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Buying legal technology can go one of two ways: your firm ends up with great software that fits your needs or a week after go-live you come to find that you’ve made a huge mistake.
In, How to Begin Evaluating New Technology, we discussed how to collect and categorize your firm’s feedback. The next step your firm should take is to create a requirements list.
When you begin this process, one thing that is very important to note is that you should not commoditize your practice management system. Making an exhaustive requirements list can sometimes move you in that direction, but the real goal of your list is to make sure you’re not missing any features you need. The purpose of this list is to use what you have created as a guideline for what your firm must have (versus pitting staff with opposing opinions against one another).
If you carry a mindset that every feature is equal and all practice management systems are the same, you’re going to be really disappointed.
Avoid the feature comparison trap by thinking about the direction your firm is going. Ask yourself: What do I want my practice to look like in 5–10 years? How do I want my interpersonal relationships with my staff to be?
The easiest way to start building your requirements list is to bullet out every possible feature that a practice management software could have and then begin crossing off the things you don’t need.
Additionally, you should be visiting sites like Capterra to evaluate the customer reviews for the software options you’re considering. Reviews can provide you with a snapshot of customers’ sentiment, but don’t look to them as a shortcut to making a final decision; rather, use reviews to find ideas or read comments about topics or problems that you haven’t thought of already. They are a great knowledge bank for you to tap into in order to form your own opinions.
Many reviews at sites like Capterra will talk about specific shortcomings (e.g., “It didn’t bring our history over so we can’t do compensation reports.”). Feedback from third parties who have already used the software can often prove to be just as useful as feedback from your team.
Additionally, if you’re part of the Association of Legal Administrators or any other professional communities, take advantage of their forums by asking questions like, "What is something you wish you had asked or knew ahead of time prior to buying new legal Software?"
Based on what you learn, adjust your requirements list accordingly.
Be aware that one of the worst things you could do for yourself is to ask a vendor to fill out the requirements list for you.
Instead, you need to have that list readily available and in front of you before a live demo. What happens if you pass your list off to a vendor is two-fold. First, you’ve commoditized the software and, second, you’re letting them check things off for you. When you get on a demo, you want to be shown the features that are important to you and you want to see how they work so that you can determine whether or not the software will align with your process.
For example, a vendor may say its software includes origination tracking functionality, but that does not mean its origination tracking feature will match your firm’s needs.
It is crucial that you go through the checklist yourself and mark what you deem as sufficient versus allowing someone else to mark what they think you need. No one knows your firm or your processes better than you do, so don’t overlook these details!
Of course, it is fine to send your vendors your list ahead of time in order to alert them to the features you want; after all, you want to make sure the demo is a good use of your time – but you don’t want them to check those boxes for you.
The worst thing you can do for yourself is to come into this process blind. After having spoken with your team, build out a list of features or capabilities you already know you need. If you have are drawing blanks, that's okay! Read through review sites, do some homework, and take a deep breath! There are no wrong answers, this step is simply to help you stay as organized and on top of the process as possible. You can't predict everything, but preparedness is the best way to avoid miscommunication and hurt expectations.
Many people are resistant to change. Oftentimes, that resistance comes down to two factors: the fear of loss or the fear of having to adopt new processes. Whatever the reason may be, change is often the inhibitor preventing innovation and improvement.
With this in mind, ask yourself this, if change is necessary for the advancement of society and businesses alike, how can you help your firm embrace the change that will help improve your business?
There are three types of change that impact our firms.
Regardless of the type of change, people fear they are losing something. To address those fears and have as smooth a transition as possible, there are steps you can take to encourage your firm members that you are taking the matter seriously and working to ensure the change is made for the good of all. Let's take a look.
Firms who have a clear strategic plan and clear vision of where they are going will find it easiest to identify where change is needed. By identifying where you want your firm to be in ten or five or three years, you can assess external and internal environments and determine what challenges are going to interfere with your goals and what changes you need to make to overcome those challenges.
For firms who do not have a clear strategic plan and vision (don’t feel bad if this is you, as this is the majority!), the need for change is often ignored until there is a financial loss that is impacting the firm in a negative way. By ignoring the need for change, a firm will eventually lose its competitiveness in today’s market, impacting its bottom line, and then there will be a scramble to make the necessary changes to overcome the challenge. This reactive instead of proactive approach creates a firm environment that can be unsettling for its members, and the more you can work toward becoming a firm that is proactive, the better off you will be.
Without the buy-in and support of leadership, any attempt at change will be a challenge. Firm employees are intelligent people, and if they are reporting to a partner who is not on board with a change, they will see it, and they will follow suit. You will not get the entire firm steering your ship in the same direction if your leadership is not all turning the wheel in the same direction.
When considering a change in your firm, it is important to communicate early and often. Do not assume that leadership discussions stay within the upper ranks. There will always be a partner who trusts their long-time staffer with management information, and before you know it the rumor mill is buzzing. With the exception of people changes that are inappropriate to share, it is important to communicate with your firm members. Today’s technology allows for such communication in a face-to-face environment even if you are not all in the same location. One communication with everyone at the same time is ideal so that everyone receives the same message.
What if, after communication among firm members or while still on the leadership level of communication, you discover the issue is not yet ripe for change, but you know it is important to your firm’s long-term vision? Do not despair. Over time, you can gently move communication in a direction that it becomes ripe for change.
We already know that humans do not like change. How can we help them overcome their fears? Part of the communication process involves including all stakeholders in the process. Consider a technology change, for example. Who are your end users? How will they use the product? Do you know all the ways in which they use your current system and what their needs or wishes are for a future product?
When it comes to technology, there are many reasons for change, but the most important reason is to meet the expectations of our clients. Clients today want efficiency, transparency, service delivery, and technological savvy from their law firms. While this is what your external stakeholders want, your internal stakeholders may be harder to convince. Where do you start?
Follow-through is important. If your firm has a habit of implementing changes but not following through on them – saying we are going to do things one way, then finding it doesn’t work and going back to the old ways that don’t work – eventually you will not be taken seriously. If firm members see you taking change seriously for the greater good and evaluating what went right and what went wrong, they will be on board with you.
By knowing what you hope to accomplish at the beginning of your project, you can easily identify benchmarks of improvement that the change is meant to accomplish. Once the change has been made, are these benchmarks being met? Things don’t always work out as we had hoped, and that is okay. It is also okay for your firm members to see that you are not afraid to try and fail – it will encourage everyone to be a change agent looking for ways to improve for the greater good without fear of failure.
Some examples for positive changes you might see from a change in technology, for example:
By identifying similar benchmarks for what you hope your change will accomplish, you can easily pinpoint what worked and what didn’t. By allowing your firm members to participate in these processes, the changes necessary for the growth of your firm will have a much better chance at being successful.
Change can be hard, but without it, your firm will lack the progress and development needed to stay relevant in a very competitive industry.
Many firms, upon deciding it’s time to evaluate new technology, make the mistake of immediately sprinting toward a solution, especially when they have been forced into addressing a sudden problem.
They dive headfirst into the search for new practice management software and completely forget a huge step – arguably the most important step: meeting with the people who are going to use it the most.
As soon as you realize your practice needs new technology, the first thing you need to do is take the discussion internal. Too often, the decision to buy software is made by a handful of people within the organization, which makes firm-wide adoption more challenging. It leads to greater conflict and pushback, and makes training on the new system considerably harder. Without team buy-in, implementation of new technology could even make the team’s job harder.
