Legal Fees: Could you afford you?
Last week-end, I was attending a Vintage Airstream rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as mentioned in a previous post.
Because our “new” vintage Airstream is still being built and our “old” vintage Airstream was totaled from our December accident, we could not stay at the rally, but had sleeping quarters about 10 miles away, a short car ride. To get there, we had a short stint on Highway 550, a heavily trafficked thoroughfare in the area, so I’m told. As we got close to our destination, I noticed the highway was streaming with police. It looked like a major car accident; as I got closer, it looked like a disaster. I could tell the roadway had been narrowed by cones and police cars into one lane. And as I approached the head of the line, a policeman approached me. Suddenly, I realized that I was in the middle of a road block!
Ohio Lawyers Go to Financial Boot Camp
CLEVELAND. April 28, 2008— National law practice management expert, Ed Poll J.D. M.B.A. CMC, starts a three-city tour through Ohio to deliver presentations on law firm profitability strategies sponsored by the Ohio Bar Association. Poll, the founder of LawBiz® Management Co., will present his program “Sound Strategies & Best Practices for Law Firms: Boot Camp for the Small Firm” to lawyers and firms from Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The program is accredited for the state’s Continuing Legal Education program.
“We are very pleased to have Ed present to our members throughout the state,” says Fran Wellington, Director of the CLE Institute for the Ohio State Bar Association. “The presentation has been approved for CLE credit and will be very beneficial for attorneys in managerial roles and professional legal administrators.”
Poll will emphasize the importance of running a financially sound firm. His underlying themes for the groups will include creating a streamlined process to bill clients from billable hours with regular invoices, incorporating business management and marketing strategies in firm administration, and building a comprehensive recovery plan. He will also explain the value of cash flow management, calculating fiscal earnings, how and when to increase fees, as well as providing tips on forecasting for the future.
Poll’s presentation addresses the operations and practice development issues that lawyers are not formally trained to perform. As a former practicing attorney and CEO in the manufacturing industry, Poll understands that the business strategies that make companies profitable are fundamentally the same for law firms. He believes that for some lawyers there is a disconnect between focusing on the output of a firm, in terms of handling case loads and briefs, and crafting a business plan that includes a formal billing process and marketing strategy.
“It’s a great opportunity to be invited to present this program to a wide selection of lawyers throughout the state,” says Poll, who just released his newest book Law Firm Fees & Compensation: Value & Growth Dynamics (LawBiz® Management, Co., 2008). “I develop my presentations with lawyers in mind, so that they can bridge the gap between law and business and implement policies that will have a lasting effect.”
For more information on Ed and LawBiz® Management Co., please visit www.LawBiz.com or for his blog www.LawBizBlog.com. To contact Ed, call or email
About Ed Poll
Ed Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC, is a nationally-recognized expert in law practice management. He helps attorneys and law firms increase their profitability, consulting with them on issues of internal operations, business development, and financial matters. Ed brings his clients a solid background in both law and business. He has 25 years experience as a practicing attorney and has also served as CEO and COO for several manufacturing businesses. In 1990 he founded LawBiz® Management Company and is now focused on coaching, speaking, and training law firms.
Ed is the author of numerous publications that have become the definitive works in the field and has just released his newest book Law Firm Fees & Compensation: Value & Growth Dynamics (LawBiz® Management, Co., 2008). He is also a columnist for the Association of Legal Administrators and contributes the “LawBiz® Coach’s Corner” to Lawyers Weekly.
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A Note Beats a Link - Hands Down
Professor Alan Childress of
Social networking - Even for Airstreams
Have you ever heard of giving a war and no one came?
How about going to a Vintage Airstream Rally with no Airstream?
Continue Reading...Will lawyers adopt to social networking?
There’s LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo Pulse, and .... other social networks.
In a recent article by Larry Bodine, he cited the following statistics: Less than 8% surveyed believe social networking is important to them; 91% said they spend less than 25% of their online time working with social networks. Still, these are rather large numbers to be devoting to a networking process that is relatively new ... As with other technologies, we will have to wait and see if this takes hold.
Law Technology Trends
Walter Mossberg, “personal technology” writer for the Wall Street Journal, highlighted a very interesting trend to a small group of consultants where I was a participant. He was looking at the industry from the 50,000 foot level when he said that it is the consumer that is driving change in technology. The winners in the race will be those who can develop new techniques to make the consumer’s life easier – without being a tech wizard.
Continue Reading...Lawyers core competency - Must we specialize or be incompetent?
