Better Learn to Oursource

If you want to succeed in the practice of law, you better learn how to outsource certain functions. Clients are not going to pay full freight for tasks that can easily be completed off shore at a much lower price point but at the same level of quality. But there are risks involved. My latest article on The Complete Lawyer website.

Avoiding Phone Tag

The telephone is still a critical business tool. While electronic communication is great for scheduling, creating a record and exchanging documents, it is hard to have a highly nuanced conversation in writing. So for the foreseeable future, the telephone is still a real player.

On the other hand, I find it increasingly difficult to reach people by phone.

The solution? Schedule a telephone conversation by e-mail. I'm doing this a lot more lately and wasting a lot less time leaving messages back and forth. Sometimes these meetings get postponed. But little time is wasted.

Saving Money--Reader's Tips in NYTimes

Some good ideas for riding out the recession (free subscription required).

Twitter, LinkedIn and the Tower of "Babble"

If you are confused about how to use social media to market your law practice, you are in good company. Although twitter is getting tremendous media attention at the moment (and in all likelihood, you've been receiving connect requests through LinkedIn for months), these are very new media.

No one really knows which Web 2.0 application will be around in 10 years. It's all too new.

I've been experimenting more in recent months with both LinkedIn and with Twitter and while I was feeling like I was missing something with both of these media, in truth, I've come to realize that even the "experts" have no concrete recommendations for the best way to incorporate these tools into your marketing arsenal.

The best advice I've gotten is that I should experiment with Twitter, LindedIn, Martindale Connect and Legalonramp. So far, I've done more with the first two than with the latter; but I remain open to trying these last two tools as well.

This same advice has come from a leading expert on the use of social media in the political realm, a consultant who has been working with large corporations to integrate social networks into their businesses and a legal tech guru who has been blogging since the inception of blogs.

So what's a confused lawyer to do? For starters, get involved in some on-line community and get accustomed to sharing ideas with other professionals using one of these media. Experiment and make time in your schedule to be a meaningful partipant.

One of my coaching clients once shared with me the advice of a partner about participating in bar associations and other industry groups: don't be an empty suit (i.e. don't just sign up but never show up). The same holds for social media: don't be an empty username. Your future will depend on it. But no one can really tell you how!

On the Commoditization of Legal Services

A great overview of the subject.

Getting With the Program

I've been advising my coaching clients for years that exercise and outside interests are an important part of marketing and career advancement. While I've tried to emphasize the importance of making time for doing something that you enjoy (i.e. that this could be, but doesn't have to be exercise) as I get older, I become more convinced that there is no substitute for exercise.

Pursuing a personal interest like photography, cooking, music, art, travel, coaching your kid's soccer team, etc. can recharge the sole. Having outside hobbies or interests can also help you build relationships that can become sources of business down the road.

But exercise provides a stress release that is hard to substitute. Law is a stressful business and regular exercise offers an important way to help cope with stress. In the current climate where layoffs seem to keep coming and workloads in some departments are perilously low, getting some sort of exercise is more important than ever.

Until recently, I was a member of a squash club in Boston but when I moved back to my home office in the burbs, I found that it was much harder to get into town to work out.

Which leads me to my latest revelation about exercise: it only works if it is convenient.

So I'm joining my local Y and giving up squash (at least for now). Although I love the game, getting exercise in general is more important. If I only have to travel 5 minutes to get to the gym, I'm much more likely to go. That was true when I worked in Boston and the gym was only 10 minutes from my office and although I thought the lure of squash would get me into Boston regularly, right now, that does not seem to be happening. So I'm getting with the program that I prescribe for my clients and making exercise convenient once again.

The Middle Office is Live

CounseltoCounsel has spawned offspring: The Middle Office . The Middle Office is a blog that explores the relationship between law firms, in-house counsel and the services provided by LPOs (legal process outsourcing companies). The focus of the Middle Office is on IP in particular. I hope my readers will take a look and give me feedback.