You might be wondering how introducing new technology could make your team’s job harder. Let’s go over some examples:
The takeaway here: Don’t call an audible and buy software on your own without speaking to the people who have the most skin in the game!
If you’ll be the one organizing and collecting all of this internal data, start by putting out some feelers to people in order to get a grasp on the politics of your firm. Plant the seeds to gauge how they would feel about adopting new software. It will be more helpful than you think to know exactly what people’s gut reactions were prior to processing any feedback.
When you do reach out to speak with your team formally, lead off with the following two steps to get the best results:
Conducting the actual discussions in person as opposed to over email encourages open dialogue and ensures your team feels like part of the process.
If you’re a small team, you may talk to everyone in the firm; if you’re a midsize firm, you want to speak with at least one person from every department. On the administrative side, it is advisable to speak with everyone regardless of firm size because they will be such heavy users of the software. Consider speaking to:
• Partners
• Associates
• Paralegals
• Legal Assistants
Additionally, you want to speak directly with both the more technology-adept team members and those who don’t love using technology. If you don’t diversify your sample, you will end up with vastly different responses and reactions when it comes time to go live.
Avoid asking leading questions when you do speak with the team. Don’t come into this with an agenda. Ask open-ended questions that allow your staff to freely express their raw opinions and thoughts. The best software you can buy is the one that your staff will like and actually use.
Once you have spoken to everyone you need to, compile a list of all the feedback you received and categorize it into buckets. These buckets can be whatever you want, but if you need a kickstart, use Billing, Accounting, and Practice Management as a guide. From there, you could break each category down further. Consider the following breakdowns:
Billing:
Accounting:
Practice Management:
In the end, you want to create your own categories based on what your staff is telling you they need.
Oftentimes, the two parties that push back the most when presented with new software are the Billing team, who don’t want to change their processes, and the Shareholders, who may not feel the expense is justified.
To address Finance concerns, the first thing you should do is ask them to identify any major pain points or complaints they foresee with moving to a new system. Listen to them, make sure they feel heard, and point out the key benefits and shortcuts that the new system offers. In most cases, the initial change is the biggest hurdle to get past. If you can get them excited about the long-term benefits of the technology and emphasize that the road to get there isn’t as cumbersome as it sounds, you’ll be more likely to get them on board
For the Shareholders, it’s all about the value proposition – show them the money! Highlight some of the ways that new technology stands to make your firm money, both in the long and short term: It will enable you to capture more billable hours, increase client satisfaction and referral rates, and attract top talent for a long-term competitive advantage.
It is easy to jump into a process you're excited about, but there are many intricacies and considerations that go into buying new legal software. Rushing this process can result in either miscommunication, wrong expectations, and an unhappy team. Take your time and do your internal due diligence before you start knocking on vendor's doors.
Timing is everything, right? The old adage holds true when thinking about upgrading technology.
Maybe you’ve been on legacy software for years. Maybe you work entirely on paper. Perhaps you’re still dipping a fountain pen into an inkwell (by the way, if that’s the case – cool). Wherever you’re at, how do you know when it’s time to start evaluating new technology? Is there ever a bad time? And why do you need to make a change anyway? If you can’t give sound answers to these questions, then figuring out where to begin is going to be considerably more difficult.
When firms begin to think about evaluating new software, two distinct mindsets come into play: reactive and proactive. Which one your firm holds will set the stage for how you kick off this process.
For firms with a reactive mindset, one of five primary motivations tends to drive them to reevaluate their legal technology.
Just like car batteries, servers don’t last forever and eventually need to be replaced.
Picture this: Your server is on the fritz but still operational. The IT guy says it’s got six months to a year. You hold off on any major moves and it dies unexpectedly three months later. Now you’re looking at anywhere between $1,000–$30,000 to replace it (depending on server size, payment plan, configuration, and duration of use). Maybe you’re a midsize firm and you need an even bigger server to replace the old one, maybe you even need two. So not only do you have to buy a server or two, you also have to get all the required software and networking – and you have to have someone or some way to monitor it for security and performance. We won’t go down the dark hole of law firm data breaches, but that is not something to take lightly.
A reactive firm will wait until their server is at the end of its life, which forces them into making a sudden choice to either buy a new one or move everything to the cloud. Since buying and maintaining a server is such a big capital expenditure, the firm often realizes at this point that the costs associated with replacing the server do not outweigh the benefits of going with cloud-based technology.
Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are common in most legacy software; without them, users wouldn’t be able to access their data remotely.
Traditionally, most firms set up a VPN only for those individuals who may work from outside of the office. In these cases, its capacity is only set to be operationally functional for about 20–25% of the firm’s workforce. The more people who need to rely on the VPN to work from different locations, the more the functionality of the private network will suffer. VPNs were not made to host 100% of your workforce.
A VPN is dated technology, especially when looked at alongside cloud computing. In some ways, you can think of it as the first version of the cloud. With teams all over the world shifting toward remote or hybrid models, the timing has never been worse for you to feel the burden of a struggling VPN’s impact on productivity. A reactive firm will wait until sluggish functionality forces them to consider other options.
Many firms already use some form of cloud-based technology, but that doesn’t automatically mean they’re happy with the software they chose. There are a number of reasons that may cause a firm to think about making a sudden switch from one cloud-based technology to another. The most predominant reason is that the current system lacks features that the firm needs. This is the unfortunate result of either poor communication from the vendor or the firm not being explicit enough about their needs during the initial discussions with the sales team.
Another pain point that often leads firms to switch software is how their data is distributed. If their current software doesn’t have the necessary integrations they need to manage their day-to-day operations (think document management, court deadline scheduling, etc.), they have to rely on additional third-party programs. At first, firms may not feel that this is an issue. However, as time goes by, they realize how inefficient their operations are becoming as a result of their data being spread across several programs. Working out of multiple systems makes it significantly harder to utilize the data effectively enough to make sound business decisions. Firms end up having to train their staff on each new program, all while dealing with the human errors that commonly arise from working piecemeal with large quantities of information.
Think about a software program that only has billing features and lacks accounting functionality. In this case, firms have to rely on outside technology for all of their accounting needs, which leads to copious manual work and, subsequently, more chances for human error (because let’s face it, none of us are perfect). If you’ve ever had to enter information into multiple systems like this before, you know very well the pain we are talking about here. Firms also sometimes overlook the importance of a mobile app. In the fast-paced, on the-go environment of today, a mobile app is essential. And just because a vendor offers cloud-based software, it doesn’t mean they also have a mobile app, leaving some firms with buyers’ remorse as they remain glued to their desktops unless they switch to new software.
Another reason firms consider making the switch to cloud-based software is that they’re late on their annual maintenance plan (AMP) fees.
Many legacy software programs have this annual maintenance fee to provide users with an annual software update. Sometimes it may get you additional help from the support team, but you’re really paying this fee to get the latest software update.
When firms purchased software 20 years ago, it meant they were also getting the latest and greatest features and fixes every year. Nowadays, the model is to shell out for the software, watch as new bugs and performance issues emerge, and then, come the end of your year (whether that is calendar-based or not), pay for those bugs to get fixed. Naturally, many firms have found themselves asking, “Why would I pay thousands of dollars every year for fixes to problems I didn’t create?”
