Posted on June 7th, 2008 by Scott
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For lawyers who bill by the hour keeping detailed and accurate time records is absolutely essential to maximizing income. Unfortunately, most lawyers tend to estimate their time nearly always resulting in shortchanging themselves.

Try out this system for a week and see if you do not dramatically increase your billed hours: keep detailed notes of the start and end time on every single piece of work that you do so that you know exactly what the total time expended was on each billeable item, even really small ones.

You can do this by hand effectively if you keep a note pad handy for only this purpose and no other. Personally, I like to automate it with software. Most billing software has this function built into it, although I’ve never used mine (I use Timeslips) for this purpose.

Instead I use couple of different pieces of free software. On my computer I use a very simple program called Freewatch. It is a very simple desktop timer. If you’re interested you can download it here:

For my Palm (it is important that you’re able to track time out of the office as well), I using other free and very simple program called big clock. You can download it here:

Try this out and I bet you will increase your billable time by at least 25%. Whatever your results, I’d like to hear about them so please comment below.

Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by Scott
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For most firms a written script for the intake person (usually either your receptionist or a legal assistant) can make a very big difference in the results you get.

Incidentally, if you are still personally taking calls from prospective clients, stop immediately. You want a consultation scheduled (preferably a paid consultation) and the prospective client in your office before you spend any time communicating with them about their case. Taking their call screams out to the client that you are desperate for business. The impression you want to create is that you have your choice of clients and they will be lucky if you are willing to take their case.

If this is new for you and you are not sure, just try it my way for a while and track your results. You will find that you get a lot more retained cases almost immediately. You want to be seen as the wizard and you do not want to appear as readily available as some of the other attorneys they will have called. Having to make an appointment and pay a consultation fee will make the client understand that your time and advice is valuable and it will help give you an aura of importance, making you seem scarce and desirable. Try it and you will see what I mean.

Anyway, back to using scripts for intake. The script gives your staff person a basic framework to use when a prospective client calls the office. You don’t want to require slavish adherence to the script, but you also don’t want your employee freelancing their way through every call.

I suggest drafting the intake script document with three parts: 1) an actual transcript of a hypothetical new client call, 2) a bullet list of points that must be addressed on every new call (a lot of which should already be covered on the intake form that gets filled out for a new consultation), and 3) a frequently asked questions list which covers the more common questions a caller may ask and a response to each.

Even if you currently have a staff member who handles all of the new intake calls to your satisfaction without any documentation, you should create this script. First, if that person quits or goes on vacation you can use the script to very quickly get a new or temporary employee up to speed on one of the most important tasks in the office – booking new client consultations. Second, even though you may be currently satisfied with the way the job is getting done that probably has more to do with you being unaware of what is happening than the job being done exactly as you want.

If you don’t believe this then just try listening in on five or six new client calls and see if you don’t find a whole lot of issues with the way they are currently being handled. Remember, you spend a lot of effort and money getting those new clients to call. You want this part of the process to quickly screen out the ones who are not legitimate new client prospects and to seamlessly drop the good prospects onto your calendar as initial consultations who are pre-sold on the idea that you are the solution to their problem. Fixing any glitches that currently exist in this part of the system will help you get the best clients possible and maximize your firm’s revenue in the process.

Posted on July 21st, 2008 by Scott
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You never want to delegate ultimate authority and control over the cash flow of your practice.  Renowned business author and speaker Dan Kennedy has repeatedly warned business owners against “delegating the checkbook.”  I was reminded of this by a story today in the Houston Chronicle (link here) about a long time employee who embezzled $6 million dollars from her employer.  The story explains:

“Paying for a jet-setting luxury lifestyle — including tabs of $250,000 at Neiman Marcus and more than $100,000 at Kuhl-Linscomb for furniture — is how a trusted accounting clerk spent nearly $6 million she allegedly stole from her Houston employer, possibly costing many of her colleagues their jobs, prosecutors said.”

The business she stole from was not a fortune 500 company, it was just a small privately owned business that made the mistake of assuming that a single employee could be trusted to honestly handle the money without close supervision.  Big mistake.

If you want your practice to be a lucrative one -  one that will provide your family with a nice lifestyle, college educations for your kids, and a nice retirement for you and your spouse – you cannot afford to take this kind of risk.

Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Scott
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A very effective way to learn more about your practice (yes, there are actually a lot of things going on in your practice that you don’t know about) is to survey your clients about their experience with your firm. You can learn a lot about how they were treated by your staff at the time they initially called, what their impressions were when they first came in, and how they felt overall about your representation of them. This is all very helpful information to have.

Surveys are Rarely Done by Lawyers

I have seen it suggested that you should do this by calling and personally speaking to clients and asking them these questions. If you have a huge amount of time to kill, I suppose this is okay. Personally, I am all about efficiency and I don’t see this as an efficient use of time.

My system for surveying my clients is pretty effective, gives me a lot of helpful information and takes very little time to implement. About once a year I send an email to each client with a closed file. I don’t survey anyone with an active case because their final opinion has not been formed yet. The email is a template I created asking them to do me a favor and fill out my survey. The only thing that has to be done to the template is to copy and paste their email address and type their first name.

A caveat: always send separate emails, do not send one mass email and “cc” everyone on the list. The template makes it seem very personal to them. If you do a mass mailing it ruins the effect and likely will make many of them angry.

The email includes a link to a special page on my website that includes a form with the questions. You don’t want the survey to be too long or it will suppress your response rate. Mine asks about ten questions in which they rank the firm’s performance from one to five (five being highest). At the end is open ended question that allows them to give feedback on some area that they think needs improvement.

Another caveat: send them to a form. Do not succumb to the temptation to put the questions in the email and just ask them to answer them in a reply email. People like to fill out forms but they hate starting with a blank sheet of paper. If you give them structure with a form they will be much more likely to respond.

Example

Here is an example of some feedback I got that made me take action. At the time I had a part-time employee, a woman in her early twenties, who tended to dress a little too flashy. She wasn’t over-the-top trashy, her clothes were just a little too tight and showed a little too much skin. I had considered discussing it with her but was uncomfortable about it and thought it might just be me being overly conservative and that none of my clients would feel that way.

Well, I was wrong. One of my client’s survey responses basically said that he was very pleased with the representation but wanted me to know that he thought my employee dressed in way that was “unprofessional.”

That was all it took. Knowing that if one client actually had the gumption to say it that there were probably another twenty who had thought it, I had a talk with her and her attire immediately became much more conservative. Problem solved.

Testimonials

One great side benefit to doing surveys is that it is an excellent time to ask for client testimonials. I just put an additional question at the end that asks if they would like to comment on anything they particularly liked or disliked about my representation of them. The next two questions on the survey are whether I have their permission to publish their comments in my marketing materials, using either their name or initials.

I practice family law which has notoriously dissatisfied clients. As the old saying goes, at the end of the divorce trial neither side is smiling. Because of that it was a little scary to ask for feedback. But to my amazement the responses were overwhelmingly positive, even from the more unpleasant clients. Lawyers who sincerely work hard for their clients will be surprised at the nice comments their clients will make if given an opportunity.

Conclusion

So give surveying a try. You will find out a whole lot about your practice and be able to make some improvements that are likely to put money in your pocket.

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by Scott
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