Business Development
Industry Insight
Last year saw the return of special and signing bonuses in the US legal market, signaling sustained competition for elite legal talent. Rather than indicating a broad-based hiring surge, this trend is in fact indicative of a laser-guided recruitment strategy in which firms are willing to pay significant premiums for attorneys with very specific expertise. While there are many corporate lawyers working in major cities, the proportion with this very defined skillset is small, so they can effectively name their price. Based on what we have observed in recent months and the hiring activity of the top firms, I certainly believe this trend is one which will continue for the foreseeable future. What seems to have happened is that those firms were all looking for the best people at the same time, so inevitably that creates considerable competition. This means that those associates were in a very good position to obtain big signing bonuses. The years following the pandemic were two of the best ever in the legal recruitment industry. This could be very obviously explained by so much activity being shut down during Covid and then rebounding with such an unprecedented surge. For reasons that are harder to pin down, there is almost a similar level of confidence in the marketplace now, which started toward the end of last year and still prevails. The offers we are seeing are almost reaching the level of the post-Covid flurry, when it was almost impossible to fulfill the demand. While M&A was not as busy last year because of geopolitical issues like the tariffs implemented by President Trump and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, that seems to have smoothed over. Interest rates appear to be coming down, and we are in a period of high investment. There are multiple explanations. But regardless of the exact reasoning, as a result of that improvement in confidence, deals are happening again, so there is going to be real demand in both leveraged finance, M&A and funds. Looking ahead, the market for the best attorneys at the top 20 firms in New York is likely to remain incredibly competitive in these high-demand practice areas. Recent market activity has seen multiple offers exceeding $100,000, highlighting how competition for experienced attorneys is approaching the levels last seen in 2021 and 2022. Firms are hiring more senior people than before, and the shrinking pool of suitably experienced senior associates and counsel is intensifying pressure on firms to secure talent earlier and at higher cost. I think it is perfectly possible that this sign-on bonus figure could rise still higher for certain people. Although $100,000 is a high number and not that common, we have seen a few rare instances in which bonus offers have exceeded $125,000. It is hard to envisage signing bonuses increasing beyond that, but we generally see more offers having sign on bonuses then not. Despite the apparent reluctance among firms to create an escalating bidding war, clearly the level of experience of the candidate might give them even more sway when negotiating a signing bonus with a firm desperate for a very tailored acquisition. Senior associates, counsel, and non-equity partners (NEP) are also in higher demand right now. The effect of this is that lateral moves and step-ups have been made more accessible for the right candidates, particularly where firms are prepared to be flexible on role and title. Beforehand, firms were less inclined to take people on at senior level, or even senior associate level. They would typically be looking for a two to six-year associate. Traditionally, the reason for this is that anyone above that six-year threshold would be getting closer to partnership level, which evidently brings its own risks. They wanted people at the mid-level because they are not too expensive; they are also at a stage in their career in which they can be molded and trained according to a firm’s particular demands and structure. Today, however, given the intensity of the competition between these top firms, there is more willingness to take on people already in senior positions. It comes down to the simple necessity of having to deal with the workload and having the ability to further grow their practices. Firms are much more flexible about paying massive incentives simply to get these prized assets through the door. Candidates have considerably more leverage than they would have done if they were just desperate to move. When it is a case of an attorney being willing to jump at anything, the firm holds all of the cards. But in a marketplace as busy and tight as this one, the candidate or the associate tends—in many cases—to be able to assert much more bargaining power. So, they’re able to be a bit more aggressive with their negotiations and more straightforward. Plainly this can give them the platform for obtaining much better offers. At the same time as changes in the hiring environment, we have also been observing structural changes to partnership tracks at different firms. This too is playing a significant part. Different firms are putting different structures in place to create alternative progression pathways. Based on this evolving template, candidates can increasingly weigh the relative value of early partnership titles versus more substantive routes toward equity elsewhere. For example, Kirkland and Ellis promotes attorneys to partner at the seventh-year level, but for some candidates this milestone carries less weight, as it is widely viewed as an expected progression within the firm. As a result, some attorneys choose instead to move to another firm as a non-equity partner, where the role may represent a more substantive and credible step towards equity. Historically, prior to this uptick in activity of the last two to three years, there was only a limited selection of promotional pathways for associates. For example, at a firm like Kirkland, from associate to non-equity partner to equity partner. Alternatively, you could stay as an associate for eight years and then try to make partner or become a counsel and then a partner. These were the only real routes. Now, however, so many different firms have so many different pathways. Some firms are now promoting attorneys to counsel at seven years, to non-equity at nine years, and then equity at 11 years. Others are just going for straight equity partner after seven years. The natural implication of this is that if an associate doesn’t like the structure that they’re on at their current firm, there is a much broader variety out there to pick and choose from. If they are unhappy in their role, this wealth of options provides them with infinitely more choice. It is no longer a case of complaining but sucking it up because you are entrapped by an inflexible promotion structure. This broad hiring phenomenon looks set to proceed at the same rate in the first half of this year. Firms are still being very aggressive, and there are no immediate signs of that stopping. When you have surges in the core markets of finance and M&A in particular, other areas such as tax also start to become busy because they are effectively a side-product of the substantive corporate work. There is, therefore, a high chance that these secondary areas might increase their level of activity, further bolstering the need for firms to make the right hires at associate level. I cannot envisage any immediate slowdown.
When a Nevada County prosecutor cited three completely fabricated cases in court—and then blamed “scrivener’s errors”—the California Supreme Court had seen enough. The unanimous decision in Kjoller v. Superior Court of Nevada County marks a turning point in how California courts will handle AI-generated hallucinations in legal filings. Combined with the recent passage of SB 574 by the California Senate, the message to practitioners is unmistakable: the era of plausible deniability for AI mistakes is over. The Case That Changed Everything The facts in Kjoller read like a cautionary tale written specifically for the AI age. A Nevada County District Attorney submitted a response brief citing eight cases. Three didn’t exist at all. Three more existed but said nothing resembling what the DA claimed. Even a cited constitutional provision was irrelevant to the point being argued. When opposing counsel discovered the fabrications and filed for sanctions, the DA’s response made matters worse. First came a phone call claiming she was just “going too fast in her research.” Then came a brief characterizing wholesale fabrication as “scrivener’s errors”—the legal equivalent of claiming the dog ate your homework. The Court of Appeal twice denied sanctions motions without explanation. But the California Supreme Court wasn’t buying it. In a unanimous order, the Court directed the Court of Appeal to issue an order to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed. More significantly, the Court gestured to the civil referee process governed by California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 638-640 as a mechanism for the trial court to investigate and resolve the matter—essentially green-lighting a formal inquiry into whether the DA had relied on AI hallucinations. The Cover-Up Makes It Worse The Supreme Court’s decision to recommend a referee appointment signals something crucial: how attorneys respond after discovering AI errors matters as much as the errors themselves. The Court was clearly influenced by: United States v. Hayes, where the Eastern District of California sanctioned an attorney who also blamed “hasty” drafting for AI hallucinations. That court didn’t just impose monetary penalties—it ordered the sanctions notice be sent to every state bar where the attorney was licensed and to every judge in the district. A permanent, public record of professional failure. Kjoller follows the same trajectory. By denying responsibility and offering implausible explanations, the DA transformed a correctable mistake into an ethics investigation that could result in career-altering consequences. The lesson is stark: attorneys who immediately acknowledge AI errors and take corrective action face manageable consequences. However, those who deflect, deny, or minimize face investigations, public embarrassment, and escalating sanctions. The Myth of “Reliable” Legal AI Tools Many practitioners assume that premium legal research platforms are immune to AI hallucinations. The data tells a different story. Research presented in the Kjoller petition reveals that AI tools from LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters—the gold standard names in legal research—hallucinate between 17% and 33% of the time. These aren’t experimental startups; these are established platforms with decades of credibility. Yet one in five citations generated by their AI tools may be fabricated. For context, general-purpose models like ChatGPT hallucinate legal queries between 58% and 88% of the time. The specialized tools are better, but not reliable enough to justify blind trust. A fabricated case is misconduct regardless of which platform generated it. The glossy marketing materials and brand recognition of premium vendors don’t change that fundamental reality. As the Kjoller petition states plainly: “using AI to generate briefing without carefully cite checking the drafts often will result in the citation of fabricated authorities, which is misconduct.” Law firms cannot outsource verification responsibility to technology vendors. If anything, AI-generated research demands more scrutiny than traditional methods, not less. Every citation must be independently verified, every case read in full, every proposition confirmed against the actual source material. This Isn’t Just About Criminal Law Kjoller involves criminal defense, where AI hallucinations can have “horrific, life-shattering consequences” for defendants facing incarceration. The stakes in criminal cases naturally heighten judicial concern. But the California Supreme Court’s reasoning applies with equal force to civil practice. The Court’s message transcends practice areas: submitting unverified AI outputs to any court invites significant sanctions, including formal investigations into your competence and ethics. The fundamental obligations haven’t changed. Attorneys must present truthful information to courts. They must conduct adequate research. They must verify their sources. AI hasn’t automated these responsibilities away—if anything, it’s placed them under a microscope. The Legislature Moves to Codify Verification Requirements Two weeks after Kjoller, the California Senate passed SB 574, which would require attorneys to take “reasonable steps” to verify all AI-generated materials, correct hallucinations, and remove biased content. The bill also prohibits inputting confidential client information into AI tools and bars arbitrators from delegating decisions to AI. SB 574 was modeled after existing judicial AI rules and a recent sanctions case—but the timing and substance align perfectly with Kjoller’s themes. The trend is unmistakable: courts are sanctioning lawyers for unverified AI output, and legislatures are moving to make verification protocols mandatory. Whether SB 574 becomes law or not, the writing is on the wall. Practitioners who wait for formal legislative mandates are already behind. The standard of care is being established now, case by case, sanction by sanction. What Practitioners Must Do Now The implications of Kjoller and the legislative momentum behind SB 574 demand immediate action: Implement mandatory verification protocols. Every AI-generated citation must be independently verified. Every case must be read in full. Every legal proposition must be confirmed against original sources. Make verification a required step in your quality control process, not an optional safeguard. Apply equal scrutiny to all AI tools. Don’t assume premium platforms are hallucination-proof. Whether research comes from ChatGPT or LexisNexis AI, the verification requirements are identical. Train your team. Ensure everyone using AI tools understands both the technology’s limitations and the professional consequences of submitting fabricated authority. Make it clear that “I didn’t know” isn’t a defense. Own your mistakes immediately. If you discover AI hallucinations in filed documents, acknowledge the error promptly and file corrections. The cover-up is worse than the crime. Protect client confidentiality. Never input confidential information into AI tools unless you have explicit protocols ensuring compliance with ethical obligations. The California Supreme Court and Senate have made their positions clear. AI is a tool, not a substitute for professional judgment. Attorneys who treat it as such will benefit from its capabilities. Those who use it as a shortcut will face consequences that could define their careers—for all the wrong reasons.
