Video is quickly becoming an essential part of every legal website. You’re increasingly at a competitive disadvantage if you don’t have video all over your site.

Unfortunately, most lawyer video is seriously boring. It’s tough to watch. When you ask one lawyer what they think of another lawyer’s video they usually say “it’s too long.”

They make that criticism with good reason. A very short video, if boring, is way too long.

The key is to make good, interesting video.

Sadly, you’re not going to be able to look for examples on the websites of most other lawyers. You’re going to have to look elsewhere.

I’ve linked to two videos below that are great examples. I think they’re worthy of study as you figure out what to do with video on your site. One has very high production value and likely cost a small fortune to produce. The other is much simpler. Watch them both and search for lessons you can use in making your own video.

In both videos I found myself totally sucked in by the story and by the passion of the main characters.

Finally, I’ve linked to a one minute commercial. I’m really not sure what to make of it, but it’s totally worth 60 seconds of your life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How to Tell Your Law Firm’s Story on Video

VentNation is a site that lets you post “what’s bothering you today.” It’s simple. You vent, we rate. Perfect release for a divorce lawyer. You might want to send your clients here as well. I’m thinking about leaving it open in a browser window all day. Their tagline is “Relax, Relate, Release!” Works for me.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Sunday Funny: VentNation

It’s Saturday and on this day of each week I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across over the past week that might be of interest to you. These are things that stimulated me in some way related my practice. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if they look interesting to you. Also, each week I’m including a picture I appreciate.

Marketing Is More Important Than You Think

Free Software if You’re a Mac

Why law firms need to consider email as a communication strategy on their blogs

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Marketing, Free Stuff for Your Mac, and Email

This post is somewhat self-serving. I apologize in advance. But, I’m on target with this, so as my twelve year old daughter likes to say, “it needs to be said.”

You’re visiting this site. You come nearly every week. Sometimes you check daily. Many of you subscribe and have these articles delivered straight to your feed reader or email box.

There’s one thing I know about you. You’re going to have a very successful business. In fact, you likely already have a successful practice.

You’re a life long learner. That’s why you’re here and that’s why you’ll keep doing well. You never stop searching for new ideas and information to help you grow your revenues, manage your expenses, and become more efficient. I love people like you.

In fact, you’re the person I’m writing for. My passion is helping you in every way I can. The spark I see in your eyes gives me a spark in mine. You are the source of a huge amount of energy for me. Your passion energizes me. Thanks for that.

I love that you keep hunting for more ideas to keep growing and doing well. I absolutely love it. I wish we could spark that enthusiasm in others. But we probably can’t.

They tell me they don’t have time to adopt new approaches – they’re too busy. They don’t have time to try marketing techniques – they’re too busy. They don’t have time to innovate, to manage, to market, to adapt, to change, to expand – they’re too busy. Of course, they then start crying about how they’re not making enough money, how they’re working all the time, how they’re on overload, overwhelm, and are approaching burnout.

They’ve got no spark, no energy, no passion, no curiosity, no love of learning, no passion. They’re not you. Not even close.

Chicken, egg? I don’t know.

But I do know – and I know it with all of my heart – that you’re going to keep doing amazing things.

Thanks for spending some of your time here.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How I Know You’re Going To Succeed

I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina for a presentation. I’m co-teaching a CLE program with Erik Mazzone. The program is sponsored by Lawyers Mutual Liability of North Carolina. They do these programs annually for the benefit of their insureds.

We’re doing a “60 Tips in 60 Minutes” program on practice management and tools. This is our third of six presentations of the same program. Teaching at CLE programs is the perfect way to build your practice. You’re positioned as the expert and you’re exposed to a crowd.

I’ve learned several lessons, so far, in doing this program that I’ll pass along.

First, co-presenting is so much easier than presenting by yourself. I love that we can regroup for a moment while the other is speaking and that we can interact with one another to mix things up a bit.

Second, doing the program repeatedly allows us to improve each time. We’ve been debriefing after each presentation and dropping some of the tips and inserting others. We’ve been watching the audience. Some tips get a laugh, some stimulate note taking and some draw a yawn. We act accordingly. It’s increasingly clear to me how professional speakers, repeatedly delivering the same program, are able to refine a presentation so that it’s entertaining, informative and delivered with a casual style.

