Webinar with LEAP Legal Software | 11 Habits of Successful Small/Solo Law Firms in the Digital Age

Article Highlights

• The importance of efficiency for small law firms.
• Embracing technology as an essential tool for success.
• Focusing on the client experience to build a strong relationship.
• Understanding financial management in running a law firm.
• Commitment to ongoing training and employee satisfaction.

Hello everyone. This is Sasha with the LTRC. Thank you for joining us for 11 Habits of Successful Small to Solo Law Firms in the Digital Age with our sponsor Leap as part of the LTRC Industry Insight series. Help every Wednesday.

Our speakers today are Erica Reynolds and Kevin Bridges. Both are business development managers at Leap. Erica has been assisting small law firms for almost two years now by making their business goals come to fruition.

Erica loves collaborating with firm owners to see where they can cut down on cost and ultimately earn a greater profit by utilizing technology to its fullest effort. Kevin is also a business development manager. He's worked in software for about seven years and he now lives in Midtown Manhattan for about two years. He's a big sports fan and a music lover. Thank you all for joining us.

We'll now begin the webinar. Good. So, thank you again Sasha and the ABA for having us today. We are very excited to speak on our 11 habits of successful small law firms. I don't know about you Kevin, I am located in New Jersey right now, no longer living in Manhattan because of COVID. So I am home with my sisters and my family.

Where are you located right now? I'm doing the same actually live in Midtown but visiting family in Florida. So thankfully, I was able to get out of town. Lucky you. I'm sure you're enjoying that beautiful weather. I am. Okay, awesome.

Well, since we have limited time today, let's just get right into it. So I'm just going to give everybody a little bit of a LEAP intro. For those of you who haven't heard of LEAP before, our mission is to help the attorneys who help the people by providing modern practice management software to help you run your business.

We've been helping firms since 1992 to run their businesses more efficiently and profitably and have been providing cloud services for well over 13 years. In May last year, Leap entered a joint venture with LexisNexis to provide time matters and PC law clients with an easy transition to LEAP's cloud solution. So after evaluating all providers, LexisNexis named LEAP the best in class cloud solution.

We look at software as being more than just record-keeping software. It's a business tool for you to achieve your goals, run and grow your business, and help your clients. So let's get started with today's webinar.

And again, today's webinar is on our 11 habits for successful law firms in the digital age. We released our first version of the 11 habits several years ago, but with everything that has changed so suddenly with the global pandemic, we decided to redo them in light of current events.

So you might notice we haven't said working from home once here, because we all know this is going to be short-lived. What's changed though is working digitally and the long-term impacts it will have on the way you run your firm, manage staff, and interact with your clients.

These are the 11 habits we will cover today. I'm sure most of these habits seem like common sense, but that makes sense too, because these are actions we tend to take for granted rather than make our focus. The tendency is to say, I know that; the secret is to actually do it.

So following this webinar, we will send you the 11 Habits White Paper, which includes checklists for the habits to help you review your processes.

Let's get started with Habit 1. Decide to be efficient. For most small law firms, your survival depends upon efficiency. Without efficiency, it is possible for you to survive if you work every night and probably weekends too, but that's just not a sustainable model for a happy life.

Efficiency is how you make more money and gives you a competitive advantage against other firms who are not as efficient. So as a managing partner, you need to make a commitment to be efficient and lead your staff.

So, Kevin, how do you become more efficient? Well, Erica, I'd say the easiest way is using effective technology and ensuring that those tools are actually being used effectively. Many firms think that putting their effort first into bookkeeping is a good place to start.

With my experience with law firms, I personally think that because revenue is generated by attorneys, it would make a lot more sense to start with making your attorneys as productive as possible. A great place to start with making your attorneys more productive is actually how they record their time.

We all know time is your stock. If you don't capture time accurately, you are essentially working for free. You need software that captures your time as you work because the way you work isn't the same as how you were 20 years ago. Now we have emails, cell phones, and tablets; you can text with your clients.

And if you're still trying to track time the same way that you did 20 years ago on a letter, it's probably time to reevaluate. Technology has changed and allows for far more advanced ways to track your time.

Success starts with having every attorney in your firm accurately record their time every single day. Next, I’d say would probably come producing your documents. Attorneys producing documents efficiently can deliver some pretty big returns on their time.

This is achieved by integrating your case management system with your document templates so that you enter case information once. Find your template quickly, and it populates with all the relevant case information, which eliminates a lot of duplicate data entry.

You are then able to easily share those documents for review with others in the office. Even when the Internet is down, attorneys and staff still need to be able to produce documents to be productive.