CALIFORNIA COURT OF APPEAL Arbitration LaCour v. Marshalls of California (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3731034: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying defendant’s motion to compel arbitration of a former employee plaintiff’s single-count PAGA action. In denying the motion, the trial court reasoned that “there is no such thing as an ‘individual PAGA claim’ ” that could be severed and compelled to arbitration. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that—based on ordinary contract-interpretation principles and the parties’ mutual intent when the arbitration agreement was signed in 2014—the arbitration agreement did not clearly reflect an agreement to arbitrate “individual PAGA claims,” so defendant was not entitled to compel arbitration notwithstanding Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. 639 and related post-Viking River developments. (C.A. 1st, Dec. 24, 2025.) Attorney Fees Evleshin v. Meyer (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3101271: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order denying defendants’ postjudgment motion for attorney fees. Following a bench trial the trial court entered judgment in favor of defendants, the sellers of a Santa Cruz home, and found them to be the prevailing parties in a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs/buyers alleging breach of contract and fraud. In the purchase agreement the parties agreed to mediate if there was a dispute. If one party refused to mediate they would lose the right to recover attorney fees if they later prevailed. Based upon these provisions, the trial court denied defendants’ motion for attorney fees on the grounds that defendants had refused to mediate, and although they were the prevailing they had lost the ability to recover attorney fees. The Court of Appeal disagreed, concluding that the trial court erred in reading the contract’s mediation clause to impose a forfeiture where there was evidence in the record that could support a conclusion that while defendants’ initially declined to mediate, they re-opened the door to mediation before the lawsuit was filed. The case was remanded for further proceedings. If the trial court finds on remand that defendants retracted their initial refusal to mediate and expressed a willingness to mediate before the lawsuit was filed, the disentitlement provision in the contract would not apply. (C.A. 6th, November 6, 2025.) Johnson v. Rubylin, Inc. (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3687544: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decision sanctioning plaintiff for failing to comply with Civil Code section 55.54(d)(7) by refusing to disclose in his early-evaluation-conference statement the amount of attorney fees and costs he was claiming as of that time, and—after offering an alternative sanction of proceeding but not being able to recover attorney fees—dismissed the action with prejudice when plaintiff elected dismissal. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that section 55.54(d)(7)’s requirement to disclose claimed attorney fees and costs did not violate the attorney-client privilege (distinguishing the decision in Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors v. Superior Court (2016) 2 Cal.5th 282). It also concluded the trial court’s sanctions procedure did not violate due process. (C.A. 6th, December 19, 2025.) Employment Dobarro v. Kim (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3228546: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decision denying defendant’s appeal of a Labor Commissioner wage award to plaintiff because it was filed one day late. The trial court concluded the notice of appeal was untimely filed under Labor Code section 98.2. The Court of Appeal affirmed, concluding that the Labor Code section 98.2 deadlines for appealing a Labor Commissioner decision and for posting or seeking waiver of the undertaking are mandatory and jurisdictional, not subject to equitable tolling or the electronic-filing tolling provision in Code of Civil Procedure section 1010.6, rejected defendant’s other arguments as meritless, declined to impose sanctions but published the opinion to clarify the law. (C.A. 1st, November 19, 2025.) Torts Gilliland v. City of Pleasanton (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3225067: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s finding for defendant, in a bench trial on the liability of defendant under the immunity provided in Vehicle Code section 17004.7, in plaintiff’s action for personal injuries suffered when her car was hit by another driver who was being followed by a city police officer. The trial court concluded that defendant’s written vehicular pursuit policy and training complied with the statute and the other driver Elijah Henry believed he was being pursued, thereby rendering defendant immune from liability for plaintiff’s injuries and entering judgment in defendant’s favor. The Court of Appeal disagreed, concluding that held the term “pursued” in section 17004.7(b)(1) must be given a single meaning derived from the vehicular pursuit definition in the public entity’s policy (including the requirement that the suspect be attempting to avoid arrest), and the trial court applied the wrong legal standard in assessing Henry’s belief and improperly disregarded evidence that he did not think he was being pursued under that policy. The case was reversed and remanded for reconsideration of defendant’s the immunity claim under the correct standard. (C.A. 1st, November 19, 2025.) Trial McDonald v. Zargaryan (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3704598: The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment for plaintiff, following a jury trial, where the jury awarded plaintiff future medical expenses of $1,872,900, past pain and suffering of $2 million, and for future pain and suffering was $10 million. The issue in this case was the fact that plaintiff first went to see a surgeon, Dr. Toorag Gravori, the week before trial and 16 months after the exchange of expert information. Seven days before trial, counsel for plaintiff blindsided the defense with a new medical expert with a new medical theory. The trial court denied defendants’ motion in limine to exclude plaintiff’s late-disclosed medical expert, permitted the expert to testify after an expedited deposition, and the jury returned the substantial verdict above for plaintiff that the court reduced to judgment. The Court of Appeal held the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the surprise expert to testify despite plaintiff’s failure to timely disclose the expert or seek leave to augment the expert list and the absence of any reasonable justification for the eve-of-trial designation. The judgment was vacated and the case was remanded for a new trial. (C.A. 2nd, December 22, 2025.)
Having participated in mediations as an advocate and as a mediator, I can say that the mediation process lends itself well to the resolution of all kinds of personal injury claims. From motor vehicle and premises liability cases to medical malpractice, products liability and labor law matters, a good mediator will give the parties the opportunity to manage risks and avoid the uncertainty of having the fates of the litigants decided by six people you have never met before. A mediation will often be the last best opportunity for the parties to discuss a resolution in earnest before they get into a courtroom and start trying the case. Of course, cases can settle during trial, but those settlement figures are often skewed by the courtroom events. If an important witness is obliterated on cross-examination (or does not even show up), the settlement numbers will go up or down accordingly. A mediation gives you the chance to discuss the case “as is,” without the unpredictability of a trial. Mediations are similar to trials in the sense that they work so much better when everyone is fully prepared. So, if you agree to mediate a case, take that opportunity seriously. A cursory review of your file the night before the mediation generally will not suffice. Indeed, when I look back at the cases that have not settled at mediation, the number one reason was that one or more of the parties did not properly prepare. What follows is a checklist of sorts, that will hopefully help attorneys and litigants on both sides get better results from the mediation process. Here are the ten things that you will need to get the case resolved: Bring your clients. This may seem painfully obvious, yet I hear so many attorneys say, “The claims examiner is on phone call alert” or “My client is waiting to hear from me.” As a general rule, the more involved the clients are in the mediation, the greater your chances of success are. Now, when I say that you should “bring” your clients to the mediation, I am using that word in a broad sense. For better or worse, the overwhelming majority of personal injury mediations are now done virtually. The plaintiff himself or herself does not necessarily need to be in front of a camera, listening to every word that is said. But having the plaintiff physically present in the attorney’s office shows a level of commitment to the process. It also makes the conversations about offers and demands much easier and helps to move the mediation forward. On the defendants’ side, having the claims professional on the Zoom call helps tremendously. The mediation process becomes disjointed and often loses steam when all developments have to be discussed in private phone calls between defense counsel and the insurance company representative. Listen. Nobody in the history of the world ever learned a thing just by talking. The single most important thing that the participants can do during the mediation itself is listen – not just to the mediator, but to all of the other participants. You need to listen to the other side explain precisely what the evidentiary basis is for their current demand or offer. Yes, there will surely be some posturing by the attorneys. A big part of the mediator’s job is to get the parties past the bravado and unhelpful rhetoric and move them toward a more reasonable and realistic place. Have pre-mediation discussions. I am always amazed when the parties tell me that they have not had any settlement discussions at all before the mediation session. Pick up the phone, people! As a general rule, the plaintiff should make a settlement demand well in advance of the mediation, as this allows the other side sufficient time to evaluate the settlement possibilities. Have pre-mediation discussions with your co-defendants. The proper evaluation of a personal injury case from a defendant’s perspective must include an opinion on the percentages of contribution needed from each defendant and third-party defendant. Yet we often see co-defendants taking diametrically opposed positions on percentages that have never been discussed before the mediation. If your evaluation relies on your co-defendant for a significant contribution towards the overall settlement, pick up the phone and discuss the case with the attorney and/or the claims professional in advance of the mediation. Alternatively, you can consider a defense-only mediation session, where contribution, indemnity, and coverage issues can be resolved, so that the focus can be solely on the value of the case when it is discussed at the next session with plaintiff’s counsel. Prepare BRIEF submissions. Take the time to prepare submissions for your mediator. They do not have to be voluminous; in fact, they should be quite succinct. Do not send your summary judgment motion with complete copies of all 47 exhibits. Brief statements on key liability and damages issues, with references to the specific supporting evidence, are most helpful. Please include the history of all prior settlement discussions, as well as insurance coverage information for the defendants. Meet with your clients. This is crucial, whether you are representing the plaintiff or a defendant. Decisions need to be made, in advance of the mediation, on where the settlement discussions will begin and end. (Of course, the end point may change at the mediation. See item 10.) Regardless of which side you are on, make sure that you have these conversations with the actual decision makers. A spouse or relative may have significant influence on the plaintiff’s decisions. If so, get them involved early on with the discussions. If the settlement money required on a case is above the authority limits of the claims professional to whom you have been reporting, have communications in advance with the supervisors who possess the requisite authority, as it may prove difficult to get their input during the mediation, especially if they have not reviewed the case previously. Don’t try your case at a mediation. The trial of a personal injury case is an exceptionally adversarial proceeding. Everybody wants to win and the trial attorneys will go to great lengths (within the bounds of fair play, of course) to get that victory. A mediation, on the other hand, is a more collaborative event. While the attorneys will surely advocate for their clients at a mediation, the result that they seek is a settlement to which everyone must agree. So, it is best to leave the “scorched earth” tactics and the “winner-take-all” trial mindset at your office when mediating a case. However… Bring your admissible evidence. While we are not trying the case at a mediation, we are evaluating the case based on the potentially admissible evidence. This is sometimes referred to as the “lens of admissibility.” Be prepared to highlight the admissible evidence that supports your position. Whether it is a photograph of a clearly defective condition, a series of questions and answers in a deposition transcript, or an emergency room record, the evidence itself should be brought to the attention of not just the mediator, but everyone in attendance. Always remember that it is the other side that you are trying to convince as to the value of the case, not just the mediator. Watch your language. Once the parties agree to a mediation, they all have the common goal of a settled case. All attendees at a mediation are well advised to ask themselves: Is what I am about to say going to be helpful in getting this case resolved? For example, we often hear settlement demands described as “outrageous.” According to Roget’s Thesaurus, synonyms for “outrageous” include: barbaric, disgraceful, heinous, inhuman, scandalous, and wanton. Is that the word you really want to use? Keep an open mind. The trial judge gives this admonition to the jury throughout the trial, so that jurors do not make up their mind too soon, thereby ignoring potentially game-changing evidence. Mediation participants must be prepared to adjust their positions, so that a settlement can be reached. It may seem counterintuitive to spend so much time and effort on evaluating the case before the mediation, only to revise your numbers during the mediation. But the evaluation of personal injury claims is enormously subjective, and reasonable minds will differ. So, the question is not just what YOU think the case is worth; it is also what range of numbers will achieve the desired goal of getting the case resolved. So that’s my list. If you think that I left something out, I would love to hear from you. I can’t promise you that your mediations will all be successful if you follow these ten steps. But I can pretty much guarantee that if you don’t do any of them, your case is going to trial.