Third, the 60 tips format is fantastic. We each take a turn going for 60 seconds, back and forth. If someone in the audience doesn’t like our tip they won’t have to wait long for the next one. It’s hard for them to drift off. This is seriously fast paced. Our segment stands in stark contrast to the hour long lectures being delivered by other speakers here.

Fourth, we’ve got to insert something funny about every 6 minutes. It doesn’t have to be hysterical, just funny. Ideally, it relates to something educational. A good example is our demo of Google Maps. It features a street view of Bernie Madoff’s townhouse in Manhattan and his new home in North Carolina (a correctional center). We do, however, get away with a few tips that are purely amusing and have no educational content (i.e. Fail Blog). No one seems to mind 60 seconds of pure funny.

Fifth, excellent Microsoft Powerpoint/Keynote slides make a big difference, especially for a program featuring a bunch of technology tips. We put together a deck featuring demos of websites and some static pictures. There are no words on the visuals. Obviously, a presentation discussing websites requires visuals to be effective.

Sixth, using recorded screencasts of websites is far more reliable than trying to show websites using a live internet connection. We’ve tried doing these presentations while hooked up to the internet. Doing it live is tough. Between failed internet connections, websites being down and computers freezing up, the risk of disaster is unacceptably high.

Seventh, it’s important to get to the venue early and get set up. We’ve been using the exact same hardware in each location and had different issues in each place. Getting there early allows us the time we need work out the glitches without stressing out right before we start.

Eighth, free, sponsored CLE is a great idea. It’s a win for the sponsor and for the audience. These programs are paid for by the insurance company and the crowds have been huge. We’re even repeating the program twice in one day to accommodate the crowd in one city. I suspect we’ll all be getting our CLE for free one day as the sponsors figure out what a great way it is to get in front of potential customers. I’m tired of paying $350 for a program and I bet you are too.

This series has been a wonderful experience so far. I’ll be on the lookout for other tips as we move through the final few presentations over the next couple of weeks.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

8 Tips for Presenting the Best CLE of Your Life

We’ve been using fixed fees for many years. We don’t employ hourly billing at all. It works out pretty well for us and for our clients.

I’m not saying it’s perfect. But, most of our clients find it appealing and we’ve adjusted to the issues it creates.

One of those issues is coming up soon, in December.

December isn’t great for a family law practice built on fixed fees. The majority of our revenues are generated by new clients (a smaller portion comes from ongoing fixed fees for litigation matters). December is usually our slowest month of the year for generating new clients.

Why?

Well,  we close for several days in December for the holidays. Additionally, most folks are hesitant to start their divorce in the midst of the holidays. They want to wait until the new year starts so they don’t disrupt family gatherings or ruin the holidays for the children. You know the drill. Our revenues are usually about 20% lower than than in a typical month.

Unfortunately, our bills don’t take a break in December. Payroll is about the same, as are rents, phone bills and all the rest.

How do we cope? It’s challenging. We generally work to set aside cash throughout the year in anticipation of the change. We also have a credit line with a local lender that we can turn to if necessary.

Additionally, we become very conscious of the impact of the holidays. We watch our expenses very carefully and we stay on top of the collection of ongoing payments.

The key to managing December is awareness. We’ve got to plan for the shortfall and be prepared. Fixed fees bring a lot of good things – increased cash flow – happier clients – easier forecasting – but they also brings some challenges.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Fixed Fees and A Long Cold Winter

I go to bar association meetings from time to time. These functions usually involve lunch. When I go I frequently see other family law attorneys mingling about.

Usually the family law attorneys are talking to other family law attorneys. I get it. People gravitate toward people they know.

When it’s time to eat we head toward the tables and grab a seat. Most people sit with the same people they’ve been talking to – the people they already know. It’s fairly common for me to notice a table or two filled entirely with family law practitioners.

Bad idea.

Don’t sit with people you already know.

Branch out, take a chance, sit with someone you don’t know.

This is your chance to get to know some new people and to start relationships that may turn into referrals.

If you’re struggling with a strategy for introducing yourself, just linger a minute as people sit. Wait for the tables to fill up. Look for one with a single seat left. Then charge for it and slip in.

Instantly the people to your right and left will introduce themselves. Introduce yourself to everyone at the table as everyone settles in. Next thing you know, you’ll have started 8 or 9 new relationships.

Try to connect with each person at the table. Exchange cards if things are going well. Follow up later with the people you like and want to get to know.