In a recent Los Angeles Times article, the headline read “Double-O: Better for Obama than Oprah.” The writers of the article cite a study by a Fordham University political science professor. He concluded that her popularity went from 74% before the endorsement to 56% and is currently at 46%. He suggests that Oprah’s endorsement for Obama was far more costly to her than might have been imagined.
Continue Reading...Billable h ours on the way out?
Don't bill for time spent by first year associates, increase dramatically the time spent on educating young associates and bill only by fixed or flat fees ... these are three different approaches to providing more value to clients and greater certainty to the cost of legal services for clients that are highlighted in a current article in the ABA Journal.
Does any or all of these new approaches increase the cost of doing business? Possibly. Do they increase satisfaction of your clients. Definitely. Do they increase your revenue? Quite probably.
These approaches are worth considering and perhaps adopting for your practice.
Succession for lawyers
Selling Your Law Practice: The Profitable Exit Strategy, is the catalyst for a number of calls to me about succession planning for small law firms.
Cash flow of lawyers is impacted by insurance proposal
Mike McKee, a reporter for the San Francisco Recorder once again underscores the hostility that California lawyers have against the current malpractice insurance disclosure proposal.
Still, the question I asked earlier in this series has yet to be answered by the Board of Governors! Why is it that shareholders of law professional corporations do not have to disclose that they do not have malpractice insurance? Or, at least meaningful malpractice insurance? All they need to do is sign a piece of paper saying that they will be responsible for the first $50,000 of a malpractice judgment. There is no financial statement required, no verification of financial ability and no insurance policy required under the current rules; nor is there any such requirement under the new proposed rule!
And why is this fair in the minds of the Governors supporting this proposal?
Value Billing Podcast
Patrick Lamb is well-known Chichago-based attorney. He is a partner in the Valorem Law Group. Listen as Patrick and Ed discuss Value Billing.
29 minutes, 57 seconds
6.9MB
Naked Airstream
Have you ever wondered what an Airstream looks like, naked?
Continue Reading...Is the billable hour a trap? A contrarian perspective.
In Law Firm Fees & Compensation: A LawBiz® Special Report, I discuss several formats for billing legal services. Jeff Bleich, President of the State Bar of California, discusses one of these formats, the billable hour in his April column of the California Bar Journal. He raises the specter of the “billable hour trap.” He maintains that the profession must change its fee structure and move away from the current policy of billing by time. He reflects the thinking of many lawyers who are feeling the pressure of working long hours.
Because of his comments, I began to think about this subject in a way different than I have ever done in the past. I want to share some of my revelations as, perhaps, a catalyst for your further consideration on what clearly is a very important issue.
LawBiz® Tips
The April 8th edition of LawBiz® Tips is now “on the stands” for review.
Solo lawyers and malpractice insurance debate
Sole and small firm practitioners have more at stake than insurance in the current debate at the California Board of Governors over mandatory disclosure of malpractice insurance coverage, much more! Their very existence is threatened. Perhaps that is an overstatement. What is clear, though, is that the economic well-being of this group, and the very survival of many individuals in this group, is being threatened.
Continue Reading...What do successful law firms have in common with successful basketball teams?
The season is over for 2 elite basketball programs. But, for neither, was this a losing season. Both won more than 30 games this year, against some very good teams ... and all of the Final Four teams, for the first time in NCAA history, were ranked #1 in their respective regions.
Are there any lessons to be learned from this excitement for lawyers and law firms?
LawBiz® Tips now posted
The current edition of LawBiz® Tips is now posted
Law Firm Fees & Compensation
Our new book is now available. See the comments of Carolyn Elefant, Allison Shields and Bruce MacEwen.
Learn why legal fees and compensation are integral components of the same dynamic!
Staff identities on your web site?
In today's discussion on Larry Bodine's Law Marketing site, a law firm indicated it was being investigated for including paralegals along with attorneys on its web site under the category of "attorneys." The question was asked why is this a problem?
April Fool's Day here again!
The number 1 April Fools' Day joke as reported by USA Today was the "Swiss spaghetti harvest:
In 1957, the BBC said Swiss farmers were harvesting a huge spaghetti crop due to the near-elimination of the spaghetti weevil. Coverage showed peasants picking spaghetti from trees." ... I saw this on television as a youngster ... and BELIEVED it! For many years, I never knew this was a prank. I learned that spaghetti couldn't grow on a tree or in the ground. But, I couldn't get the image out of my mind. Not until the USA squib did I know it was actually a prank.
Reminds me of those who continue to repeat a phrase or idea, thinking that repetition will make it "right." Do you know anyone who does this?