Your Bonus Check Is Your Escape Hatch December is here. Bonuses hit bank accounts. And thousands of lawyers are doing the same math they do every year: Is this enough to keep me here? Here is the truth most BigLaw partners will never tell you: The barriers to starting your own law firm have never been lower. The economics have never been better. And the myths keeping you chained to your desk are exactly that. Myths. The Fear Factory The legal profession runs on fear. Fear of failure. Fear of losing prestige. Fear of the unknown. Law firm leadership depends on this fear to maintain the status quo. You have been told that clients expect a corner office in a downtown high-rise. You have been told that going solo means taking a pay cut. None of this is true anymore. The partners who tell you these things are not lying. They are repeating what they believed when they started practicing. But technology has fundamentally changed the economics of running a law firm. Most lawyers over 50 have not updated their mental models. Your clients have changed too. They work from home. They take Zoom calls in their kitchens. They do not care if you have a mahogany conference table. They care if you answer your phone and solve their problems. The Real Numbers Let me show you what a lean law practice actually costs in 2025. Google Workspace Business Standard plan: $14 per month. This gives you professional email, cloud storage, video conferencing, and document collaboration. Gemini 3 is probably all of the AI software you need and it’s included in Workspace. Throw in $10 a month for a Google Voice number, and it’s everything you need to run a modern practice. Web domain and basic hosting: $500 per year. You need a professional website. You do not need to spend $10,000 on a marketing agency to build it. Hardware: $3,000 for a new MacBook Air, printer, and scanner. This is a one-time expense that will last you years. Malpractice insurance: $1,500 for your first year. This is the cheapest it will ever be because you have no claims history and limited exposure. That is $5,072 in core expenses. Add your phone bill at $1,200 per year. Budget $7,500 for accounting and bookkeeping. Throw in $1,500 for incidental software like Adobe. Get Fastcase for legal research at $995. You are now at $16,267 in annual expenses. You have nearly $9,000 left in a $25,000 budget for things like co-working space, marketing, additional monitors, or case management software. Some lawyers are running profitable practices for under $20,000 per year in total expenses. Compare this to what your firm bills clients for your time minus what they actually pay you. The math is not complicated. The Myth of the Pay Cut Here is the most persistent lie in legal practice: Going solo means making less money. The opposite is often true. When you work at a firm, you generate revenue and keep a fraction of it. The rest goes to partners who did not do the work, overhead you do not need, and profit margins that benefit everyone except you. When you run your own practice, every dollar of revenue above your expenses is yours. A solo practitioner billing $300 per hour who works 1,500 billable hours generates $450,000 in revenue. Subtract $25,000 in expenses. That leaves $425,000 before taxes. How many BigLaw associates make $425,000? How many have the flexibility to take a Tuesday afternoon off to watch their kid’s school play? The economics favor the entrepreneur. They always have. The legal profession just convinced you otherwise. The Office Myth Your clients do not want to come to your office. The pandemic proved what technology already enabled: Legal work can happen anywhere. Clients prefer the convenience of video calls. A physical office is a fixed cost that drains your cash flow every month whether you have clients or not. It limits your flexibility. It is a relic of a business model designed for a different era. If you need to meet a client in person, rent a conference room for an hour. It costs a fraction of monthly office rent and signals that you are efficient with resources. What You Actually Need Starting a successful law firm requires three things: vision, values, and community. Vision means knowing what kind of practice you want to build. Not every lawyer should go solo. But if you are reading this article in January while looking at your bonus check, you probably already know what you want. You just need permission to pursue it. Values mean understanding what matters to you beyond money. Do you want flexibility? Autonomy? The ability to choose your clients? Control over your own schedule? Community means surrounding yourself with people who have done what you want to do. The loneliest path is the one you walk alone. Find mentors who have built successful practices. Learn from their mistakes. The Best Investment You Will Make If you are serious about starting a firm, do the foundational work first. Define your vision. Clarify your values. Build a business plan that reflects who you are, not what someone else thinks a law firm should look like. You can run a law firm for $25,000 a year. You can make more money than you do now. You can have the flexibility and autonomy you crave. The barriers are not financial. They are psychological. The question is not whether you can afford to start your own firm. The question is whether you can afford to keep waiting. Your bonus check is sitting in your account. What are you going to do with it?
If you’re thinking of hanging your own shingle in 2026, know there’s plenty of upside: A Clio survey shows that legal entrepreneurs are happier with their client relationships, their mental and emotional wellness, and their overall professional lives. The Federal Bar Association, meanwhile, described the solo attorney as the “surprising outlier” to a “profession long plagued by burnout, stress, and mounting dissatisfaction,” citing data from ALPS Insurance: 74 percent of solo practitioners are satisfied (or very satisfied) with their current professional lives; only 9 percent are dissatisfied to any degree. 66 percent appreciate the flexibility of the gig, which contributes to “personal fulfillment and enjoyment.” To be sure, this elevated state of entrepreneurship isn’t a given; it takes considerable work and, often, more than a bit of good luck. But aspiring law firm owners can set up for success with a few foundational steps early: Before You Launch Start with a simple business plan. This doesn’t have to be overly complicated; in fact, the simpler the better. But by taking the time to write down a simple framework for your business, you will be able to focus your time, energy and resources in your critical first year. What is our basic positioning? (We do X for Y) Who is our ideal client? Why are we an ideal solution for them? Why are we a better choice than our peers? Where do we want to be in three to five years? Don’t forget to make some eliminations here, too. As the saying goes, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” What cases and clients will you purposefully not accept? Where are you truly not a great option? (Think about building referral relationships here.) Invest in a strong first impression. Your logo and website should give confidence to both you and your clients. This is becoming increasingly important with your younger clients, who are more likely to do their own research than rely on referrals. Indeed, Gen Z and Millennial clients care more about a lawyer’s website (49 percent and 48 percent, respectively) than Gen X and Boomers (34 percent and 21 percent, respectively). I participated in a panel discussion with Missouri Lawyers Weekly, “From Attorney to Entrepreneur,” and one new legal entrepreneur said she decided to build a solid visual identity early because she wanted her clients to feel safe and secure despite choosing a brand new law firm. A clean, modern, professional—and mobile-friendly!—website signals that you are serious. Beware the pitfalls that abound in the marketing arena: Avoid DIY design tools that may leave you not owning your firm’s mark. Similarly, make sure you own, not rent, your website and URL. Make sure your website vendor uses a common, accessible CMS like WordPress, so you are not hostage to a proprietary platform. Determine what (and when) to delegate. You are an excellent lawyer, but owning a business carries a new set of demands, from invoicing to social media to fixing the dang printer. These administrative tasks pile up: According to Thomson Reuters, attorneys in small firms spend about 60 percent of their time practicing law, while solos spend just 55 percent of their time practicing law. The administrative burden of running a firm not only takes away from your billable time, it takes brain space and emotional energy. (And “winging it” can bring costly mistakes when it comes to your financial records and taxes.) Think about the business side of the firm, and start a list of the allies you may need. If your first call is to a virtual CFO or law firm financial planner, they can help you project when cash flow will allow you to hire additional experts. After You Launch Make sure people know how to find your firm. Your new law firm has no digital footprint. Set up your startup firm on Google Business and Bing Places for Business, or look at a service like Yext that can manage your business listings on a variety of platforms. Meanwhile, make sure you capture people who may search for your name, not the firm’s; these may be referrals or old connections you missed in the outreach campaign. We want to make sure they find you at your new firm (and not call the old place). Updating your LinkedIn profile is a must; I recommend putting a press release about the firm launch on a search-engine-friendly distribution service like PRWeb. Make direct outreach. Make a list of everyone you know. Mine your current email contacts, and download your LinkedIn connections. Then sort them into groups: Hot Contacts: These can be people who match your ideal client profile right now (remember doing that above?) or people who are in direct contact with your ideal client profile. In short, these are the humans you know in the best position to give you business. (Make sure to mind solicitation guidelines if you are in a consumer-facing practice.) Warm Contacts: These are people who may enter your ideal client profile at some point, or people who are one or two degrees removed. For example, if you are typically hired by CEOs, this list could be vice presidents or department heads. Cold Contacts: These are the people you can’t imagine giving you business. Reach out to them anyway. You never know what they (or their network) are sitting on, and your new business will not suffer from more people knowing what you do. After you sort them, reach out. My first day “open for business,” I emailed the hot contacts; the second day, the warm contacts; the third day, the cold contacts. Make these individual and personal. In your words, the email should convey: “Here’s what I’m doing now.” Set the table, and make it straightforward. I wanted to reach out to tell you I’ve started my own firm, Clark Kent & Associates. “Keep me in mind for … ” This is the most important part: It’s where you tell your network the kind of work you want to do and for whom you want to do it. Please keep me in mind for trademark prosecution or litigation involving consumer brands. “Here’s why you can trust me.” Reinforce your credentials. Not all of your contacts are intimately familiar with your expertise, and even those that are could use a reminder. Over the past decade, I’ve managed trademark portfolios for companies in retail, hospitality, and the beauty industry. I’ve been recognized by World Trademark Review and Best Lawyers in America. “Here’s why I’m doing this.” Share the passion that led you to start your own firm, and why working with you is better than the alternatives. I believe trademark clients are better served by a flat-fee model, and I’m excited to launch a firm with predictable pricing and no budget surprises. “Here’s how to learn more … ” Invite them to learn more, and thank them for their attention. This is where you can also insert some personalization (e.g., it was great to see you last month, hope the kids are well, how about those Chiefs). You can learn more about my new firm at [link]. Thank you for your consideration, and best wishes for the year ahead. Focus your social media. There are myriad ways to publicize your new firm on social media, but remember, you have a firm to run now. It’s OK to not be on every platform; it’s far better to pick one strategic option and be consistent there. LinkedIn is a natural fit for many new law firms, as your referral sources and business clients are already there. If your ideal client skews more toward young consumers, there are opportunities on Instagram and TikTok. (Although producing visually engaging, algorithm-pleasing content is more work than many expect.) Think about where your clients are, and show up consistently there. (For other platforms, consider claiming your name/handle, and make a post showing where they can find you and your firm updates.) Update your rankings and credentials. If you have been recognized by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Benchmark Litigation, or so on, reach out and let them know about the new firm. This is increasingly important as AI tools like ChatGPT are shown to scour attorney ranking sites for their search output. Have entrepreneur friends. Running your own business is hard. It’s freeing and affirming and often fun, but it’s also hard. According to Forbes, 50.2 percent of entrepreneurs struggle with anxiety; 45.8 percent deal with high stress; and 26.9 percent feel lonely or isolated. It’s imperative to have friends who can relate—friends who understand the pressure of making payroll, friends who can celebrate the wins, and friends who can tell you how they fixed such-and-such. If you don’t have those people in your circle yet, explore your bar association’s Solo/Small Firm Section, or drop by a startup networking group in your community. (Or reach out to me, I’ve been there too.) Let your network help you. Your friends and family will be excited for you (and they should be, starting a firm is a big deal!). You will get some questions along the lines of “How can we help?” Have some answers ready for your contacts who won’t necessarily be clients Some examples: Follow your new firm on social media. Share or comment on your announcement post. Visit your website to show Google there’s interest. If your contacts are attorneys, they can endorse you on Avvo or Martindale. One final note: Everyone will want to buy you lunch when you have “just started out.” Those offers will dry up after a few months. Take the lunches.