Non of this will happen if you sit with the family law crowd. Take a risk, it will result in a reward.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Who Are You Sitting With at the Bar Meeting?

It drives me crazy when I open a program I haven’t used in a while and it alerts me that an update is available. I’ve usually opened the product because I have something I need to do – now. I don’t have time to wait.

I’d really like to postpone the update. But, I worry that failing to update might present a  problem and I figure if I don’t do it now I’ll forget to do it later so I sit there and let it download and install. Sometimes it requires a reboot which means I’ll be sitting for freaking ever.

Some software really needs to be updated, not because of the new features or bug fixes, but because it’s having a security issue. You need to install the patch or you might expose your data to the world in some unforeseen way.

Some software would be better if updated but the software itself doesn’t alert me of the availability of an update. If I don’t check it manually I might never know that some new, cool stuff has been added to the program.

It would be nice if I could be proactive and do the updates when I’m not busy. Wouldn’t it be great if I could automate the process, start it, go to Starbucks and come back when it’s done?

Here comes some software (which will probably need updating at some point) to the rescue.

I’m a Mac so lets get the Mac program out of the way first. I use AppFresh. It works well and it’s free. The key for me is to remember to run it periodically. Once it’s run, it identifies all the software on your machine with available updates. You can start downloading and installing a bunch of updates simultaneously. I like it.

Over in the PC world there are several well regarded options.

FileHippo gets good reviews. It’s a small application that installs in an instant. It then scans your system and checks the version information for each software package on your machine. It sends the version information to File Hippo and checks to see if there’s an update. If an update is available, it provides a list with a link to the download. Not ever product is supported but they have a bunch. It’s free and runs on every version of Windows through Vista. Windows 7 isn’t yet mentioned on their site.

Secunia PSI takes a security focused approach. Their alerts emphasize the products that require security patches. It isn’t the most user-friendly software package around, but it goes a long way toward making sure you don’t suffer a security breach. The company says that the average users of their product finds 12 unsecure programs on their computer when they run the scan.

Update Notifier is another Windows product that will get the job done. It’s also free.  It does the scan and provides the links to the updates. You can even set up an account with Update Notifier and they’ll email you when updates are available for your sytem.

Download and install one of these applications and you’ll always be up to date and you can do it on your schedule rather than when you most need to be doing something else.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How To Keep Your Software Up To Date

It’s Sunday and on this day of each week (actually, I usually do this on Saturday but made a Halloween related change) I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across over the past week that might be of interest to you. These are things that stimulated me in some way related my practice. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if they look interesting to you. Also, each week I’m including a picture I appreciate.

Add Value To Your Legal Services By Changing The Perception, Not The Service

The Secret Marketing Motivators Of Weight Watchers

6 Ways To Look At Negative Feedback

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Weight Watchers, Value and Negative Feedback

In the interest of Halloween and humor I’ve moved the usual Sunday Funny up to Saturday this week. Our regularly scheduled programming will resume next week.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Saturday Funny: Why Dogs Hate Halloween

Staff training is sorely neglected in family law practices. Most of the training is delivered as problems arise and issues get resolved. It’s traditional “on the job” training. It’s an inefficient process resulting in more mistakes than it should.

Bottom line – we don’t have the time we need to do the training we know is necessary. We need shortcuts.

Here are a few -

1. Online Training – Use Lynda.com for inexpensive, online training on Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. They have training for Quickbooks and a host of other products. They charge $25 per month, per user for unlimited use. You can join for a month or keep using it as long as you like.

2. Screen Capture – Answer every question by speaking in to a microphone and recording what’s happening on your screen. If it’s a computer question use your screen to walk through the answer. If it’s not a computer question then record the audio. Use a product like ScreenJelly (free) to record your answers of up to three minutes.

3. Create a manual – ask each employee to create a manual for their job. Ask new folks to review it with a newbies perspective and make corrections. Ideally, your manuals will be saved on a wiki so that everyone has easy access to the material

4. Hold training meetings. Ask someone else to prepare the materials and deliver a talk. Schedule the sessions months in advance and be religious about holding the meetings. Make sure the materials are added to the wiki.

5. Have Q&A sessions and record it on video. Do it over lunch. Invite everybody in the office. Edit the answers so that each one is in a separate file. Put those answers on the wiki as well.

