Yesterday I introduced the idea of the phased delivery of productized legal services. I left you with my insistence that each phase of your workflow should have a deliverable. Specifically, a client-facing one. Today I’ll unpack that assertion. A few bits of background: (1) While people can perceive plenty of value from experiences, the experience of working with a lawyer is not high on anyone’s bucket list. That’s not to say that legal work isn’t valuable, just that most people don’t perceive tremendous value from the process of working with a lawyer.* I’ve seen this be a major source of frustration for attorneys in their relationship with clients. “They have ... (Keep reading)
The Agile Attorney Blog
Happy solstice! As we mark a celestial turning point, I’ll jump on the metaphor to offer a few thoughts on what I think is the necessary turning point for legal professionals to build practices that meet my triple goals of being profitable, scalable, and sustainable: a shift to phased delivery of productized legal services. For purposes of this week’s posts, I’m using Richard Susskind’s continuum from his provocatively titled 2008 book, The End Of Lawyers (Amazon Link | Powells Link). In it, Susskind argues that in order to meet the demands of 21st century buyers of legal services, legal professionals need to migrate their offerings away from highly customized services. ... (Keep reading)
Continuing this week’s theme on Attention Pollution… Yesterday I challenged the conventional wisdom that lawyers should always be responsive to their clients. So how can a lawyer create a good customer experience without being responsive? Easy: Be proactive instead. You’ve probably heard that lack of lawyer communication is one of the most common sources of client dissatisfaction—and bar complaints! So put your communication on a schedule. Depending on your practice type, every single one of your clients should be getting an update on their case anywhere from weekly to monthly. Even if what you send is a “No update update,” clients will appreciate hearing from you and seeing what is ... (Keep reading)
Continuing this week's theme of Attention Pollution... Yesterday I talked about ditching the dings, the little interruptions that take up way more of your time than you probably realize.Today I'm going to poke at some conventional wisdom of lawyer culture: the idea that "client responsiveness" is a hallmark of good lawyering. "But I need to be responsive to my clients" is one of the most frequent objections I hear to my "ditch the dings" recommendation ("If I don't know a client is emailing me then I can't be responsive to them" is how the thinking goes). It is also one of the worst objections.As someone who grew up with lots ... (Keep reading)
Yesterday I wrote about Attention Pollution. A few of you wrote back thanking me for the reminder to focus on protecting your attention. One person suggested that it was similar to the advice that eating healthier begins in the grocery store; if you never bring the junk food home then you are a lot less likely to eat it. Same goes for attention pollution—the choices you make about your device settings (or even the physical presence of your devices) go a long way towards preventing distraction. That reminded me about the single best piece of advice about protecting yourself form interruptions: Turn off as many digital notifications as you possibly ... (Keep reading)
You’re probably familiar with the notion of attention hacking by now. Seems like every few months some former BigTech engineer comes out and says “huh, maybe this thing I helped build to steal people’s attention isn’t so good for society.” The most recent example, albeit a novel one, is the Google engineer who believes that their conversational AI has become sentient. (Like many, I initially scoffed, and I still don’t find his particular argument convincing. But the reality is that we are definitely going to have to wrestle with the ramifications of some version(s) of “sentient” AI in my lifetime… however that’s not the topic of this post.) I recently ... (Keep reading)
This is part of my series where I try to help anonymous strangers on Reddit (as u/AgileAtty). You can find the original post here. I run a small family law firm of two attorneys and a paralegal. We have enough work to hire more people, but hiring has been a big challenge. I am looking for resources on how to grow a firm. Looking for specific information on some of the following topics: How do I calculate the total amount of money necessary to pay a lawyer? There are so many ancillary charges that I am losing track. For example, hiring a new attorney requires additional office space, access to ... (Keep reading)
This is part of my series where I try to help anonymous strangers on Reddit. You can find the original post here. Just told my boss a few weeks ago that I am leaving and going solo. I have been working at a PI firm for the past 2-3 years and have always wanted to start and run my own firm since before law school. I have a background in business and sales and will use these strengths to get PI cases in the door. …Any advice, tips, and tricks, will be greatly appreciated. Especially by people who have done this and failed or succeeded. What advice would you give ... (Keep reading)
In Season 1 of the Agile Attorney Podcast, we are focusing on the Voice of the Client. I am bringing you the stories of real people in their own voice talking about the challenges and successes they have had dealing with lawyers. You can listen to the episode in your favorite podcast app using one of these links: Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; Stitcher; Overcast; PocketCasts; YouTube (with subtitles).Today we’re re-visiting family law by hearing from Jason, who thought he and his ex-wife were on the cusp of an amicable divorce. But he eventually came to feel like the legal system was set up, either by rule or by custom or both, to put him and his wife ... (Keep reading)
In Season 1 of the Agile Attorney Podcast, we are focusing on the Voice of the Client. I am bringing you the stories of real people in their own voice talking about the challenges and successes they have had dealing with lawyers. This episode is a little bit different. I talk with Dennis, a financial planner in central California not about him hiring a lawyer as a client, but about what he thinks about the lawyers he refers people to as part of his professional network.While he isn’t “hiring a lawyer” in the traditional sense, he is hiring his referral partners—who happen to be lawyers—do a job for him. In ... (Keep reading)
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