Last week, the American Arbitration Association announced something that should have every lawyer cheering: an AI-powered arbitrator for construction disputes that promises to cut costs by 35% and resolution time by 20%. Instead, the legal profession clutched its pearls. Critics warned of depersonalized justice, algorithmic bias, and the death of advocacy as we know it. They’re missing the point entirely. The real crisis isn’t AI making decisions. It’s that our current system has priced most Americans out of justice altogether. For far too long, the powers that be have argued that the solution to the access to justice crisis is more pro bono work. It’s not. The solution is reforming the way neutrals process cases. Hearings on the merits are good for justice. Disputes can be resolved on right and wrong and not just might making right. The System Is Already Broken Right now, someone with a legitimate $50,000 construction dispute faces an impossible calculation. Traditional arbitration will cost them $15,000 to $30,000 in fees before their lawyer even opens a file. A court case? Add two to three years to the timeline and double the cost. For many claimants, the math is simple: the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. They walk away from valid claims because the system designed to resolve disputes has become too expensive and too slow to access. This isn’t theoretical. Civil cases wait years for their day in court. Plaintiffs with serious injuries can’t get to a jury. Defendants who could prove their innocence in months instead spend years under the cloud of unresolved accusations. Families navigate divorces in a system so clogged that temporary orders become semi-permanent arrangements. The promise of justice delayed is justice denied has become our legal system’s operating principle. When resolution takes years and costs six figures, only corporations and the wealthy can afford to see cases through to completion. Everyone else settles for whatever they can get or abandons their claims entirely. What the AAA Actually Built The AAA’s AI arbitrator, set to launch in November for construction disputes, promises something the legal profession should celebrate: resolution in months, not years, at a fraction of traditional costs. The system claims 35% cost savings and 20% time savings for document-based construction disputes. Those aren’t incremental improvements. They’re transformative. More importantly, the AAA designed this system the right way. It keeps humans in the loop. It operates transparently. It builds on 99 years of arbitration expertise rather than trying to replace human judgment entirely. The AI analyzes documents, identifies issues, and suggests resolutions. Human arbitrators validate the outputs and make final decisions. This isn’t science fiction. It’s practical technology applied to a real problem: too many legitimate disputes never get resolved because the traditional process costs too much and takes too long. The Hypocrisy of Legal AI Critics Here’s what makes the criticism especially rich: lawyers already use AI constantly. We use AI-powered research tools to find cases. We use predictive analytics to value settlements. We use document review platforms that deploy machine learning to identify relevant materials. Large firms have used these technologies for years to deliver faster, cheaper services to corporate clients. But suggest using similar technology to make dispute resolution accessible to regular people, and suddenly we’re destroying the sanctity of the legal profession. The objection isn’t to AI in law. It’s to AI making legal services affordable for those who currently can’t access them. The legal profession’s resistance to accessible AI isn’t about protecting justice. It’s about protecting billable hours. Speed Matters More Than Lawyers Admit The legal profession has convinced itself that slower is more careful, that every case needs years of discovery and motion practice to reach just outcomes. This is self-serving nonsense. Many disputes don’t need exhaustive litigation. They need resolution. A homeowner fighting with a contractor over $30,000 in defective work doesn’t need three years of document requests and depositions. They need someone neutral to review the contract, inspect the work, and make a decision. The AI arbitrator can facilitate that process in months. An injured plaintiff watching their medical bills pile up while waiting for a court date three years away doesn’t benefit from our deliberate pace. They need their case heard while the evidence is fresh and before financial desperation forces an unfavorable settlement. Families in divorce proceedings watching their children grow up amid unresolved custody disputes don’t need more process. They need finality so everyone can move forward. The legal system’s addiction to process serves lawyers’ economic interests more than clients’ actual needs. We’ve built a professional moat around dispute resolution and convinced ourselves it’s a temple of justice. The Real Question About Bias Critics worry about algorithmic bias in AI systems, and those concerns deserve serious attention. But let’s be honest about the bias baked into our current system. Our traditional process is biased toward those who can afford to wait and pay. It’s biased toward corporate defendants who can outspend individual plaintiffs. It’s biased toward parties with resources to conduct extensive discovery, hire expensive experts, and file endless motions. The AAA’s approach includes human oversight specifically to catch AI errors and ensure fair outcomes. That’s more transparency and accountability than exists in many human arbitrations, where arbitrators provide minimal reasoning for their decisions and appeals are nearly impossible. Perfect is the enemy of good. If we wait for flawless AI systems before deploying them, we perpetuate a human system that’s already deeply flawed and fundamentally inaccessible to most people who need it. What This Means for Access to Justice The AAA’s AI arbitrator points toward a future where dispute resolution could actually be accessible. Imagine a system where a small business cheated by a vendor could get binding resolution in six months for $5,000. Where a homeowner could enforce warranty rights without mortgaging their house to pay legal fees. Where injured parties could get compensated while they’re still dealing with medical treatment rather than years later. This isn’t about replacing lawyers or eliminating advocacy. It’s about creating a tier of dispute resolution that currently doesn’t exist. A tier between “figure it out yourself” and “spend $50,000 on lawyers.” A tier that could handle thousands of legitimate disputes that our current system simply abandons. The technology exists right now. The AAA is deploying it. Courts should be racing to follow, not throwing up roadblocks in the name of protecting professional standards that mostly protect professional incomes. The Path Forward The legal profession needs to stop treating efficiency as the enemy of justice. We need to acknowledge that our current system fails most people most of the time. We need to embrace technology that can make legal services accessible rather than defending a status quo that serves lawyers better than clients. The AAA isn’t proposing AI judges for murder trials or complex commercial litigation. They’re using technology to resolve document-based construction disputes faster and cheaper than traditional methods. This is exactly the kind of measured, supervised deployment that should guide legal AI development across the entire justice system. If it works as promised, every area of law should be asking what comes next. Small claims. Small personal injury cases. Simple contract cases. Consumer complaints. Family law matters. Employment disputes. There’s a massive universe of legal disputes that could be resolved faster, cheaper, and better with the right technology and appropriate human oversight. The alternative is continuing to tell millions of Americans with legitimate legal claims that justice is available only if they can afford to wait years and spend tens of thousands of dollars. That’s not a system worth defending. That’s a system begging for disruption. The wheels of justice grind slowly, we tell ourselves, but they grind exceedingly fine. The truth is, they grind so slowly that most people never reach them at all. The AAA’s AI arbitrator is a step in the right direction. Every lawyer who cares about actual access to justice rather than theoretical access should be asking: what dispute resolution problem can we solve next? The legal profession should be leading this transformation, not standing in its way.
CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT Arbitration Hohenshelt v. Superior Court (2025) __ Cal.5th __, 2025 WL 2302229: The California Supreme Court reversed in part the decision of the Court of Appeal. It affirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision concluding that California Code of Civil Procedure section 1281.98 is not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.). But the California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and disapproved numerous recent Court of Appeal decisions, concluding that section 1281.98 does not require an automatic loss of contractual arbitration rights whenever a party fails to pay arbitration fees within 30 days, finding no indication that the Legislature intended to strip companies and employers of their contractual right to arbitration where nonpayment of fees results from a good faith mistake, inadvertence, or other excusable neglect. Section 1281.98 does not displace background statutes permitting relief to a breaching party in certain circumstances. The Court of Appeal was directed to remand the matter to the trial court for consideration of whether defendant might be excused for its failure to timely pay arbitration fees, such that the stay of litigation should not be lifted and the parties should be returned to arbitration, and whether the delay resulted in compensable harm to plaintiff. (August 11, 2025.) Employment Iloff v. LaPaille (2025) __ Cal.5th __, 2025 WL 2414467: The California Supreme Court addressed the good faith defense of employers to the default rule that employees who prove minimum wage violations are entitled to liquidated damages under Labor Code, § 1194.2, and whether a trial court may consider a claim under the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (§ 245 et seq.; the “Paid Sick Leave law”) that an employee raises in the context of their employer’s appeal to the superior court of a Labor Commissioner ruling. (§ 98.2, subd. (a).) The California Supreme Court reversed Court of Appeal on both issues, ruling that ignorance of the law is insufficient to prove a good faith defense to liquidated damages under Labor Code section 1194.2, and also concluding that employees may raise Paid Sick Leave claims in an appeal by the employer of a Labor Commissioner’s Ruling. CALIFORNIA COURT OF APPEAL Attorneys County of Los Angeles v. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 29874701: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment against the defendant law firm seeking a declaratory relief judgment finding there was no valid engagement agreement between defendant law firm and county plaintiffs, even though an engagement agreement had been signed by then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The central issue dispute was whether or not then-Sheriff Villanueva had the authority to retain–as opposed to select–independent counsel to represent him in a lawsuit the County of Los Angeles brought against Villanueva. Defendant law firm sought recovery of over $1.7 million in legal fees and costs. The trial court granted summary judgment for plaintiffs, finding that Sheriff Alex Villanueva lacked authority to enter into a fee agreement with defendant. It denied defendant’s post-judgment motion to file a cross-complaint as untimely and made in bad faith, and it dismissed defendant’s separate suit for payment as barred by the compulsory cross-complaint statute and the Government Claims Act. The Court of Appeal agreed, concluding that the sheriff had no authority to retain defendant firm, that the motion for leave to file a cross-complaint was properly denied, and that defendant firm’s later lawsuit was correctly dismissed for failure to comply with procedural requirements. (C.A. 2nd, October 23, 2025.) Elder Abuse Frankland v. Etehad (2025) __ Cal.App.5th __, 2025 WL 2267750: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial courts’ order sustaining defendant doctor’s demurrer to plaintiff’s causes of action alleging neglect and financial abuse under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (the Act; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 15600 et seq.). The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court, concluding that an elder cannot state a claim under the Act for “neglect” or “financial abuse” against a physician based solely on that physician’s negligent medical services while the elder resided at a skilled nursing facility. The Act limits “neglect” to “[t]he negligent failure of any person having the care or custody of any elder . . .” (§ 15610.57, subd. (a)(1), italics added), and a physician’s conduct in providing negligent medical services to an elder residing at a skilled nursing facility does not—without more—constitute “neglect” because that physician lacks the requisite “robust caretaking or custodial relationship” with the elder. Moreover, the alleged financial abuse flows inexorably from the alleged professional negligence, such abuse is indistinguishable from that negligence and also falls outside the Act. (C.A. 2nd, August 8, 2025.) Employment Galarsa v. Dolgen California (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 2846580: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and its petition for writ of mandate seeking to overturn the trial court ruling. The trial court held that an employee could pursue a “headless” PAGA action—one seeking penalties only for Labor Code violations suffered by other employees—and that the question of whether the plaintiff was an “aggrieved employee” need not be arbitrated. The Court of Appeal agreed, holding that under the version of PAGA in effect before the 2024 amendments, employees could bring such representative actions and that the arbitration agreement did not extend to determining PAGA standing, since that dispute belongs to the State’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency, not the individual plaintiff. (C.A. 5th, filed September 9, 2025, published October 8, 2025.) Land Use New Commune DTLA LLC et al. v. City Redondo Beach et al. (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 2886322: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s denial of a petition for writ of mandate challenging defendant’s housing element adopted under the state Housing Element Law (Housing Element Law; Government Code sections 65580 to 65589.11). The trial court ruled that defendant’s housing element complied with the Housing Element Law despite plaintiffs’ claims that it improperly relied on a zoning “overlay” permitting residential use on commercial and industrial land. The Court of Appeal disagreed, concluding that defendant’s overlay violated Government Code section 65583.2(h)(2) because it failed to impose mandatory minimum residential densities and allowed development without any housing, and that defendant failed to establish that one of the sites identified in the housing element, the Inglewood Avenue site currently occupied by a Vons supermarket, was properly identified as a developable site. (C.A. 2nd, October 10, 2025.)