Over time, these tips will result in a wiki filled with written material, audio recordings and videos explaining every aspect of your office. You’ll end up with everything from a video explaining how to change out a printer cartridge to written material on how to open and close the office each day. You’ll have explanations for how to serve pleadings and how to pay the bills with the accounting system.

Next thing you know you’ll be practicing law all day rather than explaining things to your staff.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

5 Tips for Training Your Staff in Minutes a Day

You’ve been trashed online. Somebody has said something awful about you on a blog, a website, Facebook or Twitter.

It might be a client, it might be an opposing party, it might be a former employee. If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s going to happen.

The internet didn’t invent criticism. It just made it easier to spread the word.

Hopefully, you’re monitoring your reputation online and you’re aware of the slam. Now that you know about it, what do you do about it?

There are three things you should do immediately -

First, connect with the critic. Apologize for making them unhappy. Offer to continue the discussion offline. Meet with them or talk by phone. They might, ultimately, change whatever it is that they’ve written.

Second, post content about yourself that fills the search engines with positive or neutral information about you. Put up articles, videos, podcasts, etc. Post them on your site, your blog, free article hosting sites, video hosting sites and anywhere else that’s looking for content. Flood your name with your content. That will push the criticism down on the search engine results page.

Finally, ask your happy clients to post reviews of your service. Teach them how to use Yelp, CitySearch, Google Maps, and the host of other review sites to say something nice about you. Again, these entries will fill the search engine with positive references to you.

If you haven’t yet been criticized then be proactive. Get to work now and take control of your name in the search engines. Don’t make it easy for your critic to seize control of your reputation.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Quick Steps When You’re Trashed Online

Marketing firms and advertising agencies make money selling you marketing materials and advertising. They don’t make money because you make money. It’s cynical, I know, but it’s true.

I’ve bumped in to two law firms in the past week that had little firm brochures made. They are both tri-fold 5×5 square, multi-page pieces promoting some element of the law firm.

Unfortunately, nobody cares. When was the last time a client wanted a full color 5×5 brochure about a law firm? Maybe, never. Oh, you did it for referral sources, huh? Guess what? They don’t want your crap either.

Clients care about (1) themselves and (2) the problem they are currently having.

If you’ve got unlimited resources and want to stimulate the local economy then go ahead and get a brochure.

Focus your resources where they matter. Build your website/blog, build traffic using organic and paid search and build your personal network. Don’t let the agencies talk you in to paying for printed material that is on the fast track to the landfill.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Brochures: Good For the Ad Agency, Bad For You

You know you should be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the more than 340 other social networks. It’s important to be a part of the the social media scene, but it takes a ton of time – just to sign up.

Actually, engaging in the sites takes even more time and time is, as usual, in short supply.

You’ve promised yourself that you’ll get to it – someday.

But what if you wait too long and your name is gone. What if someone else takes your firm name and your name before you can get to it. It might already have happened.

If you’re not going to get to social networking until tomorrow then, at least, take a few minutes today to reserve your names before they’re gone.

This might be your last chance.

There’s a way to reserve your name on pretty much every site without spending much time doing it. Of course, your going to pay for this labor and time savings.

Take a look at KnowEm. They’re in the business of doing the registration for you at every site. They’ll sign you up, reserve your name and send you the details for a reasonable fee.

They have several plans.

If you’re just interested in finding out if your names are available, they’ll do that for free.

For $99 you get the “individual edition” and they’ll sign you up for 150 networks. They won’t, however, create your profiles. You’ll have to do that yourself.

For $249 you get the “business edition” and they sign you up for 100 networks plus they’ll manually build your profiles and include photos, a bio, URLs and a description.

For $349 they move you up to 150 networks.

For $649 you get the “enterprise edition.” They’ll sign you up for 300 networks, do your profiles and even do an alternate name for you.

Should you do it?

Yes. They’ll reserve your names for a reasonable fee. The world is changing. Social networking isn’t going away. You might not be ready to jump in yet, but you need your name and your firm name reserved so they’ll be there when you’re ready.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Don’t Lose Your Chance at Facebook, Twitter, Etc.

Google Analytics provides very useful, free, data for benchmarking your site. They tell you how you’re doing compared to other family law sites.

Here are the figures they returned as benchmarks for our family law practice site for the past 3o days. These are the numbers we can use to compare our sites to others. It’s fantastic that Google offers family law, specifically, as one of the categories. Take a look at your stats and see if you’re beating the benchmarks.