Yeah, absolutely Kevin. So this is now leading us into Habit 2, which is an incredibly important one: to be an early adopter in the use of technology to be blind. If your firm doesn't keep up with technology, you will get passed by.

A great example here is banks. Less than 20 years ago, all banking was performed inside of an actual brick-and-mortar bank. Fast forward to today, almost all businesses and personal banking is done online.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually stepped foot inside an actual bank in the last few years. Banks that didn't move and adapt with technology to provide their clients with online services have gone out of business.

For firms that aren't able to adapt, this will likely be their future as well. Leaders of successful law firms are always looking for ways to use technology to provide better, faster, and more consistent service.

You should be using technology to focus on a single database to run your cases, your case management, your time recording, your billing, your trust, and accounting—all in one application. It's simply inefficient and expensive to try connecting applications together from different vendors.

Next, having a library of highly automated legal forms, letters, and agreements will maintain consistency and provide accurate documents for everyone in the office very quickly.

Recording every activity as you go, whether you time record or not, ensures that you can bill accurately and comply with your legislative record-keeping obligations. Also, using programs that make communication easier with your staff and your clients—such as Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, and WebEx—is essential.

For many of you, you likely already have a Microsoft Office 365 license, and you may not be using it to its full capabilities. Many of the firms I've met with recently aren’t using Microsoft Teams even though they have access to it.

Finally, providing a great online client portal allows clients to feel involved in their cases and helps track the numbers that are most important to your firm. We will touch on this a bit more later with Habit 11.

If you don’t have systems that give you these tools, it’s time for a review, as there are better ways to work. By running on a cloud-based system, tech-savvy law firms can use their computers at home, smartphones, and tablets to work nearly exactly the same way as they do in the office.

Being an early adopter of technology doesn’t stop at the systems that you use. With social distancing and a lack of physical office space or face-to-face meetings and networking events to build awareness of your firm, you need far more active marketing.

The easiest way to navigate these changes is to use social media. I've seen some firms do this very well recently. You have multiple platforms to connect with existing and potential clients—such as Facebook groups or posts on LinkedIn.

It's a free and effective way to build your thought leadership. Best of all, technology will give you more free time for your personal life and hobbies, whether that’s going to the gym, golfing, bird watching, or whatever it might be.

Additionally, it allows you more time with your friends and family. So instead of having to go back to the office to catch up on documents, you can simply do it at home.

Sorry folks, I skipped ahead to Habit 3. So we were just wrapping up Habit 2. Habit 3 is Enjoy Practicing Law. I won’t spend too much time on this point as the name says it all. But you can't succeed if you don’t enjoy what you are doing.

Always remember why you got into practicing law and what you enjoy most about it. Most attorneys we meet with don't like administrative work, and I don’t blame them; they’d rather help their clients or manage their firms.

If this is you, figure out what changes you can make to make this all possible. Which brings us to Habit 4: Employ smart people and treat them well.

With more staff working in isolation from home now, how you interact with your staff is more important than ever. Your staff are your biggest single expense other than yourself. The successful firms we work with treat their staff exceptionally well.

From what I’ve personally seen, they don’t just pay their staff well, although they frequently do. Their staff also have up-to-date equipment, fantastic software, and the ability to work anywhere.

You simply cannot attract or keep great staff unless you provide them with the best tools. Imagine if you were a pilot; would you rather join an airline with new planes or a 20-year-old airplane? The same applies to smart graduates.

Providing your staff with the very best tools enables them to do their job better and ensures they're happy and effective employees. Simply put, happier staff leads to better client service.

Successful law firms are also committed to staff training. They know the more you train staff, the more they can do for you. Most staff love being given more responsibility; they enjoy doing more interesting work.

The more time you can delegate to them, the more profitable your firm is going to be. Absolutely, Kevin. Well said.

That now brings us to Habit 5: Select the areas of law you like and focus on them. A major cause of stress for attorneys can be accepting instructions in areas of law they’re unfamiliar with.

As law increasingly becomes complex, it's risky and can potentially lead to bad advice and bad outcomes. So, Kevin, what should firms do here?

Well, I think there are a few things firms can do to be successful. Firstly, develop a deep expertise in your defined areas of law, which will support higher professional fees.

Additionally, you can select areas of law that sit together comfortably, like estate planning, estate administration, and matrimonial law. Put systems in place to identify and get involved in emerging areas of law that you can capitalize on.

You can create a great reputation for your work, which attracts more profitable work. Ensure your marketing aligns with the services provided and have research materials available to help in your specializations.

