Why Don't Law Schools Care About Solos?

The Legal Skills Prof Blog has two (here and here) great stories updating the world on programs that two law schools are implementing/have implemented to help students and new grads wishing to enter solo practice. These are great projects, and should receive tremendous support from alumni and the schools.

My first question then after reading about these programs, is why don't more schools have these types of programs for their students. After all, by some estimates, 26 percent of lawyers are either employed in solo or small firm practice. That's a pretty significant number of the graduating class that's working alone or in another small firm (i.e. 1 in 4 gradutates).

So, why don't schools do more?

First, I know believe schools cater to BigLaw. All Most of the professors and law school deans "practiced" in BigLaw firms. There's the "cultivate" BigLaw lawyers mentality that is permeating through the law schools. Law schools like their alumnae pedigree to read like a "who's who" of law firms, rather than a smattering of "Law offices of John Doe, esq."

Second, many, if not all, older lawyers believe that you cannot or should not, start your own law firm straight out of law school. "With so many 'pitfalls' to cause you problems" they'll tell you, "you must gain experience at a firm." The simple truth is, lawyering isn't rocket science with traumatic consequences for minor miscalculations. The problem is, many young lawyers, especially those entering solo/small firm practice, have to juggle business management and legal management requirements without substantial training in either field. 

Note too, the first and second reasons also contain the often thought, but rarely quoted reason of, "why would anybody really want to open their own law firm?"

Third, there's rarely faculty in the law school who have access/knowledge to supervise/mentor graduates in these particular programs. That means that you must dedicate funds to the solo/small firm incubator projects, and not to faculty salaries or the new law school wing. Unfortunately, too many graduates leave their schools lacking fundamental skills that will make them effective attorneys (e.g. what a Complaint looks like, and how to file it in District Court). When schools attempt to "teach" legal practice skills, they often screw it up.

For instance, in my third year of Tier 3 law school, I took a course designed to introduce students to "legal practice" in a small firm, taught by two professors, one of which is a partner of one of the biggest firms in OKC, and the other is a federal court law clerk. My first thought was "what will these two teach me about solo/small firm practice?" From day 1, I set my expectations low.

The problem with my law school's philosophy was that these individuals would have a pulse on the small firm/solo concerns. Clearly, neither professor did, and that drastically affected the outcome and negated any benefits of the class. Other classmates expressed a similar disappointment.

One counterpoint many schools offer is that they provide legal clinics to help "cultivate" and "enrich" their students' learning. These clinics give students hands-on experience with representing and assisting under-served portions of the community. In truth however, these courses are limited to a minor amount of students.

Fourth, money is the root of all "evil." Unfortunately for many solo/small firms, the amounts their owners and members contribute back to their schools pales in comparison to their BigLaw counterparts (I guess we're too busy providing reasonably priced legal services than exorbitant hourly rates). It's easy to feed the BigLaw beast where the little mouse barely squeaks. Perhaps is solo and small firm attorneys put more pressure on their law schools to provide "incubator" programs, the schools would more reasonably respond.

Fifth, state bar associations often fail to address these similar needs. With so many additional needs of the state bar, addressing particular concerns like these on a single, case-by-case basis is too much. While many bar associations, including Oklahoma, have commendable practice assistance programs, there's still too great of a disconnect between the legal education and actual legal practice.

Solo and small firm practices provide a great resource to communities to help provide individual and low-cost legal representation. It's important to provide these lawyers and firms with the skills and resources necessary to tackle their problems.

Another Reason for Adobe Acrobat

Rick Borstein, the author of Acrobat for Legal Professionals, cements my prior reasoning regarding legal technology.

This post by Rick discusses PDF/A. PDF-whaaa? You say. 

PDF/A, as Rick notes, is the new legal standard for the federal courts, or at least is moving in that direction. Rick notes that, "If you or your firm does any federal work, this new requirement for filing in PDF/A will significantly affect how you create and work with PDF documents."

His blog post does an excellent job of explaining how to start using PDF/A to make sure your documents comply with this requirement.

It's What Distinguishes Us from the Animals

There's a huge flurry of excitement over blogging, internet websites, and social media. For lawyers, this sphere is quickly becoming the new yellow pages. Recently, there has been a great influx of movement toward the internet, and I suspect more lawyers will "get online" with their law firms.

The problem, as I've beaten profusely, with "getting online," is that it's not only about getting there, it's also about being there.

Here's two examples:

Yesterday a new attorney moved into our office. He's leasing a space, and was looking at a senior attorney in one of the other offices (I share my offices with several other attorneys) for advice to get his website in place. The attorney wasn't around, so he asked me to let him know the young guy was looking for him. Actually, the conversation went more like this:

        Attorney:  Where's X? He said he was around later to talk about creating a website.