Mark Cuban doesn’t mince words. When I asked him for advice for my law students at UConn Law School, his response was brutally simple: “Become intimate with all the LLMs. Learn what they can and can’t do. Same with agentic AI.” He’s right. And most lawyers are completely unprepared for what’s coming. The legal profession spent the last century perfecting human processes. We created elaborate systems for document review, legal research, contract drafting, and case management. We built pyramids of associates doing manual work that partners would review. We charged by the hour for tasks that should take minutes. Now Cuban points to the obvious truth: all those processes are dead weight. The firms that survive will be the ones that eliminate them entirely through automation. The Process Problem Is Killing Legal Practice Law firms are process factories. Junior associates spend 2,000 hours a year on document review. Partners waste days editing briefs that could be generated in seconds. Paralegals manage filing systems that should be automated. Clients pay $500 an hour for work that adds no real value. Cuban nails it: “So much of law is spent on processes.” These processes exist because we’ve always done them, not because they need to exist. They’re the legal equivalent of using horses when cars are available. Every hour spent on process is an hour stolen from actual legal thinking and strategy. The dirty secret is that most legal work isn’t legal work at all. It’s information processing, pattern matching, and document generation. These are exactly the tasks that LLMs excel at. A properly configured AI can review contracts faster than any human, spot issues more consistently, and generate first drafts that need minimal editing. Yet most firms still have associates doing this work manually, billing clients’ premium rates for commodity tasks. This isn’t just inefficient. It’s malpractice. When better tools exist and lawyers refuse to use them, they’re failing their duty to serve clients effectively. The profession’s resistance to automation isn’t principled; it’s protectionist. We’re protecting outdated business models at the expense of access to justice. Law Firms Are Having the Wrong Debate Here’s what kills me: Right now, law firm management committees are sitting in conference rooms debating whether to allow ChatGPT or which legal AI vendor to select. They’re comparing Cocounsel to Harvey to Lexis+ AI. They’re drafting policies about acceptable use. They’re forming committees to study the issue. They’re completely missing the plot. This isn’t a procurement decision. It’s not about picking the right product or crafting the perfect policy. It’s about fundamentally rewiring how lawyers think and work. While firms debate which walled garden to buy into, their competitors are teaching lawyers to be AI-native practitioners who can work with any tool that emerges. The vendors selling “legal-specific AI” are laughing all the way to the bank. They’re charging firms tens of thousands per month for what amounts to GPT-5 with a legal wrapper. These firms think they’re buying safety and specialization. What they’re actually buying is limitation and dependency. Meanwhile, lawyers who know how to work directly with Claude or GPT-5 are running circles around them, switching between models based on the task, combining tools for complex workflows. The real competitive advantage isn’t having the “right” AI tool. It’s having lawyers who understand AI deeply enough to use any tool effectively. The New Core Competency: AI Fluency Cuban’s advice cuts through the noise: become intimate with LLMs. Not familiar. Not competent. Intimate. This means understanding their capabilities at a granular level. Knowing when Claude outperforms GPT-5 for legal analysis. Understanding how to chain prompts for complex reasoning. Recognizing when an AI hallucinates versus when it surfaces genuine insights. Most lawyers treat AI like a search engine. They ask basic questions, get basic answers, and declare the technology overhyped. They’re using Formula One race cars to drive to the grocery store. The lawyers who will dominate the next decade are those who understand these tools deeply enough to push them to their limits. This isn’t about learning to code. It’s about learning to think in ways machines can execute. It means breaking complex legal problems into discrete, solvable components. It means understanding how to validate AI output and when to trust automated systems. It means knowing which tasks to delegate to machines and which require human judgment. The skill hierarchy in law is inverting. Technical excellence used to mean mastering case law and procedure. Now it means orchestrating AI systems to handle routine work while you focus on strategy and client relationships. The lawyers who can make machines do their bidding will outcompete those who can’t by orders of magnitude. It’s About Learning, Not Buying The firms getting this right aren’t shopping for solutions. They’re building learning cultures. They’re running prompt engineering workshops. They’re creating internal labs where lawyers experiment with different models. They’re rewarding lawyers who find new ways to automate routine tasks. One partner I know gave her entire team Claude and ChatGPT accounts and told them to break things. No policies, no restrictions, just pure experimentation. Within a month, they’d automated 40% of their document review process. Within three months, they were generating first drafts of briefs that needed minimal editing. They didn’t buy a legal AI product. They learned how to think with machines. This is what Cuban means by becoming “intimate” with LLMs. It’s not about mastering a single tool. It’s about developing an intuition for how these systems think, what they can do, and how to push them beyond their obvious applications. It’s about learning the meta-skill of AI collaboration. The firms still debating policies are already obsolete. While they worry about risk and compliance, their clients are using ChatGPT themselves and wondering why they’re paying lawyers to do work that machines can handle. The market won’t wait for the legal profession to get comfortable with AI. It will simply route around firms that refuse to adapt. Building the Future Means Destroying the Present Cuban’s most provocative point is his call to “invent new approaches.” He’s not talking about incremental improvement. He’s talking about burning down existing models and building something fundamentally different. Consider legal research. The traditional approach involves hours in databases, reading cases, synthesizing holdings. The AI approach? Feed a well-crafted prompt to Claude or GPT-5, get a comprehensive analysis in seconds, then spend your time validating and refining. The entire research process collapses from days to hours. Or take contract drafting. Instead of starting from templates and manually customizing clauses, AI-fluent lawyers generate entire agreements from natural language specifications. They iterate through versions in real-time during negotiations. What took weeks now takes hours. These aren’t efficiency gains. They’re paradigm shifts. And they’re happening whether the legal establishment likes it or not. The firms clinging to traditional processes will be decimated by competitors who embrace automation. The choice isn’t whether to adopt AI but whether to lead or follow. The Path Forward Is Clear Cuban’s advice is a roadmap, but most firms are treating it like a shopping list. Stop looking for the perfect AI product. Start building AI-native lawyers. First, master the tools. Not a tool. The tools. Spend serious time with Claude, GPT-5, Gemini, and emerging platforms. Learn their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. Understand how to prompt effectively, validate outputs, and chain operations for complex tasks. Make this part of professional development, not a side project. Second, create learning environments. Give lawyers time and space to experiment. Reward failure and breakthrough equally. Share discoveries across teams. Build internal knowledge bases of effective prompts and workflows. Make AI fluency as important as legal knowledge in performance reviews. Third, identify processes to eliminate. Every manual task in your practice is a target for automation. Document review, legal research, contract analysis, brief writing, client communications. Map these processes, then systematically replace them with AI workflows. Fourth, invent new service models. When routine work takes minutes instead of hours, billing structures must change. Value-based pricing, subscription models, and outcome-based fees will replace the billable hour. Firms that figure this out first will capture massive market share. The legal profession stands at an inflection point. Cuban sees it clearly: the future belongs to those who can command machines to do their bidding. The rest will be left behind, clinging to processes that no longer need to exist, charging for work that machines do better. The lawyers who get it: They’re not learning to be traditional lawyers. They’re learning to be legal engineers, process eliminators, and AI orchestrators. They’re not asking which legal AI product to use. They’re learning to use them all, to think with machines, to see possibilities where others see threats. They’re following Cuban’s advice to the letter. The question for practicing lawyers is simple: Will you join them, or will you be replaced by them? Cuban has shown you the path. Stop shopping for solutions and start learning. The only thing left is to walk it.
Gen Z lawyers—born between 1997 and 2012—are stepping into the profession with expectations that are rewriting the rules of law firm life. They want flexible schedules, meaningful mental health support, and technology that reduces busywork instead of creating it. They ask direct questions about lawyer work-life balance and often choose smaller firms with strong cultures over BigLaw positions. With the oldest Gen Z lawyers now in their late 20s, this generation comprises nearly 30% of the global population, and their influence on the legal industry is already reshaping traditional practices. For firms, this means culture, technology, and growth opportunities will increasingly determine who wins the talent war in the years ahead. In this post, we’ll explore what matters most to Gen Z lawyers, how they’re redefining career success, and what firms can do to stay competitive. Who Are Gen Z Lawyers? Gen Z attorneys are typically aged 25 to 28 as they enter the legal profession, representing the oldest members of a generation born between 1997 and 2012. As digital natives who grew up with smartphones, social media, and instant access to information, they think, learn, and work differently than previous generations. They expect genuine work-life balance, mental-health support, and modern legal technology that helps them work smarter. And they won’t hesitate to leave firms that don’t offer the right culture, flexibility, or growth opportunities. What Sets Gen Z Lawyers Apart? Understanding what drives Gen Z as lawyers requires looking beyond surface-level preferences to their core values and expectations. Here’s what firms need to understand about this generation. They expect technology to help them work smarter. Legal practice management systems and mobile apps that provide effortless access to case and client information from anywhere are now expectations for these digital natives. They reject endless email chains, don’t understand why paper-based documents still exist, and prefer streamlined communication, seeking legal workflow automation that eliminates manual processes. Purpose matters more than prestige. Traditional markers like BigLaw names and corner offices carry less weight than meaningful work. Deloitte’s latest Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey found that 89% consider a sense of purpose essential to job satisfaction and well-being. Many will even accept lower pay for work that aligns with their values and offers a stronger sense of long-term career fulfillment. Boundaries aren’t negotiable. These young lawyers set clear limits on their availability because they’ve witnessed the burnout that comes without them. They deliver high-quality work during business hours while protecting personal time so they can recharge and stay effective long-term. They need feedback to grow. Having grown up with instant feedback in every other area of life, they expect the same at work. They want regular check-ins, clear expectations, and immediate recognition for good work. This constant feedback loop accelerates their development and helps firms spot and fix issues early on. More than generational quirks, these are shifts in workplace expectations that affect law firms every day. Firms that embrace these expectations will attract and retain top talent, while those that ignore them risk losing the lawyers who will define the next decade of practice. Gen Z Expectations vs. Traditional Legal Norms The tension between old and new approaches creates daily friction for legal professionals. In many BigLaw firms, you’ll often witness a familiar scene: seasoned partners who believe associates need to “pay their dues” working alongside 26-year-olds who are adamant the system needs to change. It’s a clash between two completely different ways of thinking about legal work. Here’s where the expectations of Gen Z lawyers collide with traditional legal norms: Billable hours vs. quality of output. Gen Z lawyers grew up in a world where technology improves efficiency, so a compensation model that’s based purely on time spent feels backward to them. Meanwhile, many partners who built successful careers under the billable hour model consider it indispensable to law firm profitability. Hierarchy vs. collaboration. Traditional firms operate on strict chains of command where junior associates wait years before their opinions carry weight. Gen Z lawyers, by contrast, are accustomed to flat organizational structures and open communication. When they spot inefficiencies or have innovative ideas, they expect to be heard. Linear careers vs. flexible paths. The traditional model assumes everyone wants to make partner. But Gen Z lawyers often have more fluid career goals. Remarkably, only 6% say their primary career goal is reaching senior leadership. Some plan to go in-house after gaining experience. Others want to start their own practices or take sabbaticals for personal projects. Face time vs. results. Partners who came up in an era where being seen in the office equaled dedication now manage associates who can work effectively from anywhere. Gen Z lawyers judge performance based on output and results, not hours logged at a desk. These differences create natural tension, but they also raise important questions about how the legal profession operates. Firms that thoughtfully examine whether current practices serve everyone well—while preserving what works about traditional practice—will gain an edge in attracting and retaining exceptional talent. Law Firm Challenges In Attracting and Retaining Gen Z Firms face significant challenges in retaining emerging Gen Zs, and these problems stem from fundamental misunderstandings about what young lawyers actually need. With up to 50% of Gen Z workers reportedly disengaged from their jobs, law firms can’t afford to ignore these barriers. Treating Basics Like Perks One of the most significant disconnects occurs when firms continue to treat flexibility and work-life balance as optional perks instead of basic requirements. Gen Z lawyers expect the ability to work from home a few days a week, set their own schedules when possible, and manage personal commitments independently. When firms present these as “extra” benefits, it sends the message that they don’t truly understand how legal work can be done effectively today. Korn Ferry research even shows that 40% of Gen Z associates begin job searching within two years, often citing culture and flexibility concerns. Mentorship That Doesn’t Actually Mentor Gen Z wants real guidance and structured professional development, not just someone who assigns work and disappears. They expect mentors who understand what new lawyers need to succeed and help them get there. The traditional “figure it out yourself” approach leaves them feeling abandoned and undervalued. The numbers reveal this gap clearly. According to Deloitte, 50% of Gen Zs want managers who teach and mentor them, but only 36% say this actually happens. That disconnect between expectation and reality drives many talented young lawyers to look for opportunities elsewhere. Technology That Works Against Them Outdated systems frustrate young lawyers daily in ways that directly impact their ability to do good work. When they have to use three different platforms to complete one task, or when basic processes take hours instead of minutes, they start questioning whether the firm is serious about efficiency. Over time, these tech frustrations can chip away at engagement, productivity, and even loyalty. Career Paths That Assume Everyone Wants The Same Thing The traditional 8-10-year partnership track can feel constraining for lawyers who might want to pivot, take a sabbatical, or explore completely different goals. Gen Z expects firms to offer flexibility and support for diverse career paths, rather than funneling everyone into a one-size-fits-all trajectory. Recommendations: How Law Firms Can Adapt Smart firms are already making changes that reflect the preferences of Gen Z lawyers. By adopting the following six strategies, your firm can create a workplace that attracts, retains, and empowers talent at every level. Make flexibility the default. Gen Z lawyers value the ability to work where and when they can be most productive. Instead of treating remote work or flexible schedules as special privileges, make them standard practice. Focus on results and outcomes rather than hours logged or physical presence. Cloud-based practice management platforms make this possible, letting teams collaborate seamlessly whether they’re in the office, at home, or in court. Build mentorship programs that develop talent. Gen Z wants legal mentors who actively guide them, teach practical skills, and sponsor their growth. Provide mentors with dedicated time and opportunities for meaningful interaction. Beyond mentorship, Gen Z lawyers benefit from structured learning opportunities and ongoing legal education that keeps pace with their career growth. Modernize your tech stack. Outdated systems slow down work and create frustration. Invest in integrated technology that simplifies workflows instead of complicating them. The top legal software consolidates case management, time tracking, billing, and client communication into one centralized place. The result? Less time wrestling with systems and more time practicing law effectively—a win for associates and partners alike. Transform DEI from policy to practice. Gen Z can spot performative diversity a mile away. Inclusive policies alone aren’t enough. They need to be reflected in who’s hired, promoted, and placed in leadership. Show authentic commitment through measurable actions, like diverse leadership pipelines, fair promotion practices, and active accountability. When lawyers see real representation and inclusion in action, it builds trust, engagement, and a stronger sense of belonging. Measure what matters. Billable hours alone don’t capture what makes a lawyer successful. Reward lawyers who improve processes, take smarter approaches, or deliver exceptional results, not just those who work the longest hours. Modern legal technology makes this easy by supporting a wide range of alternative billing arrangements, like flat fees or subscription-based billing options. Give them meaningful work from day one. Young lawyers don’t want to spend years on endless document review or routine research. Instead, offer substantive projects, real client interaction, and genuine responsibility early on. With legal AI increasingly automating routine tasks traditionally assigned to junior staff, firms can now offer more substantive work to new associates from the beginning. Research and Surveys of Gen Z Voices Sometimes, the best way to understand a generation is to hear from them directly. Recent research and surveys reveal telling insights about what Gen Z lawyers want and what’s driving them away from traditional firms. 52% of Gen Z associates are willing to trade part of their salary for reduced billable hours, with women showing stronger preferences for this trade-off. 39% of Gen Z associates disagree or strongly disagree that associates at their firm were racially diverse. More than one in four junior associates disagreed or strongly disagreed that their firms prioritize pro bono work (27%) or value social justice and responsibility (27%). 68% of young lawyers experience stress and anxiety due to student loan debt, with 67% feeling financial stress overall. 74% of Gen Z believe generative AI will impact the way they work within the next year. 6% of Gen Zs say their primary career goal is to reach a senior leadership position. Of the 70% of Gen Z who said they would pursue employment at a law firm, just 39% said they would like to work for an Am Law 200 firm. As much as 50% of Gen Z workers are reportedly disengaged from their jobs. The Final Word On Gen Z Lawyers Gen Z lawyers are embracing legal tech to work smarter, championing flexible and forward-thinking business models, and reimagining the way they connect with colleagues and clients. As they move into leadership roles over the coming decade, their values will reshape everything from firm culture to client service delivery models. The firms that thrive will be those that embrace integrated practice management technology and provide the modern legal tools that help lawyers work more effectively. More importantly, they’ll recognize that Gen Z’s approach isn’t simply different. It can also be better, creating more sustainable, efficient, and fulfilling legal careers for everyone.
