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Best Practice Tips

  • August 8, 2012 | Practice News
    Best Practice: Should law firm owners and partners primary focus be as a business person or lawyer?

    Asked and Answered

    By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

    Q. I am an attorney in Chicago. I am the sole owner of an estate planning practice consisting of 4 other attorneys, 4 paralegals, and 2 administrative support staff members. We have reached a size where I am having problems handling and balancing the demands of serving my clients and managing my firm. It seems I am working day and night and have no time for anything but work. I am frustrated and it is driving my crazy? I would appreciate any thoughts that you may have.

  • August 1, 2012 | Practice News
    Best Practice: Using law firm economic and other surveys

    Asked and Answered

    By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

    Q. I am the firm administrator for a 16 attorney firm in Memphis. I am new to the field and just started with this firm. I have been asked to conduct some preliminary law firm economic research and obtain - purchase if necessary - survey data on the subject. Do you have any suggestions concerning using such surveys?

    A. The use of sound secondary research surveys can be invaluable and can assist firms in their quest for “best practices.” While law firms should strive to use surveys that meet the test of sound research, this is not always possible since no other source of information may be available. In other words – some information may be better than no information at all. In such situations law firms may decide to use research surveys that do not satisfy sound research guidelines. Such information can still be useful for exploratory analysis and when the information will be used for “benchmark” purposes. However, it is important for the firm to keep in mind the limitations of the study.

  • July 31, 2012
    Law firm embezzlement: the butler didn't do it

    The butler didn't steal from the law firm trust account, but someone equally unlikely did.

    "Often, the embezzler is the very last person anyone would suspect of wrongdoing -- a trusted employee or partner whom everyone likes and respects," writes Karen Erger in the August Illinois Bar Journal. "The revelation that a seemingly loyal colleague has been stealing from the firm and/or its clients for many months or years can cause inestimable damage to the law firm's morale and reputation. And the financial loss can be devastating."

    In the wake of high-profile embezzlement prosecutions in Chicago and Champaign, Karen looks at how law firms put themselves at risk, offers some theft-prevention techniques, and identifies "symptoms that may indicate that your firm is the victim of employee fraud or embezzlement." Read her advice.

  • July 25, 2012 | Practice News
    Best Practice: Focused effort in law firms - Effective problem solving and implementation

    Asked and Answered

    By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

    Q. Recently our firm of 14 attorneys decided to transition from all partners weighing in on every management decision to a managing partner form of management. I was elected to the new managing partner position and have been in the position for four months and I have accomplished very little during this period of time. I am not sure where to start. I would be interested in your ideas.

    A. You might want to read last week's blog/posting on governance. Structuring and Running Your Firm Like a Business

    Lack of focus and accountability is one of the major problems facing law firms. Many times, the problem is having too many ideas, alternatives and options. The result, often, is no decision or action at all. Ideas, recommendations, suggestions, etc., are of no value unless implemented.

  • July 18, 2012
    Going paperless and other tales from the virtual office

    Tim Storm, chair of ISBA's General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Section, is describing his journey from brick-and-mortar to virtual office in a series of newsletter articles. Tim is an engaging writer, and his accounts are well worth your time. Here are excerpts from his second of two installments.

    "[I]f some of your clients live in a different time zone—like the 1980s—and insist upon faxing things, you should use an e-fax service instead of a big old fax machine. For a monthly fee, faxes come in as PDF e-mail attachments that you receive wherever you have e-mail access. It’s convenient, paperless, and not evil."

    "I have decided to use Clio, which is one of the larger and better-known cloud-based law practice management systems. Granted, I have only just started to use Clio (as of this writing, I am still within the 30-day trial period, so I haven’t even paid for it yet). But so far, my general reaction to Clio is: 'Where have you been all my life?'”

    Read his article.