        Me:  A website? You don't want to talk to X about a website.

     Attorney:  Why? He said his [closely related computer savvy individual] can design a site for like, $300.00.

        Me:  Really? $300? Have you seen X's site?

        Attorney:  No.

        Me:  Look. [Type in the name of extraordinarily long website].

        Attorney:  Oh.

        Me:  Here's my website. [Type in the name of mediocrely long website].

        Attorney:  Wow. That looks good. (I know he's blowing).

     Me:  Here's a secret: the key to visibility on the internet is visibility. You have to have content to encourage the search engines to care. Otherwise, you're just another website.

        Attorney:  Oh.

        Me:  The problem with X's site is that it sucks. There's not any content.

        Attorney:  Yeah, he said his site's pretty ineffective.

        Me:  That's because it's static, it has words on a page, but nothing else. Dynamic content. That's what drives the internet. You want to know about using the internet, you talk to me, not X. You talk to X about BigLaw legal practice and old school legal services. If you're interested, I'll give you the tools to use, and the information needed to get you successful. The problem is, most attorneys don't want to do the second stage: the work.

It was about this time, we were interrupted by Attorney 3, the second example:

           Attorney 3:  Have you seen my website? It's bi-lingual? It's awesome.

           Me:  No. What's the address?

           Attorney 3:  Uh...not sure. Try X.com.

           Me: Nothing.

           Attorney 3:  Maybe it's not published yet.

           Me: What about the one I helped you set up? [Typing in website.com].

           Attorney 3:  Yeah, that one sucks. We don't use it.

           Me:  But it's your name, what's easier than that?

           Attorney 3:  Couldn't figure it out, so we gave up.

           Me:  Oh, that's logical.

         Attorney 3 to Attorney: The key isn't the internet, the key is word-of-mouth. You'll get more clients from word-of-mouth referrals than having a website.

         Me: That's true. However, for some new attorneys, all you have is time and no word-of-mouth referrals. So, if it's me, I'm going to work on developing credibility via the internet.

           Attorney 3: But I don't get any hits from my website, so it's not an effective way to do things.

           Me: Well, I get referrals, but I also get at least 1 client call per day from my internet work. Again, it's not about just having a website, it's about dynamic content. Search engines put you up at the top when your content is relevant and changing.

            Attorney: Yeah, he just showed me that he's 2 and 3 on Google.

         Me: Those are just two examples of my key metrics and their placement. I have other terms that perform equally well. I want people to find me after searching for those terms, so all my work focuses on including those key metrics in my legal work.

            Attorney: But doesn't it take you a long time? How do you come up with stuff to write about?

            Me: On average, 30 minutes...

            Attorney 3: ...that's 30 minutes you'll never get back.

            Me: True. But if done correctly, I just picked up a client who cost me little to nothing to find, but likely will reward me with at least 10 times my investment. Not too shabby. I find stuff to write about by reading blogs or discussing topics that are important to me.

            Attorney 3:  Blogs? I don't have time to read those, I'm doing real lawyer work.

            Me: And that's the reason my website succeeds and yours doesn't. Part of my real lawyer work includes marketing my practice, and establishing my small niches.

             Me to Attorney: You want to learn about websites and internet marketing, talk to me. You want to learn about referrals, talk to Attorney 3. If you're computer savvy, I'll show you how to get your stuff set up in about 2 hours, for cheap. Not savvy, then I know a gal who does this professionally, she can help you.

Internet marketing is the future. If you're not having success with your marketing scheme, you're doing it wrong. You'll likely continue to chase every whim that you deem effective. The problem for most attorneys is patience. Getting sighted by Google and the other engines requires time. Be patient, follow your scheme, and exercise diligence in the work. That's how you develop an effective marketing scheme.

           

Using Adobe Acrobat in Your Practice

I love Adobe Acrobat. I don't know why more law schools don't offer an Adobe Acrobat/technology training class (oh wait, they're not interested in providing practical skills), because of its necessity in everyday work.

I can honestly say that next to PracticeMaster, Acrobat 9 is my most used program.

Many law firms struggle trying to go "paperless." I've been paperless since the opening of my law firm, and haven't missed those opportunities to scramble through reams of paper in search of that elusive document.

Ernie Svenson is the "Acrobat Ace." I'm sure somewhere on his body he as "I [Heart] Acrobat" tattooed. Needless to say, if you're not reading his insights on his PDF for Lawyers blog, you're missing out. 

