Un-Billable Hour: Business Management Strategies for the Busy Lawyer Around the Community Table

Law firms, attorneys, and legal tech entrepreneurs require certain skills in order to successfully grow their business within the legal marketplace. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, host Chris Anderson talks with Habitude Executive Director Martin Hurwitz about his tips to help legal practitioners create processes and habits to better leverage their strengths and achieve their goals. Martin Hurwitz is the Executive Director of Habitude and the founder of Transitioneering. He received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University and his MBA from the University of Michigan.

Many lawyers, more than ever before, are moving toward small law firms or starting solo practices. However, there is another subset of solo attorneys that are often overlooked when discussing small law. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, host Chris Anderson talks with Now Counsel Network CE​O Lisa Solomon about freelance lawyering, the difference between contract and freelance work, and how these lawyers find work and thrive in the world of small law.

When attorneys find themselves needing to take continuing legal education courses, many of them regard the experience as a burden, boring, or simply an unavoidable chore. However, what if the problem isn’t with the CLEs themselves but with the attitudes of the attorneys? What can providers do to change the opinions and perceptions of attorneys regarding the CLEs? In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, host Christopher Anderson speaks with AttorneyCredits.com Director of Legal Education Jason Castillo about how to make the CLE experience a better one. As an attorney and Director of Legal Education with Attorney Credits, Jason Castillo researches diverse legal topics and emerging areas of law to create and produce CLE courses with significant current intellectual content. Jason has also created numerous courses on pertinent topics, including legal ethics and technology, malpractice, elimination of bias, and other key subjects. A graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law, he is a licensed member of the State Bar of California.

As a youngster, when someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, how did you respond? Did you tell them that you wanted to be the CFO of a mediocre law firm that does just enough to get by? With so many resources out there, it’s difficult to grasp why so many law firm owners are settling for only doing as much as is necessary to pay the bills. Lawyers should be using their businesses to help as many people as possible, including themselves. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews small law firm business expert RJon Robins about how to balance seven parts of a law firm business to make it work for you, and not the other way around. While many firms seem to be focused on doing just well enough to get by, RJon Robins is urging legal professionals to take a different approach. He believes that you should set up your law firm as a means to make you happy, and that doing so will create revenue as a byproduct. Christopher and RJon take an in-depth look at the seven parts of every law firm and the ways in which they should be synthesized in order to reach professional and personal goals. These parts consist of marketing, sales, production, people, the physical plant, financial controls, and you, the firm’s owner. Ultimately, RJon says, your business should be a manifestation of who you are. In closing, RJon tells listeners where they can find complimentary resources to help them implement these changes.

Historically, law firms have billed clients exclusively by mailing paper invoices, a slow and relatively time-consuming system. With the increase in technology and credit card billing for almost everything we purchase, billing online is now more professional and more efficient. Furthermore, by accepting credit card systems, your law firm saves money and will likely be paid much more quickly. Despite this knowledge, many lawyers are still hesitant to change their billing system. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews Amy Porter, CEO of AffiniPay, about how law firms can use online billing to get paid on time, ways to comply with ethical obligations and requirements regarding trust accounts and retainers, and the hesitation many lawyers have concerning processing fees. Topics include: The changing stigma of accepting credit card payments for legal services How billing online saves hours a month Pre-authorization forms and creating a positive and convenient client experience Reducing past-due invoices, discounts, and write-offs Separating earned and unearned fees Properly handling a chargeback Law firm payment statistics

As marketers of solo and small law firms, most listeners are aware of the importance of online reviews in today’s marketplace. Almost every potential client will research a lawyer or law firm’s reputation before even picking up the phone. Whether on Facebook, Google, Yelp, or other review sites, every business should know what is being said about them online. Furthermore, we can increase positive feedback and promote it through social media, our websites, and across other platforms. So where should we start? In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews Michael Veinbergs, CEO of Mach4Marketing, about law firm reputation management and marketing, the importance of your website, rankings, and reviews, and specific things lawyers and firm employees can do today to get started. Topics Include: Working with your online reputation before marketing Bad reviews and client snap judgements Reputation management versus marketing Reviews as a search engine ranking factor Syndicating good feedback across social media Responding to positive and negative reviews Marketing on all channels including Avvo, MerchantCircle, Yelp Winning at customer service: give them something to rave about

Solo and small law firm owners spend plenty of time and money marketing their services each year, whether online, through networking, or offline advertising. But many lawyers are not seeing the return on investment that they would like. So with over 600 thousand solo and small firms in the U.S. today, what does it take to stand out among the crowd? In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews Mark Cerniglia from Spotlight Branding, an internet marketing and branding firm for lawyers, about the practical steps attorneys can take to manage their brands and market online successfully. Topics include: Building your law firm’s notoriety Transcending lawyers’ reputation as intimidating Information and resources to create credibility and trust How to create the right video content Using social media for branding Newsletter marketing and top-of-mind Blogs to answer potential client questions Providing value versus giving away your knowledge Maximizing referral sources What a marketing funnel looks like Necessary components of a website Internet marketing no nos

Christopher Anderson interviews Michael Carroll, a professional liability insurance expert. Carroll describes specific insurance products that lawyers should examine, policies that may or may not benefit a small or medium firm practice, and how making relatively inexpensive changes now can affect your potential malpractice lawsuit later.

Although Lawyers are under increasing pressure to be mobile, transparent, and organized, many solo lawyers and law firms regularly lose money tracking time and expenses, billing, and organizing documents and calendars. Cloud-based practice management solutions are often suggested as a way for lawyers to increase efficiency, track costs, and get paid properly while keeping your clients happy. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews Susan Harman from LexisNexis Firm Manager and attorney and analyst David Houlihan about how practice management technologies can benefit the performance of lawyers and law firms.

Court deadline rules can be incredibly complicated, particularly for civil litigators, and even the most meticulous lawyers and legal assistants can miss an important date. Federal, state, and local courts can all have individual rules, and even some federal courts are different from district to district and within divisions of the district. In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, Christopher Anderson interviews Carol Lynn Grow and Jack Grow from Law Toolbox about the risks inherent in deadline-driven practices and why it is important to manage law firm risk with rules-based docketing. They discuss malpractice claims and explain how the technology can reduce your firm’s risk which often reduces malpractice insurance rates. Rules-based docketing, they explain, can collaborate with the cloud-based softwares you already use, like Clio, Office 365, or LexisNexis Firm Manager. Tune in to hear about how the software works, which practice areas can benefit from using it, and how lawyers approach cost recovery.