Practice Management
Deciding who to promote inside a law firm is one of the most important leadership decisions you will make. Promotions do more than change titles; they shape firm culture, reinforce expectations, and influence how your team views opportunity and fairness. When handled thoughtfully, they motivate performance and reward the right behaviors. When handled poorly, they can create resentment, reduce productivity, and send the wrong message about what the organization truly values. For this reason, law firms need to think long-term about whom to promote to managerial or supervisory positions and whom to avoid promoting. Promote Performance—Not Noise In many cases, the best promotion candidates are not the individuals actively asking for advancement. Instead, they are the ones who show up every day, work hard, and consistently produce strong results. These team members meet or exceed productivity metrics, take ownership of their responsibilities, and provide a high level of service to clients. They tend to be dependable, team-oriented, and focused on the firm’s success rather than their own personal recognition. By the time they are promoted, they are often already functioning at the next level, and the promotion simply acknowledges the role they have been performing all along. Be Wary of Promotions Driven by Pressure Promotions driven by pressure or demands can create long-term problems. When an employee insists on being promoted or presents an ultimatum, it can signal a sense of entitlement that does not align with a performance-based culture. Advancement should never be used as a tool to retain someone who has not demonstrated consistent productivity, strong performance, and alignment with the firm’s values. That does not mean employees cannot express interest in their future. It is perfectly appropriate for someone to communicate that they enjoy working at the law firm and would be honored to be considered for advancement when the time is right. The key distinction is between professional interest in growth and a demand for a title. The Importance of Time and Consistency Time and consistency are critical factors in promotion decisions. While there is no single formula, it is usually wise to see an employee perform through different seasons of the practice before elevating them. A lawyer or staff member may perform well for a few months, but the real test is whether they can maintain that performance during busy, slower, and challenging periods. In many instances, a year or more with the firm provides the opportunity to evaluate reliability, judgment, work ethic, and cultural fit. You are not simply promoting technical ability; you are promoting trust. Promote People Who Make the Firm Better The strongest candidates for promotion are those who make the firm better in measurable and intangible ways. They improve the client experience, enhance efficiency, and positively influence the people around them. Their attitude and professionalism set a standard that others naturally begin to follow. When these individuals are promoted, the decision reinforces a culture where advancement is earned through performance, humility, and consistency rather than personality or politics. Culture Is Built Through Promotion Decisions Every promotion sends a message to the rest of the organization. It tells your team what success looks like, what behaviors are rewarded, and what standards truly matter. If promotions are tied to productivity, client satisfaction, teamwork, and long-term performance, the firm will attract and retain people who embody those qualities. If they are tied to pressure or short-term needs, the culture will gradually shift in that direction. Final Thought The most effective promotion decisions are deliberate rather than reactive. They recognize sustained excellence, reward the right behaviors, and position the firm for long-term success. In most cases, the right people to promote are not those asking for the opportunity, but those who have already earned it through their work.
The Wu-Tang Clan taught us that “cash rules everything around me.” And nowhere is this truer than in law firms. I have learned a lot about people over the last two years. I have been through a lot. I have been betrayed by people I trusted. And I have been uplifted by people who possess a genuine moral compass and an authentic sense of values. Separating the posers from the real ones has been an unexpected gift in a long battle. Here is what I have learned: It is dangerous to come between people and money. Most people will choose money every single time. This is not cynicism. This is observation. And if you want to understand why law firms struggle with culture, why toxic partners survive for decades, why meaningful reform feels impossible, you need to understand this fundamental truth about human nature and economic incentives. The Economics of Looking Away Law firms are money-making machines. This is not a criticism. It is simply a fact. Partners eat what they kill. Compensation depends on origination credits, billable hours, and business development. Every relationship has a dollar sign attached to it. This creates a problem when values and profit collide. Good people will excuse awful behavior if they think addressing it will cost them money or the opportunity to make money. They won’t endorse the behavior. They will simply look the other way. I have watched this happen repeatedly. Sexual harassment. Bullying. Substance abuse. Partners who treat associates like disposable labor. Rainmakers who create hostile work environments. The pattern is always the same. People know. People see. People stay quiet. Why? Because that partner brings in three million dollars a year. Because that practice group generates twenty percent of the firm’s revenue. Because confronting the problem means risking the relationship and risking the money. This is how monsters survive in professional environments. Harvey Weinstein operated for decades. Diddy operated for decades. Otherwise, decent people knew something was wrong and said nothing. Fear played a role. But so did greed. Speaking up meant risking access. Risking opportunity. Risking the next deal. Law firms operate on the same dynamics, just at a smaller scale and with lower stakes. The partner who screams at associates? Everyone knows. The partner who makes inappropriate comments? Everyone knows. The partner who takes credit for other people’s work? Everyone knows. And everyone stays quiet because the math is simple. Confrontation equals risk. Silence equals continued compensation. The Convenient Lie This dynamic makes it easy for people to believe lies that serve their interests. When someone challenges a powerful person, the firm faces a choice. Investigate genuinely and risk losing a rainmaker or accept a convenient narrative that protects the revenue stream. I have watched otherwise intelligent people embrace obvious falsehoods because the truth was expensive. Liars understand this. They craft narratives designed for a receptive audience. An audience that wants to believe. An audience that has financial incentives to believe. This is not stupidity. It is motivated reasoning. People are remarkably good at convincing themselves that what benefits them financially is also what is true and right. The partner accused of harassment? There must be another explanation. The associate who complained? Probably a performance issue. The pattern of behavior spanning years and multiple victims? Coincidence. Convenient lies require cooperative believers. Law firms are full of them. What Values Actually Mean Here is what I have learned about values: They are what you do when it is inconvenient and does not maximize profit. Anyone can have values when values cost nothing. Anyone can stand for integrity when integrity is easy. The test comes when standing for something means losing something. Most people fail this test. They will profess values up to and until those values cost them money. Then the rationalizations begin. Then the exceptions emerge. Then the principles that seemed so firm suddenly become flexible. I am not saying this to condemn anyone. I am saying this because understanding it is essential to understanding how law firms actually work. When a firm says it values diversity but promotes the same demographic year after year, what does it actually value? When a firm says it values work-life balance but rewards partners who bill 2400 hours, what does it actually value? When a firm says it values respect but tolerates a partner who demeans staff, what does it actually value? The answer is always the same. Firms value what they pay for. Everything else is marketing. The Danger of Speaking Truth Telling the truth is rarely convenient. Speaking up that something is wrong is only safe when the wrongdoer is weak. If they are in power, you are in trouble. I have lived this. Speaking truth to power in a law firm environment is career-threatening behavior. The person who raises concerns becomes the problem. The whistleblower becomes the troublemaker. The truth-teller becomes the one who lacks judgment. This is not an accident. It is a feature of the system. Power protects itself by punishing those who challenge it. And in law firms, power is measured in dollars. The associate who reports a partner’s misconduct faces retaliation. The partner who challenges another partner’s behavior faces political consequences. The staff member who refuses to participate in something unethical faces termination. Meanwhile, the person with power faces nothing. Because they generate revenue. Because they have relationships. Because removing them costs money. This creates a brutal calculus for anyone with a conscience. Speak up and risk everything. Stay quiet and keep your career intact. Most people choose their careers. I do not blame them. I understand the choice even when I disagree with it. Control Mechanisms Abusive systems require control mechanisms. Law firms have plenty. Compensation structures are control mechanisms. When your income depends on the discretion of a small group of people, you learn quickly not to challenge that group. Origination credits are control mechanisms. When credit for business can be allocated or taken away based on relationships, you learn to maintain relationships even with people who behave badly. Awards and recognition are control mechanisms. Who gets nominated? Who gets celebrated? These decisions signal what the firm actually values and who holds power. Partnership decisions are the ultimate control mechanism. Years of work leading to a single vote by people whose favor you need. How likely are you to rock the boat during that process? These mechanisms are not inherently evil. But they create environments where abuse can flourish. Where silence becomes rational. Where going along becomes safer than speaking up. The Silence That Enables Abuse depends on silence. The silence of victims, yes. But more importantly, the silence of bystanders. There is a quote often attributed to Dante, though the sourcing is disputed: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” Whether Dante said it or not, the sentiment is true. Neutrality in the face of wrongdoing is not neutral. It is support for the wrongdoer. Every person who sees something wrong and says nothing makes it easier for that wrong to continue. Law firms are full of neutral people. People who know something is wrong. People who have the standing to speak up. People who choose not to because the personal cost is too high. I have been one of those people. I have seen things and said nothing because the timing was not right. Because I needed something from someone. Because I was afraid. I am not proud of it. But I have also been the person who spoke up. Who challenged power. Who refused to go along. And I have paid for it. Every single time. The Leadership Problem Here is the hard truth that nobody wants to acknowledge: All problems in a law firm are leadership problems. Toxic partners exist because leadership allows them to exist. Bad culture persists because leadership permits it to persist. Values get compromised because leadership compromises them. When a firm tolerates behavior that contradicts its stated values, that is a leadership decision. When a firm protects a rainmaker at the expense of everyone else, that is a leadership decision. When a firm chooses revenue over integrity, that is a leadership decision. Healthy law firms are those with values-driven leadership. Leaders who make hard decisions. Leaders who remove toxic people even when it costs money. Leaders who demonstrate through action that certain behaviors are unacceptable regardless of how much business someone brings in. These firms exist. They are rare. They are almost always led by people who have decided that some things matter more than maximizing profit. Evil Is Real I have come to believe that evil exists in the world. Not cartoon evil. Not mustache-twirling villainy. Ordinary evil. The evil of people who do harm because they can. Because it benefits them. Because nobody stops them. Evil banks on greed. Evil banks on self-interest. Evil banks on weak people who will not stand in its way. Law firms are not uniquely evil places. But they are places where the incentives align in ways that let bad actors thrive. Where the structures protect power. Where the economics reward silence. If you work in a law firm, you will eventually face a moment where your values and your interests conflict. You will have to decide who you actually are. Most people discover they are weaker than they thought. Some people discover they are stronger. Either way, you will learn something about yourself. I have learned a lot about myself over the last two years. I have learned what I will tolerate and what I will not. I have learned what I will sacrifice to maintain my integrity. I have learned who my real friends are. And I have learned that speaking truth in law firms is dangerous business. It remains worth doing anyway. Not because it will be rewarded. Not because it will be easy. But because some things matter more than money. The Wu-Tang Clan was right. Cash rules everything around us. But it does not have to rule us.