After about five minutes of soul-searching, firms typically respond by refusing to pay the AMP. And then what happens? Firms fall so far behind on their payments that they are left with outdated and bug-ridden software until they pay back everything they owe for their years of update neglect.
Once again, a reactive firm will find itself forced into a decision. Paying the AMP certainly isn’t appealing at this point since they won’t even get better software. When they look at the burden of paying all that money back, they start to wonder if it would be a better use of their money to ditch the software entirely and go with something new.
Did you know that one out of every four law firms has been a victim of data breach? In 2020, there were 3,932 publicly reported data breaches, comprising over 37 billion records. If your jaw didn’t just drop, it should have.
At one point in time, cloud technology was viewed as a security hazard compared to on-premise servers. Today, however, that reality has changed. On-premise servers are at significantly greater risk for breaches because they are exposed to way more physical elements. If you have on-premise hardware, think about where it is. Who has access to it? How securely locked up is it? What would happen if there were a natural disaster? Unfortunately, at the end of the day, if a firm has on-premise hardware, it’s the firm’s job to manage and protect that technology. The simple truth is if a firm is hacked even once, it needs to react quickly and decisively to make a change.
The easiest way to take server security off your plate is by working with a cloud-based provider. Ask yourself what you can do better to protect your firm and your clients and how you would react to a breach. The data you handle is sensitive and hackers today9 use sophisticated techniques to gain access to it. If you aren’t relying on companies who protect data for a living to keep yours secure, you are exposing your firm to significant risk. As soon as a security breach happens – a very real risk when you look at the numbers – a reactive firm is pushed to evaluate new cloud-based software.
If any of those scenarios resonated with you, it is time to start looking at new legal technology while you have the leisure to do so.
Now, firms with a proactive mindset are intent on staying ahead of any problems and motivated by a desire to improve. Instead of waiting for issues to occur, these firms pursue action-driven solutions to maximize their operations. This road often leads them to consider cloud-based software much earlier than a reactive firm.
Any number of areas of improvement may serve as motivation for a proactive firm. Here are five of the most common ones.
Proactive firms are motivated to meet the current state of technology. They take active steps to adopt modern solutions that may not have existed five years ago, taking note of their current pain points and strategically planning how they can alleviate them. Generally, they set out to improve current processes, become more efficient, and implement software that allows them to be agile, grow, and develop.
Younger attorneys view technology as a means to push themselves ahead. They see the modernization of old practices as a way for them to do a better job.
When younger attorneys evaluate firms, they are also evaluating the tech stack each firm has in place. Proactive firms realize that buying that new technology allows them to more easily recruit top talent. Think of your tech stack as part of your benefits, right alongside the number of PTO days you provide and the strength of your healthcare plan. The technology you offer can be a deciding factor for whether an up-and-coming attorney wants to work for your firm, just like those traditional factors. The difference it makes might be the competitive edge you need. And if you have yet to notice that difference, you will soon.
Many of the more established attorneys do not see the importance and value of legal software. They see it as an unneeded change to a successful career they’ve managed without digitization and automation tools. However, you shouldn’t turn a blind eye to the younger generations because one day they will be the dominant force within your firm.
Your clients are expecting three basic things from you:
We call the need for immediacy the ‘‘Amazon Effect,” where people need things yesterday. Obviously, that type of speed is not feasible in the legal industry, but proactive firms look for ways to emulate that type of service.
To start, your firm needs to be available. No one hits a panic button faster than a client who either doesn’t feel heard or can’t quickly get the information they need. And you have no idea when your client may or may not need something from their files. On a related note, your staff does not have time to be on the phone constantly. Utilizing software with advantages like a client portal not only helps reduce the number of client calls, it also helps your firm stand out by getting your clients what they need faster. You should always be striving for transparency, not just because it is good for your clients but because it also frees up your time. Today, your clients and potential new clients (PNCs) are looking for that white-glove service. If you cannot offer that, another firm can.
And if you don’t believe us, a study by BTI Consulting Group showed that 80% of participating clients expected immediate responses to texts and emails. But don’t worry, “immediate” in this study was defined as between 1–2 hours. Unfortunately, when firms were evaluated, attorneys considered “immediate” to be between 4–8 hours. With that big of a time discrepancy between attorney and client expectations, clients can get anxious, grow impatient, and become less likely to refer service post-matter. Although you may be juggling many clients at once, the goal is to treat each client like they’re your only client. A client portal helps you achieve that by giving clients autonomous accessibility, which has the added perk of reducing the time you spend answering their questions.
This responsiveness can be translated into how successful your business is as well. When people are searching for representation, oftentimes it is the firm that responds to their call or email first that wins the business. Not only are these firms setting the tone right off the bat, they are also making the client feel prioritized – a huge factor when it comes to converting potential new clients into billable clients.
An ABA Benchmark study on intake process found that 42% of the time law firms took three or more days to reply to a voicemail or web-generated form from a prospective client. That’s a long time! Firms spend time and money to collect new leads, yet are slow to capitalize when new leads come due to responding inefficiently. Your availability, response rate, and transparency all contribute to the client experience. Legal software is the best place to start if you want to improve these aspects.
If a firm’s goal is to increase revenue, the initial reflex for many is to try to hire more attorneys. But if you leverage technology, you can increase that revenue by capitalizing on features that allow you to capture more billable time.
This can be as simple as entering time on the go, whether it’s on the train, at a dinner event, or in line at a grocery store – or it can be complex like being able to instantly track and create billable events for text messages, calls, and emails as the conversations occur. On average, attorneys only capture 2.3 billable hours a day, so automatically capturing your time as it happens is the easiest way to grow your business without hiring more staff.
If your firm has plans to move to a more distributed workspace, it has a huge reason to invest in technology. Leveraging the connectivity that legal tech provides minimizes the negative aspects of working remotely (such as communication problems, connection issues, organization lapses, etc.). On top of that, it improves overall productivity by giving everyone access to resources that were built to enable agility and efficiency away from the office.
It shouldn’t matter where your staff or attorneys are. They need to have access to their work and your firm is going to lose money if they don’t. Firms that are proactively seeking flexibility inevitably pursue legal software because that is exactly what it gives them.
There are many reasons why your firm may need to evaluate new technology and depending on that reason, your journey into the buying process could look very different. Knowing why your team is evaluating new technology will help you stay prepared and give you better insight into what you ultimately need.
Because of its prevalence, most people already know what this is, but put simply, the cloud allows an internet user to access a third-party computing resource located in almost an endless network of interconnected servers that allow you to run your computer’s applications over the internet without having to buy, install or manage your own servers.
What this means is you could run your firm’s IT operations with nothing more than a browser and internet connection. By using the cloud, firms of all sizes can reduce IT costs, manage data storage needs more effectively, and improve staff flexibility. In a short amount of time, the cloud has emerged as one of the most meaningful innovations in technology.
The cloud symbol was first used to represent the public telephone systems on our dial-ups and since the original basis of the internet was through dial-up modems, that symbol has been used and now represents what we know of today as “the cloud.” Before we go on, it is important to note that when we say “client-server,” the word “client” does not refer to your customer. Depending on your role, this word means two different things (depending on if you’re on the IT team or an attorney.) The word “client” to an IT person means a device used by one person at a time to access the internet. Essentially it is just an access point, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, PC, you name it. These access points (or clients), and central servers which supply applications and data, are shared amongst several clients and can be accessed at any one time. So when you sign in to Gmail, or anywhere on the internet, you’re not the only person at that exact moment who can gain access. Thousands, if not millions of people could access their Gmail account at the same time through their own client-server.