Visits – 3,337
Bounce Rate – 55.98%
Pageviews – 8,644
Average Time on Site – 02:04
Pages Per Visit – 2.59
New Visits – 77.87%

Thankfully, we’re crushing the benchmarks. Are you? If not, then it’s time to take them, one at a time, and develop a strategy for beating the benchmark.

For instance, if your “Average Time on Site” is below the benchmark then you need to work on your site content. Give the visitor something to read, watch or listen to. If your “Bounce Rate” is higher than the benchmark then give the visitors something to click on that interests them (Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that don’t click on a single thing).

I love that we can get some objective data from Google. I desperately wish we had financial benchmarks for our practices. That’s one of the many things I think the ABA and the state bar associations should be doing for us.

Since this rare data is available, you should use it.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Website Traffic – Are You Keeping Up?

And the T.S.A. response.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Sunday Funny: The Cartoon and the TSA Response

It’s Saturday and on this day of each week I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across over the past week that might be of interest to you. These are things that stimulated me in some way related my practice. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if they look interesting to you. Also, each week I’m including a picture I appreciate.

Law Firm Rainmakers: The New Untouchables

Ways to Be Human at a Distance

How to control social media

Nixon Resignation Outtakes (2 minutes)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo credit: Jennifer Buehrer

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Untouchables, Being Human, Controlling Social Media and Richard Nixon

The podcast audience is growing. A segment of the population has a strong preference for audio over text and they’re increasingly finding it easy to download and listen to podcasts.

You can approach podcasting in a couple of ways. First, you can create your own podcast. Unfortunately, that can be deceptively time consuming and expensive. But, it’s doable. I’ve got a regular show at Stay Happily Married and at Divorce Talk Radio. These are weekly programs.

A second approach, and this is much easier, is to become a guest on podcasts produced by others.

There are some tricks to getting on the shows and being a good guest.

Here’s my list -

1. You’ve got to find the shows in the first place. Install iTunes and do some searching in the iTunes music store. Do the same at Google. Look for lawyers, informational websites, etc. that are producing shows. Do your searching by topic are and add the word “podcast.” They need good guests. Think about shows on related topics. Maybe shows for real estate agents, business brokers, physicians. You could do the “How divorce impacts (fill in the blank)” or “Ten Myths about (fill in the blank) and divorce”.

2. Prepare some PDFs about yourself. Do a bio, include a photo, provide a list of possible questions on your topic, provide any pertinent articles about the topic.

3. Listen to the shows you’ve identified above. Get to know the host and the format by listening to several episodes. Figure out if you’re an appropriate guest.

4. Email the podcaster and include your attachments. Make the email short. Basically, indicate that you’re an expert and that you’ve got a show idea. Offer to be flexible about scheduling the recording time.

5. Do a dry run with your partner or spouse. Practice your answers. Be quick. Be perky. Be interactive. Don’t drone on.

6. Most of these shows are recorded over the phone. When the date for the show arrives find a quiet place to talk. Use a landline with a wired phone. Don’t use a portable phone. Don’t use a cell phone. Don’t allow interruptions. Disable call waiting before you place the call.

7. After the show gets posted be sure to promote your appearance. Mention it on your website. Post it to your blog. Reference it on Twitter. Send traffic back to the podcaster. It’s the polite thing to do.

Follow these 7 steps and you’ll be on podcasts all over the internet in no time at all. We do the occasional show right here at Divorce Discourse. Make your pitch. We’d love to hear from you.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

7 Steps to Using Podcasts to Grow Your Practice

I read about the idea of a treadmill desk several years ago. It made sense to me. You walk, slowly, on a treadmill while you work. You’ve got your computer in front of you. Your phone’s right there and you walk. By going very slowly you don’t get sweaty or winded.

At a mile or two an hour you could easily cover 6 or more miles a day. That’s 600 calories a day. Figure you do it 3 days per week. That’s about a pound every two weeks. You’d lose 24 pounds per year. Or you could just eat an extra dessert each week and stay even.

I was seriously interested until I started looking for a desk that would work. Initially, there wasn’t anything on the market. When a major office furniture maker built their first treadmill desk I looked into it. But, it was really expensive and included a new treadmill (I’ve already got one).

I bought something called an airdesk that I’ve used on occasion. It’s not very substantial and doesn’t really hold all the stuff you’d like to have on your desk. I tried some other jury-rigged options.

