December 06, 2018

Five Tips to Help Solo Practitioners Retain Clients

Retaining clients and customers represents a challenge for companies in all corners of the business world. On the other hand, attracting new prospects to add to a company’s portfolio or replace lost business usually consumes a more significant investment of time and money than retaining current ones. For solo practitioners, client retention often takes on even greater importance. If you’re relying on a handful...

November 28, 2018

Five Tips for Starting Your Own Legal Blog

The fine art of blogging has been around in some form or fashion now for decades. While the basic elements of a blog have remained consistent over time, blogging’s raison d’être has evolved. What began as a vehicle for screaming into the void of the internet has taken on a host of functions. Some bloggers have turned their hobby into a lucrative writing career. Meanwhile, many businesses have discovered...

November 21, 2018

Three Money-Saving Tips for Solo Practitioners

If you are a solo practitioner, the amount of money you earn is dependent solely on your own efforts. There’s freedom in that reality—and a challenge, too (not to mention a fair bit of fear). If you aren’t satisfied with the amount you are taking home, it’s on you to change things. The first step in doing so is getting a handle on the economics of your law firm. Two of the most important numbers...

November 19, 2018

Five Unexpected Ways to Deliver Client Value

If you are doing great legal work for your clients, take a bow. That’s an achievement to celebrate. At the same time, in a competitive legal landscape, it may no longer be enough. Many clients consider excellent work a floor. The absolute minimum expectation. The way firms can set themselves apart and grow is by consistently adding value to their clients’ businesses. At this point, it’s a well-understood...

November 07, 2018

Assessing Legal Tech Tools: Litigation Management Considerations for Small Law

These days, it seems a new legal tech company emerges every week, with new entrants coming on the market in droves, all claiming to offer the “best” solutions for lawyers. Small law firms are in a strong position to innovate and adopt technologies aimed at improving the bottom line, but, as in any crowded market, it’s up to the buyer to evaluate and separate the best from the rest. Among the most daunting...

November 05, 2018

Small Law Firms Become Big Merger Targets

The law firm merger market is heating up, and small law firms are right in the middle of it. The legal consultants at Altman Weil, Inc., who carefully track law firm mergers, now report that there were 27 law firm mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2018 , bringing the total number for the year to 79. Both of those numbers represent all-time highs for law firm mergers in the U.S. The record...

October 23, 2018

David Joins Goliath: Is Your Small Law Firm Ready for a Merger?

Over the last few years, law firms have merged in record numbers, and 2018 has been no exception. The trend has been most prevalent in Big Law, but also holds true for small law firms seeking to expand their footprint and maximize resources through combinations with midsize and large firms. Altman Weil MergerLine™ tracker reveals that small and midsize firms continue to attract Big Law suitors, as the legal industry...

October 15, 2018

Five Podcasts for Solo and Small Law Practitioners

Running a solo law practice or small law firm has its perks and challenges—and for all lawyers, time is sacred. From attracting new clients to knowing the latest technologies and best practices in law firm hiring, a number of resources exist. But who has time to read? Podcasts have grown in popularity due to their ease of consumption and the flexibility they offer to listeners. If you’re looking for tips and...

October 12, 2018

Four Rules for Gracefully Leaving Your Small Law Job

You’re an attorney working for a small law firm, but you recently accepted a new position elsewhere. Whether you’re making a lateral move to another firm or quitting law firm life altogether, bowing out tactfully will do you favors many times over in your future career. So how do you handle the impending breakup? Below are four rules for quitting a small law firm career gracefully— and making a positive...

October 05, 2018

As Big Four’s Entry into Legal Market Looms, Small Firms Should Consider Their Options

Competing with the Big Four accounting firms has become a fact of life in the legal industry outside the United States. Yet, ethics rules have shielded the U.S. legal market from the entry of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, as these guidelines generally prohibit so-called non-lawyers from owning law firms. Not surprisingly, however, the accounting behemoths are beginning to find workarounds...

October 03, 2018

How Attorneys Find New Clients - Five Tips to Grow Your Client List

A lawyer is often confronted with a proverbial mountain of casework as part of their day-to-day workload. While tackling those jobs is important, the need for generating revenue through new business is still an integral part of a successful practice. So how does an already busy lawyer search for new clients? The answer, of course, resides in efficient use of tools and time. Here are five tips that can help you sign...

September 20, 2018

Five Tips for Setting Your Law Firm's Fees

Like any professionals, attorneys have a wide variety of options when it comes to determining how they are paid. Whether they choose to charge clients on an hourly basis, take flat fees or use some other compensation arrangements, how a law firm sets its prices can have a dramatic impact on the success of its business. In fact, some firms are looking to legal-industry pricing specialists for guidance on their fee schedules...

September 20, 2018

Small Law Tech Adoption Delivers Big Efficiencies

Although Big Law has vast resources, small law firms are in a better position to innovate. Innovation in law may be traced to a collective of people, process and technology. Now more than ever, general counsel are focused on working with progressive law firms that invest in legal tech, allowing them to be more efficient and cost-effective. Based on a recent survey of 300 general counsel, nearly two-thirds of legal teams...