Let’s take a look at the five essential characteristics of the cloud:
On-demand service essentially means you order what you want when you want it. You can unilaterally make such provisions either regarding server settings or network storage without the need for any interaction from the provider’s IT administrator. Further examples of such resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.
Broad network access means you have access to your data over the standard network through client platforms such as your smartphone, PC, or laptop.
Resource pooling simply means that providers serve multiple customers, with provisional and scalable services. These services can be adjusted to suit each customer’s needs without any changes being apparent to the customer or end-user. When you access a server on the internet, it’s not only your information on that server, there is other people’s information as well. Sometimes there may just be one server for 50 different people and sometimes it could even be located overseas. As attorneys, this is incredibly important to be aware of. Many firms will just sign up or pay for cloud services and have no idea where their actual data is being stored, or who it’s being stored with. Sometimes it’s because they don’t care, and other times it’s because they don’t know to ask. So make sure you ask your vendor this question!
Rapid elasticity allows users to automatically request additional space in the cloud or other types of services. ... In a sense, cloud resources appear to be infinite or automatically available. That's very different from older systems, where the limits of storage or memory were immediately visible to a user. Compared to on-premise servers, this process is significantly easier and more convenient.
Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported. This provides transparency for both the provider and the consumer of the service. Your firm can actually get insight into the performance of your network with statistics that monitor your usage.
The first question that many firms ask cloud providers is, “how much will it cost?” This is a logical question, but the price range varies so drastically, that it makes more sense to narrow down specific goals and aspects of your firm. Let’s take a look.
Take a look at the chart below. The first thing you need to consider is the upfront expenditure. Let’s look at the on-premise category first. A good quality single server with no redundancy can run anywhere from $3,500-$8,000 if you’re going low end. A decent, middle-of-the-road server will land you north of $10,000. With that, you will need a backup system, which incorporates both software and hardware which could easily tack on another $2,000+. Next, you will want a quality APC battery or locate your system in a colo-data center to protect all of this valuable equipment. Following that line item is your server licensing. This is not per physical server, but per virtual server which typically runs inside of one box. Traditionally, you will be running an active directory, a file server, and a database server. Best practices dictate you separate these roles into multiple servers, but you could combine some of these roles into two servers, which is where you get the $1,900. Next are your user licenses or your client access licenses. This is required for each person who needs access to the server. If they run slightly over $40, and you have 15 people at your firm, you’re looking at about $840. Another expense is your Microsoft SQL licenses which almost every on-premise case management system requires. You can pay for this by the processing core, or by the user, but either way, it comes out to about the same. Finally, There will definitely be implementation fees to get this all together and have your firm up and running. With the going IT rate, you’re looking at about $5,000 of total labor.
The next two columns are much more simplistic. All the listed services are either included in a private cloud or are not applicable. With the cloud, you will still have a labor fee that will either be due upfront or spread out with payments over a designated period of time. For web applications, if you’re considering a change, this will oftentimes require the assistance of a third-party consulting firm.
| Expenses | On-Premise Servers | Cloud | Web Applications |
| Server(s) Hardware | $5,500 | Included | N/A |
| Backup Solution | $2,000 | Included | N/A |
| APC Battery | $1,500 | Included | N/A |
| Microsoft Server Licensing ($950/ea.) | $1,900 | Included | N/A |
| Microsoft User Licenses ($42/ea.) | $840 | Included | N/A |
| Microsoft SQL Licenses ($209/ea.) | $4,180 | Included | N/A |
| Terminal Server Licenses ($133/ea.) | N/A | Included | N/A |
| Setup Fee | $5,000 | $4,425 | $7,500 |
| Total Up-Front Cost | $20,920 | $4,425 | $7,500 |
Now that we have talked about the upfront costs, let’s look at some of the common monthly expenditures:
| Expenses | On-Premise Servers | Cloud | Web Applications |
| Server Maintenance ($200-$350/ea.) | $5,500 | Included | N/A |
| User Support + Anti-Virus ($49/user) | $735 | Included | $735 |
| Offsite Backup (25-75 cents/gig) | $100 | Included | N/A |
| Remote Access (GoToMyPC: $30/user) | $450 | N/A | N/A |
| Cloud Storage ($0-$50/user) | N/A | Included | $105 |
| Total Monthly Costs | $6,785 | $2,085 | $840 |
The first line item is your server maintenance. If you have a server, you will want to make sure that it is properly maintained, monitored, secured, and audited on a routine basis. This is especially critical with the security threats we face today. Assuming you’re running 2-3 virtual servers, you’re looking at about $500.
User support entails the support for each computer, anti-virus work, print capabilities, and general network support. The average spend for this is about $49 per user, per month. Some firms will have an in-house IT team, others will outsource the help. The former is quite costly as you’re salarying these additional team members, but outsourcing your support can be tricky if you need immediate assistance. For web applications, keep in mind that if you can eliminate all of your servers, this cost will remain, and in some cases, this cost may increase as computer management becomes increasingly difficult with no server to help automate management.
Next is the offsite backup category, this is native to almost all cloud solutions, whereas on-premise servers need to be backed up nightly. Be warned that if you are not backing up your data, you risk losing it in a crash. Paying for such solutions varies drastically in price, if you’re looking for a full backup and disaster recovery solution, you could be looking at thousands per month. For the sake of our example, we took the very basic backup system which typically charges between 25-75 cents/gig.
Now, looking at remote access, this also runs natively to any cloud-based solution. If you have an on-premise option, you can get a dedicated terminal or Citrix server. This would add significant spending to the upfront and server maintenance columns. Since we’re considering a 15-user law office, chances are, they’re using RDP over VPN directly to their desktop, or more commonly, a GoToMyPC or log me in a type of solution.
For storage, most firms with on-premise servers are using their file server which could be your S drive or your T drive (for example). Additional costs here come from when your file server runs out of space or there’s a server malfunction or breach.
Everything we just mentioned encompasses the average base cost for each solution. Each service provider is different, and fees will vary depending on what your firm chooses to adopt vs. waive.
The chart below looks at some features that cannot be quantified mathematically, but they hold immense value.
Each firm has to evaluate which of these intangible assets are most critical, and which are considered to be more of a luxury. Consider things like mobile access and liability. Do you have plans to geographically expand your firm? Do you want your staff to be connected with centralized access to the same data? Do your due diligence before signing on the dotted line.
Ultimately, all of these intangibles should help you evaluate whether your firm should pursue cloud, on-prem, or web application services, so don’t take them lightly!
| Intangibles | On-Premise Servers | Cloud | Web Applications |
| Mobile | Limited | Robust | Medium-Robust |
| Security | Low-Medium | Robust | Robust |
| Reliability | Low-Medium | Robust | Robust |
| Scalability | Limited | Flexible | Flexible |
| Centralization | Centralized | Centralized | Fragmented |
| Liability | Risky | Limited | Limited |
| Software Robustness | Robust | Robust | Limited |
| Support | General | Legal-Centric | Fragmented |
In 2021, whether you realize it or not, you’re a “mobile” lawyer. The digitalization of the world we live in has made the proliferation of cellphones and on-the-go devices an undeniable part of our everyday routine.