Lastly, mentor young attorneys and paralegals; this will pay dividends in the long term. One great advantage of the legal profession is the ability to build a recession-proof business.

One way to do this is to ensure you have multiple revenue streams to cushion when the economy changes. Practicing in areas of law that will be countercyclical or are consistent can help you in this regard, such as family law and estates, which generally perform consistently.

You need to be adaptable to economic changes. The most successful firms I’d worked with during the economic downturn of 2008 were able to slightly change their business, continue working in their specialist areas, and be more adaptable.

For example, if they practiced real estate, they focused on foreclosure work. If they specialized in family law, they acknowledged that there’s going to be an increase in divorce rates that came with economic stress and changed their systems to become more efficient.

Firms around the world are currently being challenged in 2020 to make similar choices but unfortunately under profoundly more complex circumstances. You’ll want to think strategically and understand what’s going on around you and in your local market to adapt quickly.

This brings us to Habit 6: Dedicate time to building the firm as a business and take the time to care for yourself as well. The leaders of successful firms understand that building a firm takes time.

They delegate work effectively so they have time to work on their business. You should aim to spend about 20% of your time focusing on non-legal business activities to ensure the growth of your business.

There’s an old saying that failing to plan is planning to fail, and successful firms have a clear vision of where they want to go and how they’re going to get there.

It’s essential to build a good reputation, but to build a business, you need to act and have a plan. Leaders of successful small firms properly package and market their services. They write topical articles, run Q&A sessions, and build important relationships.

And Kevin, it’s also important to remember that with social distancing and isolation, it’s okay to take breaks and check in with your staff and even yourself.

Absolutely. We are moving to Habit 7 next: confronting the challenges of getting paid to solve problems. This habit is one of the most important topics we’ll discuss today: how to get paid faster with less stress.

The first step is really to ensure that there’s an appropriate and signed retainer agreement for every case and that you stick precisely to what’s in that retainer regarding billing and payments.

That may mean you might have to cease work beyond the scope of the agreement, which is fine; you can provide a revised retainer agreement. Additionally, whenever possible, get a retainer upfront and set monthly payment expectations from the start to prevent bills from getting out of hand.

Make sure every activity of every attorney is contemporaneously recorded into a system so you can manage their matters properly and bill accurately. You’ll want to bill regularly for small amounts, never letting that debt get too out of control, and ensure every matter is billed as soon as you’re legally entitled to bill.

Request retainer top-ups when necessary. Don’t operate under the illusion that unbilled time is income; it actually needs to be billed. You’d be amazed at how often we run into this problem, and it causes partners a lot of headaches.

Make sure that the same rules apply to every attorney in the firm, irrespective of seniority. Lastly, make it easy for clients to make payments online. If you can address these challenges, you can bill more, and you’ll also get paid faster.

On to Habit 8: have standard processes and procedures in place for all matters. If we did this webinar in February, I likely would’ve started by mentioning some disorganization I’ve physically seen at firms—physical files on cabinets, files on the floor, overflowing bookcases; you name it, I’ve seen it.

But that reality has quickly changed as things have shifted to a completely digital workplace. It’s critically important not to replace that physical chaos with digital chaos.

Implement the same systems and processes for everyone at the firm. Successful firms are so organized that anyone, no matter where they’re located, can literally pick up a digital case and understand it because a standard approach has been used.

How do you get organized and implement consistent processes and procedures across your firm? A great place to start is to have one central database for client and matter information.

You cannot be efficient if your starting point is continually wondering if the case information you’re looking at is accurate and up to date or, even worse, if you can’t even find the information to begin with. Your goal should be to operate out of one database, with everyone saving case documents in the same way.

You should also have one way of opening a new client file and ensure that everyone accesses every client file the same way with no exceptions. All standard documents should be electronically organized and easily available for everyone in the office.

Additionally, ensure online client collaboration; there should be a client portal for all staff to communicate with clients, available for clients 24 hours a day, so they can access it on their own time.

Lastly, standardize your billing procedures and don’t deviate from them. When good processes are used, attorneys can devote most of their time to practicing law rather than administrative work, which I know they all prefer.

That was funny, Kevin. So that brings us to Habit 9: Make compliance a natural consequence of running a firm well. This is an extension from the habit we just discussed, involving having professional rules in place for all facets of your firm—from how a file is managed to how an attorney conducts themselves and how trust money is handled.

It’s not just creating procedures; it’s about ensuring everybody in the firm complies with the rules and exercises good judgment. Which brings us to Habit 10: Become an expert in client experience.

