resolve to choose your customers as carefully as friends, knowing that you’ll work best when they’re one in the same.

3.  Resolve to know your business better.  Recognize that being good at what you do is unimportant if you’re not good at being in the business you’re in.

4.  Resolve to stop doing the things your customers don’t pay you to do, unless you love doing them so much, you’d do them for free.  Because you are.

5.  Resolve to value your life by the things you experience instead of the things you possess.

6.  Resolve to eliminate the things in your life that wake you up in the middle of the night -- unless you’re married to them, or they need to go outside for a walk.

7.  Resolve to become more useful to your customers.  Stop thinking about what they expect from you, and focus instead on what they don’t expect from you.

8.  Resolve to help the people who work with you (and for you) become better at what they do.  Give them what they need to excel at their jobs, and you’ll find you’re more likely to excel at yours.

9.  Resolve to understand the difference between what you do for clients and how long you take to do it.  They care about the former, and can’t understand why you charge for the latter.

10.  Resolve to do the work you long to do, instead of the work you’ve been doing for too long.  Follow your passions, honor your principles and strive to add value to every relationship you’re in. “Next Year” begins now.  Get started on making it great!

I'd love your input, and feel free to add your resolutions in the comments.  If you enjoyed these, check out my other posts in the series:  Ten Rules for Law Students, Ten Rules for the New Economy, Ten Rules for New Solos, Ten Rules of Legal Innovation,  Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing. 

Also, if you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.

*  Thinking about Resolutions for Lawyers is something I've been doing for quite some time.  Here are my 30+ resolutions from 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Do Anything Online

From Mashable:  How To Do Almost Anything With Social Media.  Bookmark it, and read one or two of the linked posts each day and you'll be a social media wiz in no time.

Taking the "Less" out of Jobless

Looking for a simple way to help the jobless in your community?  A local bar here in St. Louis (where lots of Anheuser-Busch employees are unemployed for the first time) has a great idea: Host a resume-writing clinic.

What else can you do to help the members of your community in their time of need?  Just a few ideas:

1. Do a seminar on unemployment law, including the rights/responsibilities of employers or employees.
2. Donate a portion of every payment you receive to a food pantry.
3. Collect interview-appropriate clothes for job-seekers.
4. Partner with the local copy shop or printer and offer coupons for free resume printing and mailing.
5. Enlist local schools and ask them to provide non-peak use of computers (with student mentors) to job hunters.
6. Donate (and ask clients to as well) used computers, appropriately reformatted, to those who need them.
   
7. Teach about LinkedIn, Craigslist, Facebook and other online services that can help job seekers.
8. Ask your business clients to volunteer to do practice interviews with -- and give feedback to -- the newly unemployed.
9. Create and sponsor a job fair in your town.

I'm sure they are hundreds more.  The point is, help those in need.  They'll thank you and you'll thank yourself.

Ten Rules for Law Students

Over a year ago, I wrote 15 Thoughts for Law Students.  It was one of my first "Rules" posts, though I wasn't calling them that at the time.  Since then, it has been one of the more popular items on this blog, and was even republished in the Canadian Bar Association magazine. 

I've revised it just a bit, and shortened it to 10 "rules" for the law students out there.  Enjoy.

1.  Law school is a trade school. The only people who don't believe this to be true are the professors and deans.

2.  Being good at writing makes you a good law student. Being good at understanding makes you a good lawyer.  Being good at arguing makes you an ass.

3.  You can learn more about client service by working at Starbucks for three weeks than you can by going to law school for three years.

4. Law school doesn't teach you to think like a lawyer.  Law school teaches you to think like a law professor.  There's a huge difference.

5. The people who will help you the most in your legal career are sitting next to you in class.  Get to know them outside of law school. They are pretty cool people.  They are even cooler when you stop talking about the Rule Against Perpetuities.

6.  Law is a precedent-based profession.  It doesn't have to be a precedent-based business.  Challenge the status quo.  Somebody has to.

7.  When you bill by the hour, getting your work done in half the time as your peers doesn't get you rewarded.  It gets you more work.

8.  Your reputation as a lawyer begins now.  People won't remember your class rank as much as they'll remember how decent and honest you were.  They'll really remember if you were a jerk.

9.  There are plenty of things you don't know.  There are even more things you'll never know.  Get used to it.  Use your ignorance to your benefit.  The most significant advantage you possess over those who've come before you is that you don't believe what they do.

10. People don't tell lawyer jokes just because they think they are funny.  They tell lawyer jokes because they think they are true.  Spend your career proving them wrong.

If you enjoyed these, check out my other posts in the series:  Ten Rules for the New Economy, Ten Rules for New Solos, Ten Rules of Legal Innovation,  Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing. 

Also, if you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.

Own the Upheaval

From Jessica Hagy's Indexed:


Well put, don't you think?

Designers Don't Have a Monopoly on Design

If one of your goals for the New Year is to upgrade your firm's image, here's a bit of inspiration for you.  Andy Mangold a 20 year-old design student, took a something we all take for granted (the Monopoly board game package) and looked at it in a different way.  Here's his stunning re-design: 





If you asked a 20-something design student at your local college to take a crack at re-imagining your legal brand, what could it look like?  I bet there are a few design students who'd be interested in tackling the challenge.  Do you have the guts to let them?

(via TheDieline)

Make Meetings Shorter

Here's an easy way to make your meetings shorter:  Fill your conference room with seating from The Slightly Uncomfortable Chair Collection. It is a series of chairs that look just a bit more than "slightly uncomfortable."  Follow the link to see the whole collection.

Get Paid Faster

Some great advice from Howard Mann on ways to get paid faster.  Here's my favorite:

4. Make the invoice an experience not a pain.  You work so hard to deliver a great experience to your customers - don't you? Why stop when the product or service is delivered?  How can you make the delivery of your invoice a memorable event to the recipient? It is a chance to ask for feedback.  It is a chance to thank them for their business. 2 suggestions:

a) Make your invoice look nice great! Your invoice represents your company. Does it do it well? Have the designer that designed your logo, web site or brochure design your invoice.  Make it clear and pleasant to read.  Forms do not have to be ugly.  Make it stand out from the others.

b) Add a message to the invoice that is memorable.  Maybe it is a funny quote or a fun way to present the total due. If you don't send many invoices then take the time to write a personal email with each one. If you send a ton, then this is impractical.  But you can create a cover email that briefly thanks them for entrusting the work to you.  Change your message every month or so.  Even a variety of facts about your company or staff works. Make it memorable and make it work with the personality of your business. I had one vendor who mentioned in their invoice when staff members had a birthday or had a baby, which drove home their family oriented nature.

An absolutely dynamite idea!  Look at your invoices, are they interesting or memorable?

What I like is...

A quick tip from Johnnie Moore, from this post on improvisation, that's worth keeping in mind when negotiating with opponents, listening to clients or making restaurant plans with your significant other:

Respond to all offers with, "What I like about your idea is ...."

Good, Fast or Cheap: Pick Two

From GraphJam: