If you have what we call, “hurry sickness,” that state of being in which you are always rushing, always pressed for time and always at risk of arriving late – even to important meetings, resolve to make 2012 the year in which you take control of your time.

It can be done. As we point out in our book, Time Management for Attorneys: A Lawyer’s Guide to Decreasing Stress, Eliminating Interruptions and Getting Home on Time, you may never be able to control 100% of your time, but with a little planning and a lot of self-awareness, you can make the kind of choices that will allow you to slow the pace down. It’s worth a try. Read More….

As marketing advisors, one question we constantly grapple with is this: how can time-starved law¬yers become efficient, but still effective marketers? Driven to distrac¬tion by constant interruptions, difficult staffing issues and demanding clients, most attorneys don’t take the time — to do what it takes.

Yet, many of our attorney clients are very good at market¬ing when placed in the right situations. It’s getting them there that’s the problem. Making phone calls with con¬tacts often involves a lot of phone tag, calendaring client development events takes time, planning the basic logistics of marketing is distracting.

As a rule, attorneys aren’t very good at the planning and logistics behind their marketing plan. Yet this phase is essential – without someone to initiate and organize these steps, most market¬ing efforts will never get off the ground.

If you aren’t successful in setting up lunches, dinners and meetings with referral sources, your client development efforts aren’t going to be very strategic. If you’re not meeting with the right people, then you’re relying on nothing more than happenstance to promote your practice. Happenstance will take you only so far. We advise our clients to take a more proactive approach.
Large firms can rely upon marketing directors to deal with client development. But what does the small firm practitioner do? Read More….

Here’s a tip that can help you maximize your productivity in the face of the upcoming holidays – and help you to have a little time left to enjoy them:

We call it the “Power Hour” and it’s worked for thousands of attorneys who have read our books and participated in our programs. We devote an entire chapter to this in our book, Time Management for Attorneys: A Lawyer’s Guide to Decreasing Stress, Eliminating Interruptions and Getting Home on Time.

The idea of the “Power Hour” is to block out a one to three hour block of time Read More….

Take a look at what the Omnia Group says in their October newsletter about surefire ways to hire the wrong person:

Are you frustrated with interviewing great job candidates only to find three months later they have gone from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde? It’s not necessarily their fault! You, as a hiring manager, may be getting in your own way! Ask yourself…why do so many employees hate their jobs, diss the boss and perform poorly? Because so many managers adhere strictly to these five rules designed to make hiring the wrong person super easy!
Attention folks: This is what NOT to do, when looking to fill a very important position with your next “A Player”: Read More….

The upcoming holiday season is going to be full of new social situations – a difficult time for those who don’t like parties and large gatherings. It’s useful to know that shyness is an adaptive reaction to social situations in which we feel the risk of being judged harshly.

Interestingly, almost half of all Americans characterize themselves as shy. Read More….

Most of my clients who own their own firms, or are partners in small firms, experience difficulty in managing their firm finances because they don’t block time to attend to financial tasks. Their legal tasks get prime time in their calendar and financial oversight is relegated to whatever time is left over. To overcome this tendency, block time for the following:

• Schedule a regular Cashflow Meeting – and stick with it. Set up a recurring, hour-long meeting every month with your bookkeeper or office manager to discuss your financial dashboard. Include a 3-month Cashflow projection in the discussion so you always know what’s coming in – or not, and you can plan accordingly. If the cash flow projection points in a downward direction, your marketing efforts should be ratcheted up.

• Conduct a Case Status Review meeting on a weekly or twice-monthly basis. Go through your case list and get an update on all open and active cases as well as those awaiting closure. Don’t let matters linger. Aim to move cases swiftly to completion, while maximizing the results for your clients. Use the time to answer questions and delegate tasks. The more files that move steadily through the pipeline, the greater your capacity to generate revenues.

1. Don’t build a page, build a profile: Facebook has a “profile” option for business and corporation use which allows you to create a presence for your law firm unconnected to your personal page. If you want to keep your personal page personal (we recommend this), don’t link the two. And configure your security settings to disallow those who aren’t already friends to view your information.

2. Dress up the Welcome section of your firm’s Facebook profile by importing an image – possibly from your website – which echoes the look and feel of your website, but has a slightly more casual attitude. You may use a picture of your self, your team, or your partners. Some firms opt for a picture of their building, but since Facebook is a more personal medium, it is better to focus on people rather than the architecture. Read More….

In the rapidly changing world of Social Media Marketing, we at Atticus struggle with the proper stance to take when advising attorneys on the best and most effective marketing strategies: should we advise clients to invest large amounts of time creating and maintaining a Firm Facebook page? Is it really a good idea to create a profile on AVVO when the ethics rules have not caught up with the issue of on-line testimonials? Will other professionals really trust those they meet on LinkedIn and actually send referrals?

Anecdotal evidence abounds.

We hear stories of great connections made through SMM almost weekly, but what evidence do we really have that attorneys are gaining new clients through their on-line efforts? New clients are the only outcomes that count when determining whether or not a marketing strategy is truly successful.

Brand awareness is nice, name recognition is important and connecting with pithy commentary is fun — but does it all translate in to more clients coming through the door? Read More….

Here’s a hot tip adapted from the Harvard ManageMentor module, “Retaining Employees” published on March 28, 2011

Few leaders succeed without great talent supporting them. So retaining your star employees is not only good for the company, but for you as leader. Here are three ways to keep your best people around:
• Trust the team. Give your people the opportunity to use their unique strengths every day. Allow them to do what they are best at.
• Make connections. Spend time every day checking in with individuals to see how they’re doing — personally and professionally. Avoid private or sensitive topics unless your employee brings them up.
Respect individuality. Recognize your people’s individual needs, and customize assignments, perks, and recognition accordingly.

Today’s retirement-age attorneys are healthier and more energized than any previous generation. Many are eager to work and stay relevant beyond the traditional age of retirement. They also want to make additional money to fund their retirement whether they envision relaxing, traveling or exploring a second career.

This still vital generation doesn’t want to reenact grim historical stereotypes: the hardworking, older attorney who “dies at his desk,” the aging attorney who is mentally retired but physically present, and, in larger firms, the attorney who is forced out due to archaic retirement rules.

Due to longer life spans, contemporary notions of retirement are rapidly changing — even the word “retirement” is being retired in favor of words like transition or evolution. To support attorneys in taking a proactive interest in designing their futures, we periodically hold a workshop entitled Targeting Your Exit Strategy, geared for small firm and solo practitioners. In the workshop, the attorneys spoke of their careers as “morphing” into something different, or “going to the next stage.” Read More….