2017 Legal Trends Report One hot discussion point in the 2017 Clio Conference was the Legal Trends Report. The report claims to be a "first-ever data-driven study of the legal industry." I don't doubt that claim, but I recommend you take a look at the report for yourself. Clio used anonymized data from more than 60,000 of its users to create "a comprehensive analysis of the legal industry." The Non-Billable Time Problem One of the interesting findings was that in an 8 hour workday (the … [Read more...]
Finding Relevant Blog Posts (by filtering)
In a world of information overload, it's sometimes a challenging finding relevant blog posts. But here's a little-known trick that can make your life a lot easier. Virtually every weblog has a system for categorizing posts. Smart bloggers group all of their posts using categories. For example, this blog has 3 broad general categories such as: Digitize: about basic technology skills, and paperless practice Automate: about digital workflow that's uses software … [Read more...]
Cloud storage for lawyers demystified
Cloud Storage for Lawyers Demystified Why is cloud storage for lawyers such a hot button topic? Why are we so concerned about "the cloud"? Obviously, lawyers have to work harder than most other businesses to preserve confidential information. An inadvertent breach of a client confidence is more than just disconcerting, it's also a potential ethics issue. … [Read more...]
The Keys to Starting a New Law Firm
Starting a new law firm doesn't require a lot of money. But having a solid game plan is crucial. The best way to develop your game plan is to talk to lawyers who've left their old firms to start solo practices. … [Read more...]
Learn to Hire a Virtual Assistant
You don’t have to do it all, and you shouldn’t try. If you’re a solo you might believe you can’t afford to hire someone to help you because you think, “Gee, I don’t have enough work to keep them busy full-time.” You don’t have to hire someone full-time. And, you don’t have to hire someone locally. The world of virtual assistants awaits you. It’s an amazing place that will make your life vastly easier. But, it’s strange and you don’t know anything about it, and so you’re scared. I know, … [Read more...]
Backup in the Modern Law Firm
Backing up your digital data is crucial for obvious reasons, and yet many law firms aren’t backing up their data, or aren’t doing it properly. Some lawyers don’t backup because they feel lucky, and believe that a hurricane, earthquake or terrorist attack will never strike them. Those lawyers are failing to consider the high incidence of mundane catastrophes, e.g. hard-drive failure, or theft of equipment. Backing up data isn’t that hard anymore, so modern lawyers have no excuse for not … [Read more...]
Legal ethics expert explains how lawyers can use Dropbox
Adriana Linares interviewed legal ethics expert Dane Ciolino, and asked him if lawyers can use cloud services like Dropbox, and Google's email service. The 30 minute interview is posted below. … [Read more...]