I am authoring the blog on behalf of IPEngine. IPEngine is a professional services firm that helps lawyers to leverage their IP work by enabling them to tap into the large pool of technical talent in India.

For those keeping track, I am also doing business development for IPEngine and coaching individual lawyers on business development.

Successful Law Firms Are All Alike

They have these 10 qualities.

Upping the Partner Ante

For partners with portable business, this may be a good time to shop your practice. There are many hungry buyers out there; but be aware that the bar is being raised at most firms. A legal recruiter asserts that firms which wanted 500K now want 750K in portable business and firms that wanted a million now want 1.5 million. In addition, firms are looking closer at the portability of the business to make sure that a lateral partner can deliver and that the work is current.

Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Coach

5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Career Coach. For more on coaching (including business development coaching, click here).

What's Hot, What's Not (in DC)

Tips from recruiters in DC (free subscription required). Part of a Special Report on Associates in this week's Legal Times (premium subscription required for some content).

59% of Lawyers are On a Social Network

Here's another quick overview of how to get involved with some good tips to help you generate business.

Free Overview of Social Networking for Lawyers

Feel like you are missing the boat wrt Web 2.0? In some ways, we all do. But if you are just starting out and want to read a good overview of how these tools can help you in marketing your practice, take a look at Carolyn Elefant's free e-book on the topic.

Leverage Model in Firms Will Change, Not Disappear

Aric Press, Editorial Director of Incisive Media (formerly American Lawyer Media), discusses the changes that are coming to the traditional law firm model (free subscription required). The pressure on law firms to control fees continues to mount and law firms are being forced to rethink leverage.

Press discusses how firms will begin to adopt a multi-tiered staffing model where there will be many more staff attorneys and only some of the lawyers hired out of law school will advance through associate ranks and up to partnership. But he misses the opportunity to mention even more radical change.

It's not that leverage will go away; rather, firms will gain leverage through staffing that goes beyond using associates (or even staff attorneys). Firms must learn that work that can be done by non-attorneys will need to be taken off the attorney's plate.

I imagine that the larger firms will continue to find ways to push work down to paralegals and secretaries. But they will also increasingly resort to the use of contract attorneys domestically and legal process outsourcing(to gain access to a cost effective talent pool in India).

My Formal Announcement--sent to my e-mailing list

Dear Colleague:

In order to be more responsive to the changing needs of the legal profession, I have returned full time to my consulting business, Seckler Legal Consulting. My new contact info is below.

For the foreseeable future, I will be dividing my time between three activities. First, I will be spending a significant portion of my time doing business development for a startup company called IPEngine . I am also coaching lawyers on how to increase their marketing effectiveness. Finally, I will continue to do a limited amout of recruiting, working exclusively with partners who have portable business of greater than $400,000.

I am particularly excited about the work I will be doing with IPEngine, an IP services company that helps corporate law departments and law firms to achieve better practice leverage. IPEngine has a team in India that can provide a wide range of IP services. I encourage you to take a look at their website to learn more.

IPEngine is part of a relatively young industry that is commonly referred to as Legal Process Outsourcing (or LPO). The current economic climate and a very favorable ethics ruling last summer issued by the ABA means that the industry is poised to take off this year.

I will be writing a lot about this subject matter in the near future and will be launching a blog for IPEngine (I’ll send you a notice when it gets going.) In the meantime, here is a link to an article I published on the subject.

These are challenging times for the legal profession. In an environment where controlling legal expenses is a resounding theme, there will be winners and losers. I look forward to helping you to continue to be one of the winners.

Sincerely,

SES

P.S. If you are thinking of hiring a business coach, click here to learn more about my coaching services.

Stephen Seckler, President

Seckler Legal Consulting

web: www.seckler.com

blog: www.counseltocounsel.com

twitter: http://twitter.com/counsel2counsel

linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/72/845

ph: 617-244-3234 (o)

617-851-2319 (c)