Did you know that as of 4 years ago, nearly 100% of lawyers were using mobile computing tools for at least some aspect of their practice? So now, it isn’t “nearly,” it is a resounding “everybody.” Everyone has a cell phone and everyone uses it both for personal and professional reasons. We are all working in a mobile world these days and the expectation is that we will have access to our information from wherever we are.
The first time many of us remember seeing a mobile device was in the 1987 action flick, Lethal Weapon. It was this massive square hunk of material connected to this even clunkier receiver that Roger Murtaugh lugged around across LA. Since then, we have seen this evolution from our Nokia candy-bar phones to flip phones and Blackberrys. But now many decades later, 80% of attorneys are using these beautiful slabs of indestructible (so they say) glass called iPhones. We think of these devices as mobile phones that happen to do a few other things on top of making calls and sending texts. But, think about all the things your phone has replaced… we’re talking about email, calendaring, camera, books, TV, games, tickets, GPS the list goes on and on.
What you should be taking away from this is the fact that these devices are no longer small, single-serving phones. They are an entire personal computer. Our phones have become the primary PC that most of us use on a constant basis. Of course, we have desktops and laptops, but these sleeker and portable devices are one of the first places we go to when we wake up and the last thing we put down at night. There is no other piece of technology that we own that is so pervasive in our lives.
You may be asking yourself, so what? Isn’t technology supposed to grow and evolve and improve? And obviously, the answer to that is yes, but what hasn’t evolved with the changes in our technology is how we protect the information we interact with. Right now, our mobile devices are still thought of as “phones.” And how we protect and monitor them reflects that. However, we go to much greater lengths to protect our servers and our computers. But think about what we just talked about. Our phones are our computers too, and they must be protected as diligently.
A few years ago the ABA President started a Commission where they were tasked with looking at whether or not they should make any changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to address the idea that technology today affects nearly every aspect of our legal work. This includes how we store information, how we communicate with clients, how we conduct discovery, and so on.
The ABA went on further to say that: “In the past, lawyers communicated with clients by telephone, in person, by facsimile, but today, lawyers communicate with clients electronically. Confidential information is stored on mobile devices, including the cloud.” Ultimately, this Commission determined that there needed to be some changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. These changes emphasized that it is part of a lawyer’s general and ethical duty to remain competent in a digital age.
To be more specific, this change was most reflected in Rule 1.1- The General Duty of Competence. There was no major change to this actual rule, but an addition was made to comment 8. The section opener remained the same: “To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology..” This means the technology you use to run your practice. Every firm uses technology in its practice. Whether it’s simply Microsoft Word or a billing software, everyone uses something. We hear some firms say that they only care about the states that are relevant to their operations. Currently, 38 states have adopted this revised Duty of Competence.
So what does this mean when it applies to your daily practice, from a practical level? We typically think of technology competence as protecting our client’s information, but if we dig deeper, we will find that it incorporates these 5 things:
Let’s dig a little deeper into points 1 and 3…
What does that mean exactly when we say the benefits and risks associated with relevant technologies?
The benefits of mobile devices are incredible. That is an undisputed statement. We can now get our work done anywhere at any time, and now with the necessity to work remotely, this capability has become even more critical. Speed is also another advantage, we can communicate so much faster with both our internal teams and our clients without missing a beat. And if you’re on a cloud-based practice management system, you can truly access any file, any document, anything about all your matters from wherever you are all from your phone.
The first and most obvious risk with mobile devices is the chance of either misplacing, losing, damaging, or getting it stolen. The question isn’t if this will happen, it is when it will happen.
It was reported that women are 42% more likely to have their phone stolen while men are 57% more likely to drop their phone in the toilet. And a recent study released from Kensington revealed the costs associated with the loss or theft is far greater than the cost of the device itself, thanks to lost productivity, the loss of intellectual property, data breaches, and legal fees.
Regardless of whether your phone is stolen or lost, there are a lot of associated risks that come with that. But no application on our phones runs as much risk as our email does. Today, we use email to communicate with our clients and colleagues. Today we use email as the primary means to transport files and documents. If someone was able to access your phone, they may not be a hacker, but they know what the mail app looks like. If they are able to open this app, they will have complete and unfettered access to the most confidential and sensitive information that has been entrusted to you. And it isn’t just the messages or communications, it’s the attachments! Even with eDiscovery, a vast number of loose files (word documents, pdf, photos), are attached and sent via email.
Ultimately, this is the inherent risk involved.
So what can we do? Let’s find out...
No one expects you to be a mobile security expert. Things happen and the best you can do is be prepared and stay informed of the things you can do. So, with this in mind, when you’re using a mobile device, be aware of these things:
All of these best practices serve to help you protect the information stored on your personal computer (your cellphone). It is important to note that “reasonable efforts” and “reasonable precautions” means reasonableness. Not perfection. You have an obligation to do what you can, stay informed, and mitigate risks. You do not have to be a technology or smartphone expert to practice the above-mentioned best tips.
What does it mean to have an international deposition? This simply means that the witness will be in a foreign country. However, in this new virtual reality we're in, there are new challenges and components that we didn't have to deal with before. Between juggling the complexities of international depositions, paired with the logistical and tactical struggles of video conferencing, you will have a lot on your plate.
As you begin navigating this process, there are some basic steps you should be taking that will hopefully make your depositions run as smoothly as possible. Let's check them out.
Leading up to an international deposition, it is recommended that 4-6 weeks prior to the deposition date, you determine whether the witness is even willing to be deposed and immediately begin coordinating with the opposing counsel.
If you have a good working relationship with the opposing counsel, the first thing you should be trying to check off your list is a mutual stipulation with the opposing counsel so that the depositions can move forward. You should be stipulating that:
This is extremely important because court reporters only operate in the country and or state where they are certified and registered, even domestically.
What happens if opposing counsel is not cooperative? There are a number of options that we will touch on at a high-level:
Now that you have talked to opposing counsel, hopefully, they are cooperative, the next step is to decide what country the deposition is going to take place in. There are a few red flags we want to draw your attention to with this.
The UK and Hong Kong are the most common locations for international depositions, but if you hear countries like Germany and Japan, those are extremely difficult to operate through and if you hear countries like Brazil or Russia, they do not allow US depositions to take place. A lot of the European countries that are in the EU are underneath the Hague Convention and generally follow the same rules. Please do your due diligence here because these rules do apply differently to citizens of those countries, versus non-citizens.
Remember that Covid considerations do apply to all depositions and meetings. Check out Our World in Data for up-to-date information on which countries are open, which countries will allow your team, opposing counsel, and or the court reporter to travel.
Now that you have your country, you’ve spoken to opposing counsel regarding all the logistics surrounding the deposition, you must then determine where specifically the deposition will take place.
Much like a remote deposition here in the US, you have to decide the following:
If the deposition must take place at the Consulate, it is recommended to start making those arrangements at least 6 weeks out.
With remote depositions, even domestically, regardless of where the witness will be during that deposition, you must test the equipment they will be using on the day of the deposition. And to go one step further, you need to make sure they have a working and reliable internet connection.
Whatever video conferencing platform you choose to use, your team needs to ensure that it has the capability to incorporate international phone numbers. This is important because if the internet connection is poor, and the bandwidth cannot sustain the meeting, the witness must have an option to call in and have video only.
