Hard to believe our we kicked off our webinar series over a year ago in April of 2009! In that time we’ve heard from incredible thought leaders on subjects ranging from law firm marketing to time management.
Our first host was Grant Griffiths on April 23, 2009. In this recording from our initial webinar, we discuss how blogging can help you grow your law practice and help you position yourself as a “thought leader” and “opinion shaper” in your particular practice area.
Social media gives you a means for even more prospective clients to find you and the ability to network with other “thought leaders” in the legal industry.
About Grant:
In February of 2005 Grant’s first blog was born. This blog was used to market and promote his family law practice. Soon blogging became his only form of written advertising because of its reach and effectiveness. What he also discovered is blogging is one of the most powerful marketing tools available for the small business, home business and professional service firm. Grant is co-founder of G2WebMedia.
Last night our new Trust Accounting functionality emerged from beta and is now available to all existing and new Rocket Matter customers!
For those of you who appreciate our signature ease of use and intuitive approach to building legal software, please take a look at our approach to managing advanced client fees.
The following video is part of our trust accounting informational kit. Take a look if you want to revisit or understand the subject. You’ll also see trust account maintenance demonstrated on Rocket Matter software so you can see how we’ve made what’s normally an excruciating, error-prone task intuitive and simple.
This weekend and early next week, the leaders of continuing legal education will gather in New York City for the 46th annual convention for ACLEA.
As speakers and providers of educational legal content, we’re proud supporters of ACLEA and look forward to both exhibiting and attending.
We like ACLEA not just for the novelty of having an extra ‘A’ at the end of the name (it stands for Association of Continuing Legal Education), it’s a terrific group of people with a great mission.
So we’ll be there trying to find great new speakers for our monthly legal webinar series, our legal productivity podcast, and other educational content. We’re also seeking to meet state bar representatives so we can bring to your location cutting-edge content on quality topics:
I’m writing a book on legal productivity and I’d love to get some real-life tips and practices from successful practicing attorneys for inclusion in the book.
We’ll be judging the entries. The top 20 will be included in our volume, with complete attribution and reference to your firm and website, along with a flying Rocket Matter rocket. The top 5 will receive a Rocket Matter Flying Cow, and the winner with receive a Rocket Matter Snuggie® and a $100 gift card to iTunes!
The question is simple and takes 5 or 10 mins to answer:
What productivity techniques do you incorporate in your work routine?
A paragraph or two is perfect, with a max submission of 200 words. Good luck!
My question: What are the most common mistakes lawyers make with their trust accounts which results in disciplinary action?
1. Not understanding the applicable rule regarding trust accounts;
2. Confusing operating account and trust account transactions;
3. Leaving earned fees in the trust account and thereby co-mingling;
4. Cash or ATM transactions with a trust account;
5. Not keeping adequate records of trust account transactions;
6. Opening a trust account, ordering checks, but failing to make a deposit of the lawyer’s own funds into the trust account to cover the cost of the check. This usually overdraws the account within a few days of it being opened and provides a disciplinary inquiry;
7. Accepting fees by credit card and not being sensitive to whether the fees should go into the trust account or operating account;
8. Issuing funds from the trust account before the deposited check has cleared and the funds have setup;
9. Delegating too much authority to staff regarding the trust account operation and failing to supervise staff with trust account duties;
10. Not asking for help when questions arise about trust and operating account transactions and not knowing where to get help;
11. Putting too much of one’s own funds into the trust account.
Thanks Dan, for this incredible list! Note that Dan knows the D.C. bar rules inside and out, but you should check your Rules of Professional Conduct where you practice.
One of the best ways to boost your legal productivity, aside from using dedicated legal productivity software, is to embrace mind maps. We keep revisiting mind maps in our posts because they’re one of the most powerful collaboration and brainstorming tools we use here at Rocket Matter for all aspects of our operations.
Carolyn Elefant of MyShingle and I were recently speaking, and she mentioned her love of mind mapping as well. In fact, she put one together for starting a law firm! I took a look, and she used the same tool I did, MindMeister, to put together a stunning, easy-to-read, and informative summary of how to hang your own shingle.
With our new trust accounting and billing functionality, we’ve incorporated a number of really great analytics tools so that law firms can get a quick, intelligent sense of what’s going on in the practice.
Big fat numbers, clickable into drill down reports, which click further down into more detail, have all the information you’ve ever wanted to see about the financial position and performance of your law firm.
However, since we’ve put so much power into the hands of our attorneys, we need to make sure that inside a firm, not everybody gets to see the whole picture (especially now, during Intern season).
Enter our new privacy controls. We spent a lot of time and energy on this, so that we could provide a ton of flexibility for the different roles who might access Rocket Matter. For instance, accountants, senior partners, junior associates, and receptionists all may or may not need access to financial data, client information, and so on.
Of course, we had to make them good-looking (couldn’t resist):
What’s the purpose of SoloCorps? As you’ve probably read a million times, the legal profession is in a state of upheaval, with conventional law jobs being lost each day and biglaw on the demise. Yet out of this turmoil, the solo experience endures and inspires. We want to capture solos talking about law practice in the 21st century, about the challenges of practicing in remote and rural communities, part time practice and the impact of technology. We want to hear what it feels like to work with a really great client, and what to do when you’re stuck with a lousy one. Most of all, we want your wisdom – your advice for today’s lawyers and the next generation.
On a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) rank your level of agreement with the statement: I know what I’m doing when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).
This webinar is sponsored by Rocket Matter and is free to attend!
Avvo has been fielding calls and emails about SEO best practices and have decided to offer our insight and address many of the frequently asked questions with an hour long presentation. The webinar is an introduction to SEO for the solo and small legal firm delivered in (mostly) non-technical jargon.
Attorneys who attend this webinar will learn about:
• Review SEO fundamentals
• Uncover challenges and opportunities unique to the small law firm
• Highlight common mistakes
• Reveal unethical practices which may get your site penalized
• Cover free and easy to use tools vital to SEO success
• End with 10 things you can do in under 10 minutes to improve your site’s SEO performance
About Conrad Saam:
Conrad runs marketing for Avvo, a Seattle-based Internet company that has revolutionized the way consumers navigate the highly confusing legal industry. He oversees the firm’s PPC, SEO, social media, online marketing, email and web analytics initiatives. Avvo grew from concept to market leader in the legal directory space just two years after launch, surpassing huge established brands with multimillion dollar advertising budgets and entrenched users.
