Weekly Review for Law Practice Tips for Friday, May 30, 2014

Florida Law Practice Updates Friday, May 30, 2014

Florida Law Practice Updates Friday, May 30, 2014Here are some recent articles of interest that I found this week related to law practice management, law technology, and legal marketing. Enjoy!

Legal Tech Tips: Android Guide: Extending your Android Device’s Battery Life
One of the biggest gripes among device users is battery life. Devices and batteries are not created equal and the status quo for battery life seems to be about a day, from the time that someone wakes up in the morning and unplug their phone from the charger, to the point where they plug it in at night before they go to bed.
This all assumes that you don’t have one of those days where you’re talking to people all day or you get into a heated texting discussion with a friend, or you just can’t get off of Facebook. Read more here: http://www.howtogeek.com/school/basic-android-guide/lesson3/

Legal Tech Tips: 5 Ways to Run Windows Software on a Mac
Macs have a thriving ecosystem of software, but some programs still only support Windows. Whether you want to use business software or play Windows PC games, there are many ways to run Windows programs on your Mac.
Some of these methods are similar to the ways you can install Windows software on Linux or run Windows programs on a Chromebook. Virtual machines, dual-booting, the Wine compatibility layer, and remote desktop solutions are all included here. Read more here: http://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/

Legal Marketing Tips: Top Words To Use In Your Law Firm Blog Post Headlines
You know that strong headlines that attract attention to your blog post, articles, ezines, emails (and more) are very important. How would you like to know which words you can use that will do exactly this – attract the attention of your readers? Imagine a stronger interest in your law firm blog posts, simply with a few tweaks to your headlines?
Read more here: http://lawmarketing.com/top-words-to-use-in-your-law-firm-blog-post-headlines/

Law Practice Management Tips: Do You Tell People You’re “Affordable”?
You’re “affordable.” I know that you’re affordable because I read it on your website. It’s in bold. “Affordable” means cheap, right? You’re cheap? Yep, you’re underpricing. Why are you underpricing?

1. You think that if it’s cheap you’re less likely to be rejected,
2. You think you’re less likely to disappoint, and
3. You won’t feel badly when you sell it.

Those are good ways for avoiding emotional pain. Those aren’t good reasons for underpricing.  The only reason you should be cheap is because you’ve figured out a way to offer your service for less than the competition. And even then, you should carefully craft your pricing strategy in light of the market.  Low prices are the last refuge of the marketer who’s not particularly good at his job. Is that you?  Read more here: https://www.divorcediscourse.com/people-youre-affordable/

Litigation Tips: Ten ideas for better depositions
I recently became involved in a case where all the depositions had already been taken. The opposing lawyers were partners in a very large, very well-known law firm. And my predecessors on the case came from a firm with a recognizable name. The case was pending in Federal Court, so the depositions were all limited to 7 hours. While reviewing the depositions for use at trial, I marveled at the amount of time spent on things that were of no interest to the trial as well as some other quirks that struck me as pointless. So I started keeping a list, which I shared with my partner, Mark Sayre. Mark added a few of his own pet peeves, and together we created this list of 10 “Don’t Do These Things At Depositions.”
Read more here: http://www.patrickjlamb.com/2014/04/27/ten-ideas-for-better-depositions/

Legal Practice Tips: Beware of the Tricks Used to Encourage a Witness to Volunteer
Most witnesses do not understand the purpose of a deposition and believe their job is to teach the questioning attorney everything they know; indeed, many believe if they did any less, they “wouldn’t be telling the truth.” But a witness who talks too much, either in deposition or trial, can be a liability because volunteering information can potentially highlight vulnerabilities for the other side. Witnesses need to be educated about the purpose of a deposition – i.e., it is a fact-finding opportunity for opposing counsel, not an interview or a casual chat. Given this purpose, it is the opposing attorney’s burden (and job) to ask the right question, not a witness’ job to help and offer more than was asked. The first step in the process of getting a witness to stop volunteering too much information is educating the witness about the strategies opposing counsel might use to goad new (and sometimes even experienced) witnesses into talking a bit too much, thereby opening up potential and unexpected vulnerabilities for the case.
Read more here: http://www.thejuryexpert.com/2014/05/beware-of-the-tricks-used-to-encourage-a-witness-to-volunteer/

Thank you for reading (and sharing). Stay tuned for next week’s weekly review for Law Practice Tips!

Weekly Review for Law Practice Tips for week of Friday, May 16, 2014

Appreciation

AppreciationHere are some recent articles of interest that I found this week related to law practice management, law technology, and legal marketing. Enjoy!

Be “Offensive” to Succeed
In my experience, the best defense usually prevails over the best offense. The Seattle Seahawks, ostensibly the better defender, prevailed over the Denver Broncos, ostensibly the better offense, in the recent Super Bowl by bringing its best defensive skills into play.

However, the playing field is different in the practice of law. Unlike football players, lawyers need to be offensive, not defensive. In this case, offensive doesn’t mean hurting someone’s feelings, which is never a good thing to do in the business of law. Rather, offensive means being proactive.

In particular, lawyers must be proactive to develop effective client relations, which will always win the day. Effective client relations will create loyal clients who will sing your praises far and wide. What are some of the best practices that you might consider?
Read more here… 

One Simple Ingredient for a Happier Workplace
Sandra asked the team of legal support staff she manages what would contribute to their motivation at work. They all told her “appreciation – being thanked when we do a good job.”

Mark , a young associate, is unhappy at his firm. One of the things bothering him about the culture is the lack of appreciation for people’s efforts.
Chelsea and her close colleagues laugh at themselves for being foolish: after all their years of practice they still hanker after an appreciative word from their partners for taking on some of the essential but non-billable work critical to the firm’s business. The word of thanks never comes.
Over the past few weeks numerous lawyers from law firms around the country have shared the same thought about appreciation with me – it goes something like this:

I don’t work for the money. Yes, money is essential, but the real satisfaction comes from helping people. And what I long for are a few words of appreciation when I go the extra mile for someone.

In law firms around the country it seems that one of the hardest things to come by is a kind word from someone for a job well done.

Read more here

Responsive websites may not be the way forward for firms

A well-promoted solution for the wide variety of screen sizes law firm websites must accommodate can end up being more trouble than it’s worth.
Responsive websites, which automatically sense a device’s screen size and respond by reconfiguring text and graphics to fit, can render desktop PCs with ridiculously large text and other overblown features that are tedious to wade through.

“The trouble with responsive is I haven’t seen enough thought go into the user experience,” says Rustin Kretz, CEO of Scorpion Design, a Valencia, Calif., firm that does work for law firms. “It’s more ‘technical’ and less ‘design.’ I know of many businesses that spent an enormous amount of money to have a responsive design, only to have it create a worse user experience.”

Proponents of responsive design counter that bad responsive websites are the fault of the designer, not the method.

Read more here

 

Thank you for reading (and sharing).  Stay tuned for next week’s weekly review for Law Practice Tips!

 

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