Posted at 07:48 AM in Practice of Law, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
1. When planning a retreat, the most important voice at the table should belong to your best clients. Ask them what you need to improve upon in the coming year, and invite them if you dare.If you'd like some help implementing some of these suggestions, check out LexThink and drop me a line. If you'd like to see more Ten Rules posts, here they are.
2. At a good retreat, firm management spends as much time listening to the lawyers as they do talking to them. At a great retreat, that ratio is closer to 3:1.
3. It is far more important for attorneys to think together at your next firm retreat than it is for them to golf together.
4. If you don’t make time for lawyers to improve your firm during the retreat, they’re less likely to take time to improve your firm when the retreat is done.
5. In big firms, the first thing you should teach lawyers is one another’s names. Familiarity builds collegiality. Lawyers won’t care what their colleagues do until they know who they are.
6. “Networking” cocktail parties don’t encourage firm-wide collaboration as much as they encourage firm-wide inebriation.
7. If the firm retreat is the only time lawyers talk about marketing, it will be the only time they think about marketing. Same goes for client service.
8. Your staff knows more about how to serve your clients well than your associates do. Bring them along, value their opinions and act on their suggestions. You’ll find that the cost of their attendance is far lower than the cost of their absence.
9. The three questions every lawyer should be able to answer after a retreat are: “What can I do better?” “Who should I know better?” and “Why should I be better?”
10. The two costliest items at any firm retreat are the the time and attention of the attendees. Use them wisely.

Posted at 10:39 AM in Innovation, Law Firm Retreat, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)


Posted at 12:06 PM in LexThink, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Posted at 09:23 AM in Innovation, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tape the telephone number of your IT/Tech professional under your desk near the tangle of cords coming from your PC (and on your server, router, etc.) so you see it when you're most likely to try to work on your tech stuff yourself.
Still tempted? Next to the number, write your billable rate and write theirs.

Posted at 12:21 PM in Law Office Economics, Practice of Law, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Record the conversation where you get it out right. When you speak an idea, it engages a different part of your brain than when you write it. You often say it clearer when you’re just riffing aloud. And you get to more gut-level stuff too. You bypass that “should I say this?” filter. You get it straight from your gut/brain instead of your fingers.As someone who used to dictate all the time, I've gotten away from the think first, type later model of writing, but am going to break out my digital recorder and give it another try.
Posted at 07:55 AM in Practice of Law, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Nobody knows this growing world of "Presence Management" better than Chris, and I'd highly recommend you not only read his full post, but add some (or all) of his suggested "to-do's" to your list.
- Enter any recent business cards to invite them to LinkedIn (if you’re growing your network).
- Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer 2-3 answers.
- Provide 1 recommendation every few days for people you can honestly and fully recommend.
- Add any relevant slide decks to the Slideshare app there, or books to the Amazon bookshelf.
Posted at 09:03 AM in Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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 . . . ."
Posted at 12:26 PM in Marketing, Practice of Law, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day. He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Posted at 09:41 AM in Innovation, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 09:39 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Matthew Homann is the founder of LexThink LLC and a former lawyer and mediator.
He consults, speaks and hosts retreats and conferences to help innovative lawyers serve clients better, be happier and make more money.
He lives in St. Louis with his daughter Grace.