September 17, 2018

Five Reasons to Keep Up Your Pro Bono Work

The American Bar Association’s rules of professional conduct state that “a lawyer should aspire to render at least 50 hours of pro bono public legal services per year.” When you’re measured by billable hours, offering your services for free—or even at a substantial discount—may not seem to make business sense. In reality, though, pro bono work remains popular in the legal industry...

September 11, 2018

How Attorneys Can Make the Most of Online Reviews

Consumers today have an abundance of ways to make their voices heard. They can take to apps and websites like Yelp®, Facebook®, Twitter® and more to register their complaints and compliments about everything from uncomfortable pillows in their hotel rooms to the latest Marvel movie to the integrity of a local auto mechanic. Businesses that don’t pay attention to what is being said about them on the...

September 04, 2018

A Higher Form of Litigation Intelligence: Analytics and the Data-Driven Attorney

The good news: there’s more potentially case-making intelligence available than ever before. The bad news: there’s more potentially case-making intelligence available than ever before. We’re talking oceans of data strung across seemingly disparate and disconnected sources: case law, court records and dockets, regulatory content, public records and more. That’s really the crux of it. There is...

September 04, 2018

How AI is Evolving the Practice of Small Law

For lawyers comfortable with the processes and methods on which they’ve relied for years, the AI phenomenon may still seem a bit too obscure. But the application of artificially intelligent-based tech tools is having a real impact on the way law firms practice and run their businesses. And while it may surprise some, such tools are even within reach for small law. From legal research and eDiscovery to contract...

August 22, 2018

New York’s Best Midsize Firms Take Varied Paths to Success

Are midsize law firms the Rodney Dangerfield of the legal profession? For years, they may have had a legitimate gripe that they did not get enough respect from corporate clients or top-shelf talent. But now it is 2018, Rodney has passed on, and so too has any colorable argument that midsize firms are getting short shrift from anyone. A recent study showed that the 20 largest firms in the nation trailed their peers in...

August 20, 2018

The Right Kind of Networking for Lawyers

You can waste an incredible amount of time networking with the wrong people, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons. I recently had a 7-year associate at a client firm ask me for advice about networking. He recognizes that all the work he currently does is generated by the reputation of the firm’s 70-year-old founding partner. Unless he starts producing his own business, he will be an...

August 15, 2018

Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Require Extraordinary Evidence: A Review of Recent Non-Precedent EB-1A AAO Decisions Under the Trump Administration

By David Wilks, Brooke Ireland and Stephen Yale-Loehr An international entrepreneur’s options for permanent residence are limited. The United States does not have a “start-up” visa. For many entrepreneurs, particularly those facing long backlogs in other immigrant visa categories, an “extraordinary ability” petition may be the only available path to a green card.

July 27, 2018

Protecting Reputation in an Online World

By Jim Wagstaffe of The Wagstaffe Group® We live in a world in which the internet has the potential to amplify defamatory communications unparalleled in human history. Plainly, the World Wide Web vastly expands the reach and impact of online defamation, invasions of privacy, bullying and even revenge porn—all with the very real possibility that such cyber attacks are accessible in perpetuity. Ever increasingly...

July 10, 2018

4 Reasons You Might Want to Practice at a Small or Midsize Law Firm

It’s any law school graduate’s dream: landing an associate position at a BigLaw firm straight out of school. While there is no doubt a certain level of prestige is associated with a big-name law firm, between a flurry of mergers and acquisitions and BigLaw partners jumping ship, job security is not necessarily a part of the package. In fact, there are many benefits that practicing at a solo or small law...

July 10, 2018

How Technology Is (Still) Helping Small Law Firms Level the Playing Field

New technology is helping small and solo law firms level the playing field with their larger competition. That sure sounds like a true statement, doesn’t it? And yes, it is. But the full story is a little more complicated. For one thing, as past generations of lawyers will tell you, this isn’t a new story. Since the first lawyer hung a shingle, small firms have devised ways to make up their deficit in manpower...

July 10, 2018

Small Firm Innovation Takes Many Forms

We tend to associate “innovation” with technological breakthroughs: advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, alternative energy, driverless cars and the like. It’s no surprise, then, that talk of innovation in the legal industry also focuses on new technologies, like analytics and artificial intelligence. But as some small firms are proving, innovation doesn’t need to be a high-tech affair...

June 25, 2018

The Next Generation: 8 Questions Small Law Firms Should Consider for Succession Planning

The oldest members of the baby boom generation began reaching retirement age in 2011. From that year until 2030, some 10,000 baby boomers will hit the age of 65 each and every day. The aging of this massive generational faction has many implications for the legal profession, but one of the most significant is this: there is now a glut of law firms that are looking for a new generation of lawyers to fill the shoes of their...