Any video remote depositions do require a certain internet bandwidth speed, so again, please conduct your tech tests and be prepared.
At this point, you’ve spoken to opposing counsel, you know the country, you’ve pinpointed an exact location of where your witness will be, you have all your equipment tested, next, you need to know what deposition services will be required.
To start, you need a court reporter, as mentioned previously, are you going to stipulate with opposing counsel that the court reporter be the one to swear in the witness remotely?
Will you have a videographer? Now, there is a common misperception with this element. Most online conferencing platforms have the ability to record meetings. But if that recording is taken on your own, it is not certified. Not to mention opposing counsel may not approve or allow it. So if you’d like the deposition recorded, you do need a certified videographer who can do the video recording remotely. This is a highly encouraged practice for international depositions and locally-based ones as well.
Do you need an interpreter? If so, what language(s) do they need to be able to speak, do they have all the necessary and properly tested equipment?
Next, you need to think about your exhibits. What exhibit platform are you going to use? Are you going to show your exhibits by sharing your screen? Some conferencing platforms will let you share you exhibits by chat, so is that something you would consider using? Additionally, how, when, and to who will you submit your exhibits to? Take time to get all these answers organized.
Following these considerations, the next step for your team is to prepare and send your deposition notice with all the assets and people you’re requesting for the deposition. It’s best practice to always indicate that this will be remote and by video conference. You also may want to take this opportunity to identify any other unique aspects of the deposition.
It is important to send out your notice to the agency you are going to use to arrange your court reporter, as soon as possible. If there is an issue in terms of stipulations, you may need, for example, a notary in that country and that process takes time to coordinate. Any logistics internationally presume will take at least a week longer than in the states.
It’s deposition time! Make sure you have the time correctly marked in your calendar, and everyone is on the same page in terms of time zones.
When it begins, it will flow like a normal domestic deposition, just keep in mind any other additional considerations or international rules that you have to follow.
Whether you’re working with an agency that specializes in international depositions or not, be prepared and do your homework. Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to schedule and coordinate everything so that you have time to make adjustments if need be.
Today’s reality looks something like this: we wake up slightly later because the longest commute we now face is walking from our bathrooms to the kitchen. Dogs barking in the background, kids running in the background, and a home office set-up that would make Office Depot proud.
Working from home is our reality and although we have quickly adapted to this change, some industries face hurdles that far outweigh others.
Unfortunately, the legal industry is not exempt from the hardships that work from home has caused. Sure we have telephones and Slack and other means of communication, but by removing the element of face-to-face interactions, we have also removed a certain element of humanity. Your clients are stressed more often than not and now that we are forced apart, how do we bridge that connectivity gap? How do we create an environment of togetherness and empathy even if we are miles away from each other?
This dilemma carries into the courtroom as well. And arguably, it is harder to get away with the virtual nature of the work you conduct because a courtroom relies on this element of connectivity. But if you exchange your courtroom nuances with that of a screen, what do you get? Will the results be the same as they would if you were there in person? The goal is for that answer to be yes. And we are here to help.
So let’s talk about one dilemma that many attorneys face and that is “how do we manage exhibits in a virtual courtroom?”
Going to court looks different and because of this, the processes and procedures we may have followed at one point now have changed.
In this virtual world, there are some steps you should follow when moving an exhibit in. Take a look:
Each court and each judge has different requirements when it comes to how, when, and to whom you need to submit your exhibits.
Most still require you to submit your exhibits to the clerk, but you can guarantee that they will be required to be sent in a virtual format by a specific deadline prior to your hearing or trial.
Some require a courtesy copy of those exhibits to be sent to the judge through the JA. So you want to make sure you know and understand where the exhibits need to go and in what format they need to be in. Do they need to be in a PDF format, do photos need to be JPEGs? You have to make sure you are understanding the requirements.
Some require the exhibits to be submitted through an online portal. Ultimately, you want to make sure that the first thing you know and understand is “how,” to submit exhibits, what format those exhibits are expected to be submitted in, and to whom those exhibits need to be submitted to.
This should go without saying, but do not miss your deadline. If this happens, that could result in a delay of your hearing or trial.
Once you have this covered, guess what? The rest of it is almost the same!
If you know how to move an exhibit in court, you know how to move an exhibit in on Zoom. That doesn’t change. The medium does not change the process for moving in an exhibit. Your exhibit still has to be relevant, related, and right.
Your exhibit needs to be relevant, meaning it proves or disproves a fact of consequence.
They have to be reliable, meaning they are either not hearsay, or there is an applicable hearsay exception.
And they have to be right, meaning as in not prejudicial.
Once those three things exist, you’re going to go through the same “do,” “how,” “what” process.
Do you recognize it? How do you recognize it? What is it?
And then the remainder of the predicate depends on what type of exhibit you are moving in. However, in this virtual world, there are some things you do have to do differently.
You no longer have to say “I’m showing opposing council, what has been pre-marked as defense exhibit A for identification purposes.” Why? Because you’re not actually making that movement in the courtroom where you’d need the court reporter to document it.
What you do need to say is “I’m putting up on the screen, what has been pre-marked as defense Exhibit A for identification purposes,” so that your court reporter still can take down the exhibit and make sure that it is a part of your record.
When you are doing the logistics of moving the exhibit in, you also do not have to ask to approach the witness. This sounds fundamental, but you will be surprised. Because you have been doing it for so long in a certain manner over and over again, the first time you have to do it in this virtual setting can feel very weird. You’re going to want to say, “I’m showing opposing council, what has been pre-marked as defense Exhibit A for identification purposes. Your Honor, may I approach the witness?” You don’t have to do any of that. But you do still want to make it clear for your record, what you’re doing and what exhibit you're handling. You can ask the witness to go to what’s been marked as Exhibit A, and they can now pull it up in whatever format it is that they have it in.
When it comes to formatting for your witness, your judge, or even the opposing council, we suggest using a PDF document that you can bookmark. And you bookmark it in the order you want to proceed in. In an ideal world, your exhibit list matches the order you intend to introduce your exhibits in trial.
No one lives in that type of ideal world. It almost always gets reordered once you do your trial notebook, and you start doing your questions.
So what you want to do is make sure your final PDF is bookmarked in the order you want to introduce the exhibits in. Doing this will make it easier for your client who is going to be your witness. It also makes it easier for the judge to follow because when it is a bookmarked PDF, the judge can just click on the bookmark and it automatically takes them to that exhibit. It is also recommended to put the exhibit letter, or a virtual exhibit sticker on the appropriate PDF pages themselves to keep them organized. Some ways you can do this include inserting a footer or by using the bate stamps feature that is in PDF.
Your organization is what becomes key in this virtual setting. And as we mentioned before, moving the exhibit in and the trial skills associated have not changed, the process has. Your clerk, your witnesses, and the judge all need to know what you’re talking about, so this organization is paramount.
When you are getting ready to use the exhibit, you’re going to have to share your screen. Prior to doing so, you have to ask the judge’s permission to do that. In some cases, the judge will explicitly say that the council has permission to share their screen when necessary.