  • July 18, 2012 | Practice News
    Best Practice: Structuring and running your law firm like a business

    Asked and Answered

    By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

    Q. Our firm is a 34 lawyer litigation boutique based in San Antonio, Texas. We have 20 partners and 14 associates. I serve as managing partner at the will of the partnership and spend 35% of my time on firm management matters and the remainder of my time practicing law. A legal administrator and accounting manager assist me with managing the firm. While I have the general support of the partnership, maybe because no one else wants the job, I serve more as a filter and still find that I have to run most of the firm's management decisions before the full partnership. Often I feel that my staff and I are second guessed, management decisions take too long to make and are diluted and watered down, and the firm has missed out on opportunities due to our structure or lack of structure. Other law firms that we have competed against for years have passed us by and have grown while we have stagnated. Do you have any suggestions concerning our approach to managing the firm?

    A. Your firm has reached a size where more structure is usually required. The democratic system of all partners being involved in virtually every management decision might have worked when you were five or six attorneys but has now outgrown this structure. Think about how some of your business clients are organized and structured. Ask around and talk with other law firms and accounting firms your size. I think that you will find that they have put in place more structure to support their business models.

    I suggest that you:

  • July 11, 2012
    Uncounseled misdemeanor convictions can trigger felony DUI sentences

    The Illinois Supreme Court ruled recently in People ex rel. Glasgow v. Kinney that prior misdemeanor DUI convictions – even if the defendant was unrepresented – can be used to bump a later DUI charge to a felony, Adam W. Lasker explained in the July IBJ.

    "DUI defense attorney Donald J. Ramsell said Illinois used to prohibit any and all use of uncounseled misdemeanor convictions for enhancement purposes, but that policy changed after the [U.S. Supreme Court's] Nichols decision in 1994," Lasker wrote. "As such, it did not surprise Ramsell" that the Illinois high court lowered the bar in Kinney. Find out more.

  • July 11, 2012 | Practice News
    Best Practice: How to maximize your law firm's marketing dollars

    Asked and Answered

    By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

    Q. Our firm is a 6 attorney firm in downtown Chicago. Our practice is a litigation boutique focused on representing individuals in personal injury and divorce matters. We do a fair amount of advertising and have had mixed results. We tried radio and limited TV ads, have an innovative website, have done some pay per click ads on the web and are now considering a lead referral service. Do you have any suggestions concerning what we should be investing in marketing and what we should be doing to maximize our results?

    A. Studies that have been conducted indicate that law firms that provide services to business firms (B2B) spend approximately 2.4% of fee revenue on marketing. However, law firms that focus on individual consumers (retail law if you will) spend much more - 10%+ of fee revenues on marketing - especially if strong referral networks are not in place. I have several PI, SSDI, Elder Law and Estate Planning firm clients that are spending 10%+ of their fee revenue or greater on marketing. I have some extremely successful PI firm clients spending 20% of their revenue on marketing.

    The amount of appropriate investment can depend upon referral networks in place. I have successful PI and Estate Planning firms that are getting all of their business from their referral networks and spending next to nothing on marketing and advertising. (By referrals I am speaking about professional referrals not involving a referral fee and client referrals. If referral fees are involved they should be considered a marketing cost) So it depends upon your situation, the type of cases you are going after, etc.

  • July 5, 2012
    Illinois high court further defines 'income' for child-support obligors

    "The definition of income for child support purposes is somewhat murky, but in a recent Illinois Supreme Court decision, In re Marriage of McGrath, 2012 IL 112792, family law practitioners got the final word on whether money regularly withdrawn from savings accounts can be considered income. According to the Illinois Supreme Court, it cannot."

    So write Marilyn Longwell and Aurelija Juska in the latest ISBA Family Law newsletter. Read their analysis.

  • June 27, 2012
    A well-kept secret: the Illinois deposit of wills

    A recent flurry of posts on an ISBA discussion group revealed what might be one of the best-kept secrets in Illinois: Where there’s a will, there’s a way to store it without keeping it in your office and assuming the attendant risk and responsibility.

    Pursuant to statute, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office maintains a “deposit of wills,” in which any Illinois attorney can file a will into archival storage for a fee of $15, writes Adam Lasker in the July Illinois Bar Journal. Find out more.

    2 comments (Most recent July 2, 2012)