the [non]billable hour

A Legal Blogging Roundtable

Last month, I participated in a legal blogging roundtable for the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis that was published in their subscription-only newsletter.  My partners in crime were Dennis Kennedy (DennisKennedy.Blog), George Lenard (George's Employment Blawg), and Evan Schaeffer (Trial Practice Tips and The Legal Underground).  Together, we have combined for more than 20 years of blogging experience.

Dennis took our contributions and republished them to his blog as A Blogging Guide for St. Louis (and Other) Lawyers (and Others).  Here's one of our takes on the future of blogging:

Matt Homann: I think we'll see the continued adoption of blogs by legal professionals as much by choice as necessity. The next generation of law firm clients have lived their entire lives online, interact with Twitter and Facebook constantly, and read blogs everyday. They may have never used the Yellow Pages, and instead look to the web before making any major purchasing decision. They'll expect a robust online presence from the professionals they hire, and a blog is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build that presence.

George Lenard: Integration with the surviving remnants of mainstream media into enriched, customized streams of information in manageable chunks for busy readers, plus continuing contributions to the wealth of information available to web users through ever-more-sophisticated search technologies. I was recently told by a web-content distribution company that my posts now have the potential of appearing in a news stream on the Wall Street Journal's law pages amidst conventional sources such as the ABA Journal, if they match the WSJ search criteria, with no distinction in appearance that would suggest that my content is in any way inferior or less professional than that written by professional journalists.

Evan Schaeffer: I don't have any predictions about the future of blogging. If you think of blogging as merely a means of publishing one's writing, which it is, you don't have to be too worried about the future. Get into the habit of writing, and if you like it, you can always migrate to the next technological platform, if and when there is one.

Dennis Kennedy: Among bloggers, Twitter and microblogging is all the rage. That will continue to affect blogging, but blogging still has great potential, especially to cover niche topics. I remain bullish on blogging. As for predicting the future, I still like what Ernest "Ernie the Attorney" Svenson said in an article on the future of blogging from four years ago in Law Practice Magazine: "Perhaps the biggest question that remains is: How quickly will law firms move to develop blogs? It depends on a lot of internal and external factors. But the clock is certainly ticking. For some firms that sound is just loud and annoying, while for others it is stirring and prompting them to act. So when will your firm create a blog? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick . . . ."

Twelve Truths About Time

In early August, I'm headed to Duluth, Minnesota to speak at the Strategic Solutions for Solo and Small Firms conference. One of the presentations I'm giving is called the Twelve Truths About Time. In it, I share twelve reasons why attorneys should abandon the billable hour. Here's the slide deck for that presentation. 

Twelve Truths About Time

View more presentations from mhomann.

It is still in "draft" form, and I expect to tweak it a bit before I use it live, so please let me know what you think. My friend and artist/designer, M. Jason Robards, drew the clocks. We're working next on a "Real Innovation for Real Lawyers" slide deck.  I'll share that as soon as it is done. Thanks!

Let Your Clients Pick Your Next Associates

Seth Godin shares how he narrowed down 27 finalists for his "Alternative MBA" program to just ten participants: he let the applicants decide. Here's how he describes the process:

More than 48,000 people visited the page that described the program and 350 really cool, talented people applied. I picked 27 finalists and all of them flew out to New York to meet each other. This was the most fun I’ve ever had at a cocktail party (it helped that it was at eight o’clock in the morning).

The conversations that day were stunning. Motivated people, all with something to teach, something to learn and something to prove. I asked each person to interview as many other people as they could. After three hours, I asked everyone to privately rank their favorite choices... “who would you like to be in the program with you?”

After they left, I tallied up the results. It was just as you might predict: nine or ten people kept coming up over and over in the top picks. I had crowdsourced the selection, and the crowd agreed. (It turns out that the people they picked were also the people I would have picked).

On January 20th, the most selective (one in 40 got in) MBA program in the world got started. Since then, they’ve never failed to live up to my hopes.

What if your firm choose its associates this way, by letting the applicants choose the others they'd like to work with? Or be even bolder, and bring your applicants in to spend a day with a mixture of your best clients -- and let the clients decide!

Meet Me in Missouri

I'm headed down to Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks this week for the Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference to speak about marketing, innovation, technology and the web.  There will be over 900 lawyers there this year -- which makes it the largest solo and small firm conference in the country.