Ernie first introduced me to many of the subtle nuances of Acrobat, including my all-time favorite, digital signatures.

The add-in is simple, and provides an excellent method for signing a document without ever lifting a pen. I commonly use this stamp when I want to fax (I use internet faxing) or email a document.

My second-favorite Acrobat tool is the redaction function. I've witnessed far too many "old schoolers" mark production documents with black pens or sticky tabs before copying them and redacting the information (or worse, sending the document with the black markout to me - I can still see the information). This is a terribly time consuming process, and more importantly, it's often ineffective.

Acrobat contains a redaction function that allows you to select the offending text and press a simple key. You can change the color (my favorite is "none") to match the paper/background. When printed, the document loses its redacted information.

If you're not using Acrobat, you're missing out on a great tool. If you don't know how to use Acrobat, get a copy and start playing around. There are numerous websites that discuss Acrobat and its features. Acrobat is the standard for lawyers, and therefore, every new attorney should have an intimate grasp on the "how-tos."

P.S. Once again, nobody paid me to endorse these products or Ernie, although I'd gladly accept all cashier's checks or money orders sent to...

The Law School Application

It's almost that time of year again when the young, aspiring, Type-A personalities begin setting their sights on law school admission. 

Most of the planners took their June LSAT, in anticipation for the December early applications. Many plotted through the summer examining their chances of admission based on their prospective scores and the LSAC's charts. Many also used the time to work on the puffery known as the personal statement.

Yes, I remember it quite well. Although I don't recall exactly what idiotic, self-serving fluff I added (I'm sure I talked about my Eagle Scout award, and my "academic adversity"), I know, somewhere in some dank admissions office, someone had to read it. I apologize profusely to those admissions officers.

The ABA Journal has an article focusing on some of the common errors despised by Yale Law School associate dean of admissions Asha Rangappa. Although I don't recall being any one of the 3 mentioned (perhaps I was the trivial disappointment), certainly nobody likes any of them.

As a side note, don't 1 and 3 eventually become the "gunners"?

So, if you're planning on applying to law school, be conscious about your personal statement. There seems to be one unifying aspect about personal statements: be original.

P.S. You may also want to read this Technolawyer Blog post.

More on Getting "Googled"

The Google Small Business blog has two great posts about using Google Places to build your marketing. I suggest you read them, especially in light of the fact they come from the search engine god itself:

Building your web presence with Google Sites and Google Places

How to Run, Get Online, and Promote Your Business with Google Tools

Remember, I'm intensely satisfied with what Google has done for my law firm website and marketing.

More on Google Places

I Love, Love, Love Google Places. I think it's a fantastic concept, and for me, reaps a lot of benefits.

GP is easily my best investment, for the cheapest price. Tom Kane, author of the Legal Marketing Blog, agrees.

In his most recent post, Tom discusses why he believes that Google Places (he calls it Google Maps) is the place to be. He also, which I think is great, links to a couple other "how-to" posts by Tom O'Leary. These are excellent pieces for beginners. 

The thing I love most is that the "free-factor" gives you the powerful marketing tools your law firm needs, without having to spend the enormous dollars. More precisely, Google Places puts your law firm where it needs to be, and instantly gives you a viable, searchable, findable, web presence.

Getting "Searched"

In the world of blogging, SEO, and Google, content is king. You cannot expect a wide range of searches, hits, and site visits, without constant Google content.

The problem though, is not just any content will work. What I'm learning (because we the Google search algorithm is such a secret) is that you must tailor your content to your audience, but also include enough key components that will allow the Google robots and spiders to "feast."

Recently, I had a guest post on my blog. I thought that this would be an excellent way for me to drive some business to my firm (referring it to the guest), and tap into a potential alternative market. It didn't work out that way. In fact, I haven't had a single inquiry/search result for the keywords I specified. That's disheartening, but very enlightening for me.

Here's what I learned:

1. The searchable content must include key word phrases, but also some generic words too. This is important because Google wants to see the variety. Google wants to see that you used FBI and Federal Bureau of Investigation together, and not just the acronym. This type of usage "tricks" the robots and spiders into to believing your relevancy.
2. You must have fresh content. You cannot expect that 1 post about social security law or medical malpractice will bring in those clients. Similarly, you cannot expect the search bots to associate the "value" of your site with that single post. You must have constant, recurring posts on the subject. Again, this shows the search bots that your firm is relevant and current.
3. Outside links are valuable. Don't just hog all the glory of your own "brilliance." Give plenty of credit to others by showing them love. Outside links to other sites show the search engines that you care about what's going on in the greater population. Google is all about "power to the masses." So why shouldn't their search engine function the same way? Would you expect Google to add "value" your side by placing you at number 1, if you weren't giving things away to other? Add links to other articles.