Do you know how effective this marketing tactic is? How much profit (or loss) is attributed to a specific marketing expense—what’s my ROI? It’s a question we get asked every day. Understanding the return on your investment (ROI) can be tricky. Especially in professional services, most clients’ hiring decisions are based on a combination of factors, so it can be difficult to attribute a new client to one specific marketing line item. Often a potential client will become aware of your services in multiple ways, frequently through a referral from a trusted friend or business associate, perhaps building a relationship with you over time and eventually hiring you when an immediate need presents itself. Firms want to understand the best places to spend limited marketing dollars. For very large firms, it may make sense to put sophisticated tracking mechanisms into place for determining the relative contributions of various marketing tactics to the client development process. For smaller shops, a few basic and manageable measures may prove helpful enough without creating an undue burden. The following are a few guiding thoughts. Begin With the End in Mind At the start of each marketing campaign or activity, ask yourself what success will look like. What is the business driver for your campaign? Are you trying to drive revenue for a specific type of work? Increase traffic to your website? Do you need to recruit talented associates? Are you supporting a succession plan to transfer firm ownership to the next generation of leaders? How we measure marketing and public relations results has evolved over the years. As digital platforms offer increasingly sophisticated tracking insights, there are new data points and ways to measure online results. But “real world” activities require a more human touch. In any case, you don’t have to measure everything possible to gain useful insights into the effectiveness of your marketing spend. Instead, start with a few manageable objectives that support your overall business goals and build on them over time. Define Your Goals If your goal is to increase traffic to your website, think through the why, the how, and, most importantly, the where. Is your inbound traffic visiting the right pages of your site to take the next step in their journey with you? Set up key event goals to track in Google Analytics 4 (which has replaced Universal Analytics). In addition to looking at simple site visits, track where and how long people spend time on your site. Did they follow a call to action (CTA), such as downloading information, filling out a form, or contacting the firm? If you invest in a conference exhibit booth, plan ways to track the number (and quality) of attendee contacts made during the event. Were you able to convert these people into LinkedIn connections, newsletter subscribers, follow-up calls, or other measurable post-event activities? A firm can look at successful results through many different lenses, each as one stepping stone to building practice success. Tracking Whatever your ultimate goal, you’ll need a way to track results. It’s helpful to start with a baseline prior to initiating your activity. For example, if your goal is to gain more clients in a particular practice, you’ll need to know how many matters you have in that area and where your clients have come from historically. If you haven’t been tracking referral sources in the past, do the best you can to gather the information and then begin a system for tracking this going forward. The most common way would be to have a “Referred by” field or two associated with your intake process. Ask every potential client how they found you, even if they don’t end up hiring you. You’ll want a way to generate reports based on this information, whether as part of an accounting system, a contact relationship management platform (CRM) or a simple Excel spreadsheet. Reviewing your referred-by information at regular intervals, you can attach revenues generated (or projected) on those specific matters to determine the ROI of the marketing you do. Keep in mind, that the client may tell you that their accountant referred you, but you’ll want to try to understand how that accountant met you in the first place. Perhaps it was because you spoke at an accounting industry event or met them through a networking forum. Those insights will help you to identify the ROI of your various activities. Depending on the volume of data you will need to digest, track, and report, it may be beneficial to standardize some information. For example, you might want to have a set of general categories on which you can sort and filter, such as “Print Ads,” “Organic Internet Search,” and “Conferences,” as well as a freeform field for additional information, such as the name and firm name of a specific referral source or the name and year of the conference or advertising campaign. Memories will fade, so the more specific you are now, the better your future decision-making will be. Quantity vs. Quality Many traditional (and even current digital) sales funnel principles are developed from a consumer products (and services) perspective. This model assumes that casting a very wide net (i.e., being in front of a high volume of eyeballs) will equate to higher sales. For some aspects of your marketing, this may offer some useful guidance. Especially if you run a practice that relies on reaching clients who are likely to use your services only once, such as personal injury or consumer bankruptcy. In these cases, you can look at the cost of, for example, a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and track how many qualified leads contact your office based on that campaign. Then, determine how many of those contacts convert into actual clients. Of course, there is a lot that happens between those two events, so make sure you are not making false assumptions about effectiveness. For example, if many people contact your office based on an advertisement, but you don’t respond to the majority of them until three days after initial contact, most of those people probably won’t become clients. In that case, the activity generated from your marketing spend might be high (demonstrating a high ROI for driving clients to the firm), but your lack of follow-through may be crushing your conversion rate (creating a low ROI when measuring the number of actual new clients gained). Many legal practices and B2B services have long sales cycles. These firms may need to spend more dollars (and time) on long-tail initiatives that deepen relationships with key referral sources or concentrate on building impressive credentials for their attorneys showcasing niche expertise. While it is rare that publishing a single article in an industry trade publication will cause the phone to ring with a new client, having that publication listed on an attorney’s bio will likely be an influencing factor in their assessment of the attorney’s expertise. These types of activities will be harder to attribute individually to a specific client acquisition. However, they are worthwhile as contributing factors, making their cumulative effect very powerful. In these cases, the most important measure may not be the number of reader impressions with potential clients or referral sources, but rather ensuring that the activities are targeted to engage the right specific people with hiring or influencing authority—typically a small subset of individuals. Measuring What Matters There are nearly limitless metrics you can use to determine whether a marketing campaign is effectively supporting your goals. Here are a few more ways to think about the question of ROI. If the firm is expanding into a new geography, is your marketing generating new leads originating from that location? Are website visitors engaging with content that is specifically relevant to that location? If the firm places digital ads with a publication, have you set them up with tracking links so you can see the number of visitors that come to your website directly by clicking on that ad? Are you testing and tracking different versions to continuously improve on your results? If you want to showcase niche expertise, have you increased the volume of content published on the topic (via blogs, article placements, podcast appearances, videos or other media)? Are you leveraging that content across multiple platforms? How are your audiences engaging with that content? Final Thoughts Be patient. Remember that marketing requires consistency. Just because you become bored with your campaign and are ready to move on to the next shiny marketing object doesn’t mean that you’ve even scratched the surface of market penetration. Some say that it takes seven impressions before your audience will consciously process your advertising message. Of course, having the right solution communicated to a potential client exactly when they need that particular service is the secret sauce. Since you rarely know when that is going to be, having a consistent presence is the key. The value of any marketing activity is ultimately how well it helps support your business goals. You don’t have to address all of the aspects discussed above with a complete overhaul of your marketing program, especially if you are a small team or managing a limited budget (and let’s be honest, who isn’t?). Rather, identify one goal, build a targeted campaign around that, and measure it (ideally, you’ll have a baseline based on historical data). Try new things, measure, analyze, and adjust. If you aren’t seeing the needle move after a reasonable period, try something different. The better you focus your marketing and business development activities in support of specific firm goals, the more you will realize a positive return on your marketing investments.
It’s the question keeping legal marketers up at night: “With the rise of AI-powered search, is traditional SEO still worth the investment?” If you’ve been fielding questions from stakeholders asking for Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO) or wondering why your firm isn’t pivoting its entire strategy to optimize for ChatGPT, you’re not alone. The search landscape is shifting, and Google’s introduction of AI Overviews has created a climate of uncertainty. However, the panic about the “death of SEO” is largely overstated. Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, recently addressed these concerns. His message was clear: You do not need to choose between traditional SEO and AI optimization. In fact, trying to separate them could be a costly mistake for your firm. The “New Stuff” is Built on the “Old Stuff” When tools like Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews arrive on the scene, the instinct is to demand a specific strategy for those platforms. Sullivan acknowledged that SEO professionals are in a tough spot when stakeholders demand “the new stuff.” However, he warns against inventing something entirely new merely out of appeasement. Instead, Sullivan explained that the best way to succeed with AI Overviews is to continue executing the fundamental SEO practices that have always worked. He advised telling stakeholders, “These are continuing to be the things that are going to make you successful in the long-term… I’m keeping an eye on it, but right now, the best advice I can tell you when it comes to how we’re going to be successful with our AEO is that we continue on doing the stuff that we’ve been doing because that is what it’s built on.” The “fancy new thing” is built upon the foundation of the “same old thing.” Google’s AI is trained to look for high-quality, helpful, and authoritative content, the exact same metrics traditional SEO has prioritized for years. Abandoning SEO Won’t Help Your Firm’s ROI There is a growing trend of “AI Optimization” services suggesting that businesses should tailor their content specifically to rank in chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. This often involves creating listicles or tweaking keyword phrases in ways that feel spammy, tactics that reputable SEOs abandoned nearly two decades ago. Before you pivot your budget to chase chatbot visibility, you must look at the numbers. The search traffic share for these standalone AI chatbots is a fraction of a percent. Estimates place ChatGPT’s search market share between 0.2% and 0.5%, with competitors like Claude registering close to zero. Compare this to Google and Bing, which still command the vast majority of global search traffic. From a Return on Investment (ROI) perspective, prioritizing AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) over traditional search makes zero sense. You would be optimizing for a microscopic segment of the audience while neglecting the platform where your actual customers are searching. The Risks of Over-Complication Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode are different from standalone chatbots, but the underlying machinery remains the same. Sullivan confirmed that the ranking systems powering these AI interfaces are still based on Google’s classic search algorithms. If you start bifurcating your strategy by creating one type of content for “Search” and another for “AI,” you risk overcomplicating your marketing operations. Sullivan warned that dramatic shifts in strategy to chase AI rankings often lead to confusion rather than success, “The more that you dramatically shift things around, and start doing something completely different… the more that you may be making things far more complicated, not necessarily successful in the long term.” Simple, high-quality content remains the gold standard. If you muddy the waters with complex, divergent strategies, you may dilute your overall authority. The Evolution of Technical SEO If content is king, what happens to the technical side of SEO? During the same discussion, Google’s John Mueller offered an interesting perspective on the evolution of technical SEO. In the early days of the internet, simply making a site accessible to a crawler required significant technical heavy lifting. Today, modern Content Management Systems (CMS) have changed the game. Mueller pointed out that platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace now handle the majority of technical SEO requirements “out of the box.” This doesn’t mean technical SEO is dead; complex sites still require expert architectural management. But for many businesses, the barrier to entry has lowered. Sullivan agreed, noting that this shift is positive. It allows marketers and business owners to stop stressing over backend code and focus on what truly matters: the content. Sullivan notes, “I don’t even want to think about this SEO stuff anymore. I’m just getting back into the joy of writing blogs … That’s what we want you to do. That’s where we think you’re going to find your most success.” By letting the CMS handle the technical baseline, your team can dedicate its resources to creating the kind of deep, expert-driven content that feeds both the traditional search engine and the AI Overview. How SEO and AIO Work Together The verdict is clear: SEO and AIO are not enemies. They are partners. Optimizing for traditional search is, by definition, optimizing for AI Overviews. The AI needs a source of truth. It needs clear, structured, and authoritative data to generate its answers. If your website provides that through solid SEO practices, you are positioning yourself to win in both arenas So, what does a robust SEO/AIO strategy look like? Stick to E-E-A-T: Google’s criteria for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness apply to AI just as much as traditional links. Ensure your content is written by experts. Provide Comprehensive Answers: Platforms like AI Overviews leverage “query fan-out” to break down single, complex queries into multiple, specific sub-queries. When writing about a topic, aim to be as comprehensive as possible. For example, if you’re working on a blog about “divorce” in a particular state, be sure to cover all the angles, from child custody and asset division to alimony and mediation vs. litigation. Focus on Readability: If a human struggles to read your content, an AI likely will too. Use clear sentence structure, avoid legalese, and use headings and bullet points to ensure scanability. Don’t Chase Algorithms: Algorithms change daily. If you prioritize writing for the human user, you are future-proofing your content against whatever update comes next. SEO/AIO For Law Firms: A New Visibility Paradigm The arrival of AI in search is a significant technological shift, but it does not require a complete reinvention of your marketing wheel. As Danny Sullivan advises, the “fancy new thing” is rarely as sustainable as the foundational practices that built it. The path forward is one of integration, not separation. You don’t need to view AI Overviews as a separate channel that requires a new budget and an entirely new strategy. Instead, see it as the evolution of search, one that rewards the same high-quality, expert-driven content you should already be producing. Focus on your audience. Answer their questions. Demonstrate your expertise. If you do that, the algorithms, human-coded or AI-powered, will follow.