Today, I discovered the TrekDesk thanks to a tip from TechnoLawyer. This thing looks fantastic and it’s only $479 and has free shipping from Amazon. At that price it’s pretty hard to pass up. This one minute video shows it in action.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How To Lose Weight While You Practice Family Law

About a year ago I told you about a service called Meetways. It helps you find a place to meet in the middle. It’s a great service for parents seeking a place to transfer a child.

A year has passed and now we all have iPhones, right? Well, I have an iPhone (which I love for everything except actually talking on the phone). And you’re so cool that you should have an iPhone too.

So now we need a way to meet in the middle without having to use the browser. That’s where MeetMe (iTunes Link) comes in. It’s an iPhone app that does, more of less, what Meetways does. And you can have it right in your pocket. It’s only $1.99 in the App Store.

MeetMe is simple to use. Just input the addresses for Point A and Point B, click “Places to Meet” and the app lists the meeting options by category. It even tells you who’s really driving further (giving parents something else to argue about).

It’s great for parents, but you can use it also. It’s perfect for finding a spot to have lunch with your new referral source.

For $1.99 how can you go wrong? And if it helps someone justify the purchase of a cool iPhone then that’s even better.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How to Meet in the Middle with Your iPhone

I needed a lawyer in Kansas (apparently it’s a state in the middle of the country) the other day. I had a client seeking representation in a custody case. I called a friend and got the name of the leading practitioner in the county in which the case is filed.

I needed his phone number. I went to Google, typed in the name, and came up blank. Nothing.

Had I misspelled the name? Was I not being sufficiently specific in my search?

I retyped the name and added “Kansas” to the search.

Still nothing.

I added “family law” to my search. Then the name of the city. After a few more tries I called directory assistance and got the number. Mission accomplished.

But, I wondered, how can it be that, in this day and age, a family law attorney doesn’t have anything on Google. How is that even possible?

If you’re that lawyer (and I can’t imagine you’re visiting this site if you don’t already have some sort of web presence) then it’s time to do something to make it easier for us to find you.

What’s the quickest, easiest way to show up at the top of the Google results for your name?

Create a profile at LinkedIn. It takes ten minutes to register and fill in some details about your practice. Even if you’re already on the web it’s worth being on LinkedIn (you’re already there, I’m sure). Assuming you have a website, your links back to your site, from LinkedIn, pass Google juice which helps move your site up in the search engine results.

Talking about LinkedIn has a bit of a “been there, done that” feel for me, but a surprising number of our brethren haven’t yet figured it out and are, for all practical purposes, invisible.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How To Stop Being Invisible In Five Minutes

I’m a huge believer in focusing on a single area of practice. I’m convinced that being focused, early, was the principal factor in my initial success.

We all need to be known, liked and trusted. Narrowing the focus of your practice will rocket you forward on the “known” front. It sure did for me.

Last week I was a guest on the premiere episode of The Un-Billable Hour with Rodney Dowell. We started talking about the reluctance of new lawyers to focus on a niche. They get nervous about turning away business, any kind of business, and they take cases that fall outside of their chosen area of focus.

Why do they do it? The money, of course.

I understand being scared about income. It’s tough out there and it’s incredibly tempting to take work outside of your niche when you’re having a slow month.

But, it’s important to let it go. It’s important to stay focused and build your practice by doing the work in the niche you’ve selected.

Why?

A bunch of things happen when you stay focused -

First, you have free time to dig deeper into your area of focus. You can spend more time on the matters you have and keep learning. When you learn more you (1) can charge more, (2) you become more efficient, (3) you can delve more deeply into sophisticated issues and cases within your niche by earning the opportunity to take on higher value projects.

Second, you keep building your reputation in the niche. The client’s you’re working with are spreading the word. You’ve got time to meet with referral sources. Everyone comes to know you as the “go to” person for your area of practice.

Third, you get the opportunity, with every case, to meet people that might refer to your practice. Even if you’re taking the cases at a lower fee than you’d like, you’ll be meeting judges, lawyers, clerks, experts and others that will refer business to you. They’ll know what kind of law you practice and they’ll likely remember you.

Finally, every time you turn away business you create a grateful person in your marketplace. Here’s what I mean. Let’s say someone calls you and asks you to handle a traffic ticket case. You respond by telling the caller that you aren’t really expert in that area of law, that you appreciate the call, but that your practice is limited to family law. You, of course, refer them to someone that can help.