When getting ready to share your screen, your exhibits should still satisfy the “Billboard Test.” There are a number of ways to be able to use exhibits and do presentations in this virtual setting. Powerpoint is going to be the most common default presentation application for most attorneys. If you choose to operate from PowerPoint, you do not want a million words on each slide. You want to satisfy the Billboard Test. What is the Billboard Test you may ask? When you’re driving down the street and you see a billboard, it has all the information you need, in large print with no clutter. You can understand who the billboard is about, what the contact information is and you’re able to digest that information in the 2.5 seconds you have to look at that billboard.
You want to apply this same test to your exhibits and your presentations. If you’re using your PowerPoint for your opening, or closing statements, or any other kind of demonstrative situation, make sure it is clear. Make sure they can read it, and don’t put any overwhelming amount of information on it. Er on the side of having more slides with fewer words than condensing the quantity and packing everything you have to say on three slides. If the people on the other side of the presentation cannot quickly read or understand what is on the screen, you’re going to lose them.
Because we are in a virtual environment, you must be able to convey the information that you need to convey in a clear and concise manner. When dealing with an actual exhibit, and in this hypothetical case let’s go with medical records. When you are using these documents, unless you need the entire document, it is suggested to do a call-out. This call-out would work similarly to the way you normally would do a call-out if you were standing at trial in person.
Using this call-out draws the attention to wherever it is you need it to be. You still have to use the entire document in order to get it authenticated and introduced, but when you get ready to actually use the actual exhibit, use the pertinent parts! This will work to cut down clutter, and the person not being able to see or understand where it is you’re coming from.
When it comes to physical and tangible exhibits, you need to submit all physical items to the clerk in order to get it entered. Have a photograph of it, so you can use it and talk about it and everyone can see what you’re talking about. If for whatever reason, the court lets you keep this physical exhibit (they really shouldn’t because if you’re entering this piece as evidence, it needs to go into the court’s virtual file), you should still have photos taken of the item to share electronically throughout the Zoom presentation.
Although our world has changed slightly, life still moves forward, even if not in a way we imagined.
When it comes to your exhibits, make sure they are clearly marked and organized and are being presented in a clear and concise manner. Remember, you should be handling them the same way you would handle them in physical court, you’re merely adjusting how you submit and introduce them.
Everyone handles their email inbox differently. Some people have to clear every unread message out at the end of each day, while others let their unread email notifications pile up until there’s no going back. But one thing is for certain, our inboxes today are significantly more overwhelming than they were even just a few years ago.
Before we jump into email management and everything therein, we are going to take a moment to talk about a psychological philosophy called Flow. Essentially, Flow is a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in an activity. While this is a mental state, it is deeply influenced by psychological, environmental, creative, and social responses.
Your chances of reaching this Flow state are greater when you can first focus on single tasks, as opposed to jumping back and forth between activities. Additionally, having clear goals and immediate feedback play into your ability to reach Flow.
Now you may be asking why we are bringing this up now when we’re supposed to be talking about emails. And we will tell you… Emails are huge disrupters to our Flow state because each email we receive acts as a distraction from our current task. Not only are we interrupted to either respond or read the email, but we are given yet one more thing to focus on. Emails are inevitable. They are a great means to communicate, but if unmanaged, they can quickly spin out of control.
Now that you have a brief background on Flow, everything we discuss moving forward is to help you achieve this level of clarity and productivity through your inbox.
To kick this off, let’s look at some numbers. Did you know that the average office worker receives around 121 emails every workday? Roughly 2.5 hours a day are spent on email, which adds up to about 30% of your workweek! That is insane… Nowhere in your job description does it say you have to spend 30% of your time on email, but this is where we are today.
Three things are significantly impacted by our time spent on email: our mood, our focus, and our to-do list. These three things are both negatively and positively impacted by not only the quantity of virtual mail we receive in a day but the quality as well.
For the past few decades, a lot of studies and work have gone into the science of attention. And because our inbox holds so much of our attention during the day, there are many parallels that can be drawn between our inbox and our phycological response to how we interact with that inbox. Part of why so much our of time is devoted to checking and looking at our email can be attributed to what science calls the Fixed reward vs. the Variable reward system.
Hear us out, this is interesting…
In 1948, a behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner studied what he coined “schedules of reinforcement.” At the time, what Skinner was studying was the relationship between actions (in his case, a hungry rat pressing a lever in a so-called Skinner box) and their associated rewards (pellets of food). During this study, Skinner distinguished between fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement and variable-ratio schedules of reinforcement. Under a fixed schedule, a rat received a reward of food after it pressed the lever a fixed number of times — say 20 times. Under the variable schedule, the rat earned the food pellet after it pressed the lever a random number of times. So for example, if the rat pressed the level 5 times he would get a reward, and sometimes it would take pressing the lever 150 times to get the reward.
Obviously, the predominant difference between the two schedules of reinforcement was this aspect of predictability. Prior to the conclusion of the study, one might expect that the fixed schedules of reinforcement would be more motivating and rewarding because the rat can learn to predict the outcome of his work. Instead, what Skinner found was that the variable schedules were actually more motivating. The most telling result was that when the rewards ceased, the rats that were under the fixed schedules stopped working almost immediately, but those under the variable schedules kept working for a considerable time longer.
So, what do food pellets have to do with e-mail? If you think about it, e-mail is very much like trying to get the pellet rewards. Most of it is junk and the equivalent of pulling the lever and getting nothing in return, but every so often we receive a message that we really want. Maybe it contains good news, some watercooler talk, a note from someone we haven’t heard from in a long time, or maybe just an important piece of information. We are so happy to receive the unexpected e-mail (pellet) that we become addicted to checking, hoping for more such surprises. We just keep pressing that lever, over and over again, until we get our reward. See where we are going?
We are feeling science-y today, so along the lines of this psychological response also comes what is called completion bias. By spending a third of our time on email, it feels like we are being productive, after all, it is our “work-inbox.” Unfortunately, this isn’t really the case. We convince ourselves that we are being productive by checking this work-inbox but really we aren’t producing anything at all, instead, we are being reactive- responding to the needs of whatever the senders are requesting of you. As a result, we spend a tremendous amount of time on short-term priorities that get in the way of completing the bigger tasks on our lists. All of this has resulted in one thing: multitasking. As professionals, we have gotten good at multitasking, which if you think about it, is somewhat of an oxymoron because no one is truly good at multitasking.
Research shows that when we are deeply engrossed in an activity, even minor distractions, like an email, can have a profound effect. According to a University of California-Irvine study, regaining our initial momentum following an interruption can take, on average, upwards of 20 minutes! And that’s after only one interruption… you get where are going with this.
No matter how good you are at playing Tetris, blocks will continue to come, and they will speed up over time. No one has ever won a game of Tetris, and email is the same way, no matter how good you are at clearing the messages, they will not only continue to come, but they will also increase in frequency year after year.
The Solution: You have to change your mindset. You have to use the right tools to be able to consistently keep your emails at a manageable level and you have to set limits and boundaries around when you choose to interact and not interact with your inbox.
For way too many of us, email has become this default, number 1 priority. You wake up and check your inbox. You get to the office and check your inbox. And the problem with this is that your email acts as a to-do list that other people add to. So what happens is other people’s priorities become your own.