I think if you'll take a few minutes to truly think about the type of content you're giving your clients and potential clients, you'll find drastic ways to change it up. Remember, it's not so much about what your write, as how you write it.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Please add your comments.

Why You Need to Know Tech

The Law Librarian Blog links to a new study performed by the New York Law Journal, which ranks legal tech companies. I don't know about the applicability of most systems, as none of the systems I used even received a ranking.

However, I do know that technology in law firms is getting more important. For law students, knowledge about, and hands-on experience with a variety of systems is key.

I hire law students to come help me in my office. I think it's beneficial for them, and me. Their experience with technology was somewhat similar to mine during law school - absolute zero (check out this rant post about technology). Sadly, law schools don't prepare you for the harsh reality that you're going to have to work with technology in order to succeed.

Here are some questions to accurately gauge your law-tech knowledge:

1. What is practice management/case management software? Do you know and understand what this term means, and how law firms use the various programs? 
2. Can you name some practice management/case management systems? 
3. What is the difference between using practice management/case management systems and Windows/Mac folders?
4. Do you know what a server is, and how it functions in a workplace environment?
5. Do you know what a network is?
6. Do you know how to save files to a server versus your system's hard-drive?
7. What is the required method for submitting documents to (most) federal court?
8. Do you know how to remove metadata from a document in Microsoft Word? I don't use WordPerfect, but I understand that program automatically (or nearly) eliminates the metadata.
9. Do you know how to use styles, tables, and other formatting techniques to process your documents?
10. Do you know how to use your word processor's comment/change tracking features to collaborate?
11. Do you know how to remove metadata from an Adobe PDF?
12. Er...Do you know how to create a PDF document?
13. Do you know how to create a PDF "package" of documents to send to other people?
14. Can you use Acrobat's redact features to remove information from a document?
15. Do you know how to send a fax? Do you know that you still need to dial long distance (i.e. add country code plus area code) when sending a long-distance fax?
16. Do you know how to send an email?
17. Do you know how to attach a file to the document?
18. Do you know how to burn a CD?
19. Do you know how to use social media?
20. What are some of the popular note-taking programs?
21. Do you know how to research case law without LexisNexis or Westlaw passwords?
22. Do you know if your state publishes cases and court dockets on a centralized system? FYI, Oklahoma has OSCN that offers Oklahoma cases and court dockets.
23. Do you know how to use your state's online case systems?
24. Do you know how to backup your system?
25. Do you know how to use the internet for more than checking Facebook and playing games?

As you can see, the number of possible, and simple, tech questions could continue. The fact though, is that law students need to start preparing themselves to deal with these types of programs.

One of the easiest ways is to actually purchase the program, and use it. Many companies offer discounts for students. These prices are for full versions of the program. Note, there are some restrictions on using the program, so check the licensing agreement. Some schools freely distribute the programs to their students under their educational licensing agreements with the manufacturers. This could save you hundreds of dollars.

My hope is that you'll take your educational experience to the next level. Law school gives you the academic information you'll need, but you're going to need to rely on yourself for the techno-know-how.

Google Places

I don't market my law firm anywhere else but on the internet. Sure, I have the obligatory white pages listing I get when I installed my office line, but that's so indescribably boring that it's hardly worth mentioning.

What has been the true "make it, or break it" marketing maven is my firm and personal listing on Google. I've discussed the benefits of Google, and how my listings on Google influence the types of cases I want to develop. When I ask people how they got my information, "the internet" or "Google" are the two most common responses.

Well, now Jay Fleischman has delved into helping you create and utilize Google Places to your marketing advantage. Jay has two posts, here and here, which effectively and succinctly describe what Google Places is, and how to take advantage of the Google behemoth, all for free.

One of the keys that Jay suggests, which I think is the money quote, is get a separate Google account. I didn't do this when I started my firm's marketing scheme, and frankly, it didn't even cross my mind. Now however, the separate account would be nice. The problem I've realized is that have your marketing connected to your private account will create headaches in the future, i.e., what if you want to sell your business? Your public marketing efforts are intricately tied to your private account. It's unseverable without fully transferring my private Google account. The easiest thing to rectify this problem: get a Google apps account for $50 per year. 

Other than that small glitch, I love (as I've gloated before) seeing my names in the 1 and 2 spots on the Google search page. Even more thrilling is that my names come before the BigLaw firms who have mucho denaro to market with.