If you'll be there, be certain to say hello.  If you can't make it, I'll be covering as much as I can on Twitter and will be using the hashtag #mossfc

100 Tweets: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less.

I really like Twitter.  For those who follow me, you know that I try to share lots of legal-themed tips, thoughts and ideas.  In fact, most of my Ten Rules posts started out on Twitter -- where I'll test 15-25 "rules" to see which ones work best before picking the ten favorites.

However, there's lots of stuff that lives on Twitter now that used to live here on the blog.  And since I don't expect everyone reading this to follow me there (or go back and read through my 2000+ Twitter messages), I decided to compile a "Best Of" list of my favorite tweets. 

So, here (in .pdf form) is a little e-book I've titled:  100 Tweets: Thinking about Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less.  It contains my favorite 100 tweets, in no particular order, and should give you a sense of what I share on Twitter that you don't always see here.

If you enjoy it, and would like to follow me on Twitter, I'll see you there.

Selling Through a Slump E-Book

I had the privilege of contributing the legal chapter in the new Selling Through a Slump:  An Industry by Industry Playbook. 

Oracle and The Customer Collective co-sponsored the guide, which contains great advice for selling in multiple verticals, including accounting and consulting, retail, the public sector, health care, insurance, telecommunications, services, technology, media and manufacturing.  The author list reads like a who's who of industry experts, and I'm honored to be in such great company.



Check it out here.  Registration is required, but the download is free.

Get a Life -- In Only Two Days

I've been spending some time talking to the organizers of the Get a Life Conference, after connecting at Techshow and on Twitter.  It looks like a great event, and I'm really working hard to figure out a way to make it -- and perhaps do some cool LexThink-like unconference stuff with them if I do.

Lots of great speakers, including the incomparable Gerry Riskin, are on tap.  Expect lots of talk about practical ways to make your law practice a more profitable business.  From their site:

In this two-day workshop, you’ll learn how manage all the moving parts of a successful law practice and still have a life. But there’s one very important thing missing – you! One of the greatest challenges you have is making time for what’s personally important to you – your hobbies, friends and family.

It happens May 27th and 28th in Chicago.  Check it out, and if you'd like to go, here's a link to a 25% discount (Enter INSIDER upon check-out).  I hope to see you there!

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.

Ten Rules for New Solos

As our economy sours and the legal job market dries up, there are lots of lawyers looking at solo practice for the first time.  As a former solo myself, I’m sharing these ten “rules” for new solos.  There are more to follow, and please share yours in the comments.

1.  The good news:  As a solo, you are your own boss, can do whatever you want and answer only to yourself. That’s also the bad news.

2.  Your solo practice is far more likely to fail because you’re a bad business person than because you’re a bad lawyer. 

3.  If you are a bad procrastinator, you’ll be a terrible solo.  Nothing will impact your ability to succeed as much as your inability to manage your time.  It is unimportant how great you are at lawyering when you don’t send your bills out on time.

4.  Never underestimate the value of the water cooler.  You can find many "co-workers" online in Solosez, Blogs, Twitter, etc.  Just don’t spend all your time there.

5.  Would you let your plumber appear in court for you?  Remember your answer next time you’re fiddling with your phone system, computer network, etc...  You can’t expect someone to appreciate your expertise if you fail to appreciate theirs.

6.  If you’re looking for a guru, you can have Foonberg.  I’ll take Elefant.

7.  If you’re thinking of opening a “general” practice, remember this: Your clients don’t have “general” legal problems, they have specific ones.  They’ll hire you because you’re able to help them, not everyone else.

8.  Your friends, family and business contacts may hire you eventually, but they’ll rarely do so right away.  They have to need to hire you, not just want to.

9.  Never tell prospective clients that being a solo makes you cheaper to them.  Show them that being a solo makes you better for them. If your clients hire you because your rates are low, they will fire you as soon as your rates are no longer low enough.

10.  There is no shame in going solo.  Your clients don’t care that the legal market tanked, that you got laid off from BIGLAW or that you “wanted more time to spend with your family.”  They have their own problems, and are looking to you solve them.  When you do, you’ll both profit.

If you enjoyed these, check out my other posts in the series: 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.

Looking Back to the Future?

My friend Jordan Furlong writes a great post titled These are the Days of Miracle and Wonder about lessons we can learn from Obama's win.  The great takeaway:

Twenty years ago, our parents would never have believed it. Twenty years from now, our children will take it for granted.

What amazing thing can you do TODAY in your practice that was unfathomable in 1988 but will be commonplace in 2028?  Get to it!