The caller now gets that you’re the family law expert. They appreciate that you weren’t willing to take their money to do something you aren’t qualified to do. They appreciate your help in finding the right lawyer. They tell their friends about you because you did something remarkable – you put their interests above your own. You also generate goodwill with the attorney you referred the traffic ticket to. Win-win-win.

Bottom line – turn down the money. That’s how you make more money over the long haul.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Why Turning Away Clients Gets You More Clients

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Sunday Funny: Craig Ferguson and the Divorce Fair

It’s Saturday and on this day of each week I publish links to some of the things I’ve come across over the past week that might be of interest to you. These are things that stimulated me in some way related my practice. I’m publishing these links without much comment so you’ll have to click on them if they look interesting to you. Also, each week I’m including a picture I appreciate.

“Notice me” from Seth Godin’s blog.

Getting good legal work from your blog doesn’t require calls to action to your readers from Kevin O’Keefe.

Small c: The penis post by Jeff Jarvis.

Photo credit: Steve Wall

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

“Notice Me”, but Don’t Make Me Ask (plus another Penis)

Here comes the weekend. I’d suggest you spend part of it contemplating disaster. Think fire, flood and theft. Imagine all the bad things that could happen to your office while your out this weekend on a hike in the woods, a nap in the hammock or a quick weekend trip.

Once you’re good and worried pull out a pad and pen. Take a few minutes to write yourself a to-do list for Monday morning.

Focus on these three things -

First, check on your insurance policies. Do you have insurance for all the perils that might strike. Do you have sufficient coverage. Do you have the policies stored in a safe, accessible place? What about business interruption coverage? Do you have it?

Second, develop a contingency plan. What will you do if the office is closed for a month? How will you communicate with your staff? Your clients? Do you have a list of all of your vendors? Do you have contact info for your team?

Third, back up your data. Be sure you keep it offsite. Be sure you know how to restore the data and be certain you can quickly get the equipment you need to get it up and running again. Have a plan in place for testing the backups periodically. Actually restore the data and make sure it works. I’ve tried that on a couple of occasions and learned some things I didn’t want to know. Do it.

Have a great weekend! I hope I didn’t ruin it for you.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

3 Things to Do Before Disaster Strikes

Clients are going to be unhappy sometimes. It might be our fault. It might be their mental state. Clearly, we have client’s that are in a tough emotional condition. They get angry and upset about their situation and sometimes take it out on us rather than on the source of their upset.

Sometimes those upset clients turn in to former clients when they terminate our services. It’s distressing when we try to appease them and it doesn’t work.

There are certainly circumstances where it’s better to let them go than to try to hang on to the relationship. Some client’s simply aren’t going to be satisfied no matter how hard you try.

It’s important, however, to recognize the true cost of losing the client. Those costs include the obvious loss of revenue, but they also include less obvious costs that can, in fact, be more substantial than the lost fees.

The indirect loss includes -

1. The damage to your reputation caused by the bad word of mouth generated by an unhappy client. That damage will cost you money for a long time and you won’t even know it’s happening.

2. The injury to the morale of your staff. Employees don’t feel good about getting fired by clients. It’s depressing and it brings down the overall mood of an office. That results in turnover and makes it hard to recruit the best team.

3. In addition to the word of mouth damage, you also lose the opportunity for positive word of mouth. We only have time to represent so many people. Our hope is that, with each new client, we create an ambassador of goodwill that will go out and spread the word. The unhappy client won’t ever say anything nice about us.

4. Finally, we lose the marketing costs incurred to generate that client. Plus, we now have to incur those costs again to replace the client. It’s a double whammy.

When you’re dealing with that unhappy client, and deciding how hard to work to get them back on track, it’s worth engaging in the complex calculation required to determine the value of the client to your firm. Many times it would be easier to simply let them go. But, don’t do it until you decide that it’s an option you can afford after thoroughly considering the real costs involved.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How Much Does a Lost Client Cost You?

Are you Listening? People are talking about you.

Call it Web 2.0, call it social media, call it Facebook and Twitter, call it whatever you want to call it – it’s here and it’s not going away.

People, lots of them, millions and millions of them are talking to one another on the web. 750,000 people join Facebook each day. They’re talking about themselves, they’re talking about you. They might move their talk from one site to another, but they won’t stop talking.