We’ve hinted at this already, but the foundation of good client experience is just two simple factors: clear communication and building strong rapport from the first meeting. This comes from your leadership and the interactions your client has with everyone at your practice.

When you deliver outstanding client service, you have happy clients eager to refer their friends to you. So Kevin, what changes can you make to client experience now that you're really not meeting with clients face-to-face as often?

Sure, the first change is the digital practice. As many of you already know, your client interactions are likely going to be online, by phone, or by video—at least many more of them. That’s slowly going to change, but how you adapt to this is key for both new and existing clients.

Additionally, social media is vitally important for building your firm and becoming an integral part of the new client experience. For example, on LinkedIn, the content you post, like, and share can help boost your firm's leadership among current and potential clients.

Personally, I’ve seen firms do this exceptionally well. I’ve seen partners providing useful knowledge in videos online from their kitchens or dining rooms. For example, a personal injury attorney advised why you shouldn’t cancel your car insurance, even though you might not be driving right now.

I also saw an estate planning attorney discussing how to update your will without leaving your home. Activity like this showcases your expertise. Using social media alongside a well-designed online client portal means you can provide all your clients and potential clients with digital access to your firm at a convenient time for them.

Best of all, these self-service portals allow clients to complete intake forms, book appointments, pay their bills, view their financial history, see their outstanding balances, and read and comment on documents you’ve shared with them—all on their own time.

And Kevin, for what you just said, I want to quickly mention a firm I met with that was about to hire a new assistant to do exactly what an online client portal does—managing phone calls for payments and calendars. With the client portal, they didn’t need to hire the assistant and instead hired another paralegal to help with their caseload, driving revenue.

So I think this video right now encompasses all of that. I totally agree.

We are now at Habit 11, our last habit, which is: Understanding the finances of your firm. While it may not be common for attorneys to be trained in business and financial management, running a small law firm is no different from running any other business.

To truly be successful, you need to understand the finances of your firm. Your most important source of working capital or cash flow is revenue generated from legal work.

With stable working capital, you have choices. Without it, you have stress and uncertainty about the future. So stable working capital comes from the following: guarantee that you have a retainer in place to cover all initial fees and expenses.

Ensure that every activity is accurately and immediately recorded. This is a point I want to stress because failing to accurately record billable work is the single biggest source of revenue loss in every law firm we have encountered.

Ensure bills are generated as soon as appropriate and actually sent. Ensure that everyone in the firm, without exception, including partners, generates bills using the same system. Make it easy for clients to pay using modern online payment methods and follow up debt to ensure it is paid on time.

I want to emphasize point two because it shows how much revenue you could be missing out on. If your billable hour is $350 and you capture just an additional tenth of an hour per day, that equals an additional $1,000 of revenue over the course of a year from just one attorney on work that's already being done.

That's roughly $9,000 a year—almost a week that you’re essentially working for free. So think about how easy it is to make a call on your cell phone or reply to an email and forget to record it. This work does add up!

With a good understanding of revenue, successful firms also understand which matters are the most profitable. Measuring matter profitability isn’t easy; the only way to do it is by keeping accurate time records for every case, whether billable or not.

You’ll be able to measure the time spent on the case against what the client actually paid, then measure it against the base cost of the attorney providing the legal advice. Once you have accurate information, you can review your attorney's performance and identify areas to increase efficiencies.

While it’s true that no firm has ever saved their way to success, successful leaders are obsessive about understanding and maintaining cost controls and are particularly careful about managing their expenses.

Client costs are easily incurred, yet if you forget to bill them, that’s money coming straight out of your pocket. These are the 11 habits we’ve observed in many successful practices over the years and most recently in firms that quickly adapted to a digital practice.

It’s important to remember that transformation takes time and action, but you must act first. Following this webinar, we will email everyone a copy of the white paper so you can have the action steps to start developing these habits right away.

If you’re interested in reviewing the technology you use and how LEAP can help you practice, Erica and I would be more than happy to arrange an online meeting to discuss your needs on how LEAP can assist you.

Additionally, for attending this webinar, you can start using Leap for only $29 per month for the first three months! All we need is an order by the end of the month to secure the discount. If you’re interested, please let us know, and we’d be happy to meet with you.

So thanks for joining Erica and myself and the LEAP team for this meeting. I’ll now pass it back over to Sasha one more time. We’d like to say thank you to our sponsor Leap and everyone for attending the webinar today. If anyone's curious about future webinars, please check out the ABA LTRC page or follow our Twitter TRC for updates.

One more thank you to Erica and Kevin for their presentation; we’ll now conclude the webinar. Bye, everyone. Thanks, Sasha. See ya. Thank you.