The Solution: Scan your inbox for important and or otherwise urgent emails, then close your inbox. You can do this first thing in the morning, or really any time you want, but the key is to scan and then get out. Next, block a 30-60 minute appointment slot every day for “email time.” This is time you designate to spend in your inbox because you say so, not because someone else is requesting something from you. Now depending on the number of emails you receive every day, that time can fluctuate, but the point is that you are setting the time, it shouldn’t be dictated by anyone else. When you get sucked into your inbox, take a minute and ask yourself, is this the best use of your time? Most of the time, it isn’t, so give yourself that moment to decide for yourself.
Each email commands the same real estate in your inbox, whether it is from the CEO or spam. There are really three types of emails, the unimportant noise, the important and urgent emails, and the important but not urgent emails.
The Solution: Delete and archive all the noise in bulk, handle the important and urgent emails in the moment, and then defer the important but non-urgent emails to your designated email time.
Inbox zero is a method for continually getting to zero emails in your inbox every day. How you can do this is by categorizing your emails into five action buckets.
All the noise: newsletters, updates, weekly emails, should be deleted in bulk. You should be giving very minimal time to these emails. The quick fix emails, emails that can be taken care of in 2 minutes or less, can fall into the three middle categories of deferring, delegate, and responding.
When you defer, that simply means moving it out of your inbox into a separate folder. You can create a folder, whether you call it a deferred folder or your snoozed folder, the idea is to just move emails out of your main inbox. Delegating an email(s) simply means you’re forwarding it to someone else on your team who is more suited to answer the specific question or request, and to respond, is well, you respond.
The last bucket, “Do,” are the emails that require more of your time and attention. They are emails that need work or are related to various projects you have on your plate. These are the emails that should be remaining in your inbox that should be worked on throughout your day until a resolution is met. You can prioritize them further by flagging or starring them to ensure they don’t get overlooked.
If your email is on the longer side, highlight keywords or sentences in bold. This will make your reader’s job easier and you’ll be a more efficient communicator. It is important here to not bold too much and don’t use all caps because people associate that with yelling.
You deal with more sensitive information than most professional people do. Because of this, the legal industry is hit with a lot of security breaches that leave lasting impacts on not only your clients but your firm.
If you’re using the same password for multiple online services, if one of those services gets hacked, that means there’s a good chance that all of them have been compromised. The solution to this is to use individual passwords that are not associated with anything in your day-to-day life. And we know that can be tough to keep up with, so utilize services like 1Password to help you create and then store all your passwords for each of your accounts.
Mistakes happen! Wrong email addresses can be attached, misspelled names or titles, etc. Give yourself a chance to proof-read the email prior to hitting that send button. Every email interface typically works from the top-down. You fill out the recipient, then the subject, message, and any related attachments. Instead of working this way, try the reverse. Add your attachments first, then write your message, fill in your subject line, and then once all of this is complete add your recipient(s). Doing this will help mitigate some of those human errors that we are all prone to make!
Putting a call to action in your subject line will not only get your email read faster, but there is a greater chance the recipient will interact with it. Additionally, the more specific your subject line is, the easier it will be to search for it later on.
Often times, it becomes a reflex to unsubscribe from emails that are either spam or considered irrelevant and otherwise unnecessary for you to be receiving. What happens if you unsubscribe from senders with compromised integrity, is you’ve exposed yourself as 1. Being human, and 2. A human who cares about their inbox. This is a spammer’s best-case scenario. Instead, either move these to a designated spam folder or bulk delete them.
Email is a great medium for close-ended questions, not open-ended ones. Emails ending with, “Thoughts?” Is a strong signal that that email should either be a phone conversation or even an in-person one. Knowing what is appropriate to send via email and what is not will save you time during your day and will keep those email distractions to a minimum. Conversely, email is great for unambiguous communication, where decisive answers or choices can be made.
If you’re working with a practice management software, some platforms will let you save emails directly to matters from Microsoft Outlook, or let you find emails based on any email property including subject, sent/received date, or email content. With the ability to connect your email correspondence directly to the appropriate matter, you are keeping all your communications matter centric. Having all your communication related to particular matters in one place helps keep your team efficient, in sync, and organized.
Sometimes it is easy to forget that emails constitute billable time. If you are working, responding, and communicating with your clients, you should be getting paid for that. Technology is advanced enough today to allow you to automatically create a billing entry every time you send an email to your client or create billing entries from your inbox as you’re reviewing emails. Not every software allows you to do this, but the technology is available and with reason- it will help you make and collect the money you deserve!
Phase 1: The Declutter Phase
Creating folders that are labeled for old mail and dragging everything into those folders on a regular basis. Train unwanted emails to go into that folder and if you have time, delete those old emails and make sure relevant emails correspond to the matters they relate to. Delegate emails when necessary and don’t get distracted with the longer, more project-based requests.
Phase 2: The Organization Phase
This is where you figure out how much time you’re going to give yourself and set limits and boundaries on how much time you are willing and able to spend going through your inbox. Avoid mindlessly checking your email when you’re not in a dedicated place to respond or think about next steps. The best way to fall behind with your inbox is to start checking your email while you’re in line at a grocery store, get distracted by the cashier, and then completely forget about that email entirely. So stop doing that! Set numeric goals of how many emails you want left in your inbox at the end of the day. Inbox zero may not always be possible for everyone, so set goals to keep you on track and accountable.
Phase 3: Email Zen and Flow Phase
You now have a clear set of rules to follow, you don’t leave your email open, you don’t get distracted with emails outside of your designated email time, and you’re able to put more focused time back into your day for billable activities.
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In late December 2020, Congress approved an additional COVID-19 relief package as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. Included in the $900 billion aid package is funding intended to provide a second round of relief for small businesses that are still struggling in the wake of the worldwide pandemic. A key piece of this legislation is funding earmarked for a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program, or, colloquially, PPP2.
The PPP Second Draw legislation is sure to be met with mixed feelings by small to mid-sized law firms across the country. Many of them are still weary from the first round of PPP; a poorly executed program that was full of uncertainties, constantly changing regulations, and a mixture of dread and uneasiness over the ramifications of improperly complying with rules that were released irregularly and without clear guidance. In fact, up until late December, one of the largest areas of concern – the tax treatment of the funds – left many law firms with cash-based, calendar-year financials with little time to plan or to react.
So now the question on law firm leaders’ minds is, understandably, “Should I even apply for PPP2?” Followed closely by, “If so, what’s in it for me?”
Here’s a quick rundown of what can be expected:
In order to be eligible to receive a Second Draw PPP loan, your firm must have experienced a revenue reduction of 25% or greater in 2020 relative to 2019.
This reduction can be calculated by comparing either one individual quarter from 2019 to the same quarter from 2020 or by comparing the calendar year 2019 to the calendar year 2020.
So, for example, if your gross revenue in the 2nd quarter of 2019 was $500,000 your gross revenue in the 2nd quarter of 2020 would need to be less than $375,000.
By giving firms the flexibility to compare one quarter versus another, even if you ended 2020 without a significant revenue reduction compared to 2019, you may still be eligible based on the performance of a single quarter.
Please also note that the maximum amount of any loan is $2 million and loans less than $150,000 will have easier paths to approval.
While there have been a few changes there are a few unique terms of PPP2 which many law firms will find very favorable.
So, while you may not be ready to tackle this “beast” again, it could provide very favorable funding options as you march your firm into 2021.
And we know this process can be daunting, so we have tried to make it a little easier for you to keep your firm organized. Download this prep-list and stay one step ahead!
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