Today’s question – are you listening?

Do you know what they’re saying about you?

They’re going to say things you like. They’re going to say things you don’t like.

It’s critical that you know what they’re saying.

This screencast shows you how to set up a listening service. You can do it in five minutes and you can do it for free.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How to Monitor Your Reputation Online

It’s time to get ready for 2010. There are a few things you’ve got to do now to make next year a success. It might seem early, but some would argue that it’s pretty late in the game to be gearing up for next year.

These are the three things you’ve got do now -

First, lock in your meeting schedule for the year. Given the nature of attorney scheduling you’ve got to go ahead and lock in dates now for all your important meetings. These dates need to be written in stone. All other activities, vacations, hearings, etc. need to be scheduled around these dates.

What kind of meetings should you have? That depends on your firm and your culture. We hold a quarterly all-hands meeting for the first week of the quarter. We also schedule quarterly management off-site meetings for the second month of each quarter. We have weekly team meetings for management, legal and administrative. Go ahead and commit to dates, time, locations and catering for all of your meetings. The more you plan, the more likely you are to make sure the meetings take place.

Second, prepare your budgets for 2010 now, before the year gets started. It’s time to pull all the data for 2008 and 2009 and build the 2010 budget. Figure out what needs to increase, what needs to decrease and what needs further study. You don’t want to be locking in to your 2010 budget after 2010 has started. Do it now and get it done before December. Realistically, it’s tough to get budget work done once the holidays get rolling.

Finally, establish your goals for 2010. This is the time to establish your objectives for growth, marketing, finances, management, technology, etc. You want a through discussion of these issues among all the key players in your firm and you need time to achieve buy-in before the year starts. Now is the time to get hopping.

2010 is going to be a great year for our industry. My conversations with lawyers across the country keep revealing signs of a recovery even in some of the hardest hit areas. It’s time to build your plan so you can spend 2o10 implementing and executing.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

3 Things to Do Now for a Great 2010

I’m flying to Las Vegas for a meeting later this week. I’m flying Southwest.

Yesterday I got an email from them. For $10, each way, I can check in early and get a better seat. I’m annoyed at what feels like being nickle and dimed by the airline. Maybe I should consider myself lucky that I’m not being charged for my bags. Southwest allows me to check my bags for free. American Airlines is charging $100, roundtrip, for two checked bags.

Some airlines are charging $20-$30 booking fees when tickets are purchased in-person or over the phone rather than online. In-flight food runs from $3 to $10. A pet in the cabin can run you $100. A pillow and blanket is $12 on some airlines. Changing your ticket can cost hundreds of dollars. Alcoholic beverages are, of course, extra and Jet Blue gets $10 for “extra legroom.”

These fees have the effect of undermining my trust in the airline. They make it feel a bit like me vs. them. That’s not what you want if you’re an airline and you need me to feel good about you and to trust you.

Is your firm like an airline? Are you still charging extra for items clients expect to have included?

Do you charge for photocopies, faxes, computer assisted legal research? Are you billing for postage? What about staff overtime? Do  you charge for court costs? Couriers? Long distance? Do you charge extra for after hours calls?  How about mileage?

Are your clients feeling nickle and dimed?

Ultimately, you’ve got to measure the impact of these charges on your relationship with the client. My annoyance with the airlines increases each time I pay one of these fees. Do your clients get more annoyed with you each time they receive a bill? Is it worth it to you? What does it cost you in client satisfaction and referrals?

I suspect the airlines are motivated to add these extras the way they do because they assume, correctly, that we buy our tickets based on the price. If they can sneak these fees in after we’ve purchased our tickets they can be the low bidder on the travel websites.

We aren’t faced, yet, with the same competitive pressure. We can roll those extras in to an hourly rate or fixed fee.

I suggest you stop breaking out those fees and build them in to your overall fee structure. In the long run it enhances your reputation and increases the likelihood of a client leaving with a favorable impression.

As an added benefit, you gain back the administrative time required for managing the details of charging back all those costs. That savings alone can more than offset many of these costs.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

How a Divorce Lawyer is Like an Airline

This couple reviews the new movie Couples Retreat and demonstrate that maybe they need a retreat. It’s short and sweet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Divorce Discourse - Family Law Practice Technology, Marketing, Management and Finance

Sunday Funny: Couples Retreat