How much a law firm should pay an associate attorney is an age-old question that many law firms consider. Many law firms debate this question, making it difficult for them to develop a workable formula that works within their budget. Law firms often gravitate to one of two extremes. One extreme is that law firms overpay associates to lure them to work for their firm. However, if a law firm overpays for talent, the law firm owner often makes no money themselves. It may also be challenging to meet other firm financial obligations if the payroll is too high. Law firms that pay associates too much money ultimately get overextended, have to let employees go, and implode. To a lesser extent, some law firms may not offer enough in salary. If that is the case, it is hard to attract top talent to the law firm. When that occurs, it is hard for a law firm to hire lawyers. Law firms do need to consider average salary data to determine a reasonable pay range. Yet, the salary data is not the be-all and end-all. The numbers still have to work financially, based on the law firm’s budget and forecasts. What Is a Reasonable Way to Pay Associate Attorneys? Every law firm is a little different. Depending on the practice area, how a law firm pays associates can change. However, many prognosticators argue that a law firm associate should receive about one-third of the revenue generated by them. Many would refer to this system as the “old rule of thirds” for paying lawyers. Under this system, one-third goes to the lawyer, one-third to overhead, and one-third to the law firm. Thus, if a lawyer brings in $300,000 in actual revenue, many would argue the lawyer should make a base salary of about $100,000 per year. Of course, the analysis gets complicated when the lawyer did not bring any of the business into the law firm, but instead, all their revenue comes from cases generated by the law firm’s marketing efforts, given that marketing is often expensive. With increasing overhead costs, including rising health care costs, the formula can also be more complex. Collection rates can muddy the water, too. If a lawyer bills $300,000 in billable hours per year but collects only $200,000 of that amount, the associate would not receive $100,000 under the rule of thirds. Instead, to the chagrin of many associate attorneys, they would receive a salary of $66,666.66. One lawyer argues today that the new norm for paying an associate is 20 percent of the revenue they generate for the law firm. The rationale for the 20 percent argument is challenging economic conditions and rising benefit costs, including health care costs. Such a position also makes sense when considering inflationary factors, including the cost of advertising to bring in potential clients when an associate does not have their own book of business. While many law firm associates may not like hearing that their base salary should be somewhere between 20 and 33 percent of the revenue they can reasonably be expected to earn, the reality is that law firm owners would be wise to heed this guidance. If they pay more than this amount to attract or retain talent, they will likely put themselves and their firm in financial trouble. Many law firms specifically get themselves into trouble by offering a base salary that is not within the 20 to 33 percent range of the revenue the lawyer can reasonably generate. Instead, many law firms set salary ranges solely on online salary data or what it takes to hire lawyers away from their competitors. When that happens, many law firm owners become frustrated when their lawyers do not meet their billable-hour or revenue requirements. They also suffer financially, and the firm’s viability can be jeopardized. Thus, law firm owners need to follow the metrics of their lawyers and law firm to ensure that the salaries they are paying make financial sense. What About Incentives on Top of Base Salary? Many law firm owners also wonder whether incentives, in addition to the base salary, will motivate lawyers to meet their productivity metrics. Paying lawyers incentives probably makes sense for many law firms. By doing so, lawyers have an incentive to exceed their goals because they will make extra money. Law firms can set up incentives in many different ways. A law firm may: Pay a set discretionary bonus to an associate lawyer who met the billable hour and accounts receivable goals; Pay lawyers a discretionary bonus if they bring in a case outside of the law firm’s marketing efforts; and/or Come up with a formula-driven bonus system that pays associates a portion of any profit they make for the firm, although complicated formulas can lead to computation disputes with associates. Truth be told, many associate attorneys are not impressed by incentive-based pay. Most are merely looking for guaranteed money—and they will jump ship if a competitor offers more. In their defense, the desire to make the highest guaranteed salary possible makes sense when you consider that many lawyers are coming out of law school with significant student loan debt. It is also challenging to buy a home and have a family in this day and age with rising prices. Yet what many associate attorneys fail to realize is that, if they ever become partners, there is no guaranteed salary. If the firm is not making money, they do not get paid. In the end, law firms that want to be fiscally responsible need to follow the guidance above. Suppose an associate intends to depart for a higher guaranteed salary. If they are asking for more than 20-33% of the revenue they actually generate, most law firms should let them go. While it is often sad when an associate departs, the law firm is usually better off not to over-extend to keep them. If they do it often, the firm can struggle to succeed. The law firm should instead hire another lawyer with a reasonable salary expectation and move forward.
A firm’s client base should be a crystal-clear reflection of its strategy. Here’s how leadership can help ensure that business development professionals bring that part of law firm strategy to life. Setting the Stage: Strategy and the Client Base of the Future In a previous post, we explored how even the busiest firm leaders can personally contribute to sales success. This follow-on focuses on one small but powerful—and too often overlooked—step in the strategic planning process: targeting. When a firm plans for its next three to five years, it envisions its future market positioning, geographic footprint, brand, buyer awareness, services, people, and other key factors. Even if only implicitly, the strategy also illuminates the client base of the future. Most new law firm strategies define an ideal client profile. That’s a start, but as Tony Robbins said, “You can’t hit a target if you don’t know what it is.” A profile alone is too abstract to drive consistent action. What’s needed is a specific, strategy-driven target list—by name—of clients to retain and nurture, and prospects to pursue. The questions, then, are: Which current clients deserve continued investment, and which have run their course? Which prospective clients align with the firm’s future direction and need to experience direct and energetic sales efforts? The Leadership Imperative Today’s client development teams, now equipped with sophisticated tools, including generative AI, can generate remarkably precise target lists. But without visible and ongoing leadership sponsorship, those lists rarely take hold. Leaders are well-advised to make clear that targeting is a strategic, sanctioned, monitored, and rewarded activity. Otherwise, even the best-intentioned efforts will fade into “business as usual,” and strategic plans will gather dust on a metaphorical shelf. Two contrasting examples illustrate the points made in this blog post: The cautionary tale. A mid-sized firm we advised generated a strategy to become a leading advisor to middle-market businesses across all the firm’s limited geographies. With this guidance, the client development team built a list of 3,000 companies, identified key buyers, mapped relationships, and generated preliminary action plans. It was a promising approach, but leadership did little more than acknowledge the existence of a list. Without leaders reviewing, refining, endorsing, and enforcing accountability, enthusiasm waned. Within two years, the middle-market strategy had been replaced by the de facto goal of opportunistic expansion, including “growing globally.” The success story. A then-Big Six accounting firm embraced a strategy “to serve global companies globally” (my words). Leadership made it clear: “Your job is to serve or pursue Global 1000 clients. Other work is your choice, but we will not invest in it, and it will not drive recognition or compensation.” Within two years, the firm’s annual growth rate rose from single digits to 16%+, it expanded into previously unserved markets where its clients and targets operated, and its workforce expanded by an estimated 20%. What Firm Leaders Should Consider Doing Client development teams can deftly perform most of the back-office work required to develop great, strategically guided target lists. But to ensure that names on target lists become names on client lists, leadership might take some or all of the following actions: Publicly charter the effort. Empower client development leaders to craft and maintain target lists that reflect firm strategy. Know the lists. Be conversant with their composition and alignment with firm priorities. Communicate relentlessly. Reinforce who the firm serves now, who we will serve next, and how each lawyer’s work contributes. Monitor the pipeline. Track traction against target lists and step in when progress stalls. Provide resources and alignment. Support the effort through budget, technology, incentives, and lateral hiring. Recognize performance. Celebrate wins that reflect strategy and quietly correct those who are off course. Help lawyers and staff learn to say “no” to proposed off-strategy actions and investments. The Payoff When leadership and client development teams align around specific targets, the results are transformative. Accountability. Progress can be tracked, and success measured, against named targets. Clarity. Everyone knows the firm’s priorities and what’s expected of them. Focus. Effort and investment concentrate where they yield the highest return. Collaboration. Lawyers coordinate around shared priorities, enhancing the client experience. Efficiency. Time, attention, and resources flow toward what matters most. Cultural alignment. The firm speaks with one voice about growth and purpose. Why This Matters A firm’s client base should be a direct function of its strategy. When leadership sets clear boundaries and expectations, client development becomes not just a clerical exercise but a manifestation of strategic intent. Turning a strategy into a defined client base requires more than capable business developers; it requires leadership resolve. Ask yourself: Does everyone in your firm know exactly which clients define your future? If not, now is a propitious time to make that clear.
There’s a moment every ambitious founder eventually faces—one that separates the leaders who rise from seven figures into eight … and those who stall out despite their brilliance. I see it every week with the managing partners, founders, and high-achieving lawyers I coach. But the clearest example came recently, during a conversation I had in Berlin with a managing partner who runs a highly successful seven-figure firm. He’s sharp. Strategic. Respected. The exact profile of someone you expect to see at an international legal conference. Over lunch, he shared his plan to scale to eight figures—a smart move in his market. So, I asked him the most natural question in the world: “Who’s your coach?” He paused. Smiled. And said, confidently: “I don’t need a coach.” And in that instant, he revealed the most dangerous blind spot every high performer has—the myth of more. The Myth of More: When What Got You Here Stops Working High performers tend to trust the formula that rewarded them in the past: More effort More hours More control More personal execution More of you holding everything together This founder had built a seven-figure firm by being a world-class problem solver. That strength had served him extraordinarily well. But it had also quietly become a ceiling. Many founders mistakenly believe that the path to eight figures is simply a continuation of the path that got them to seven. They assume linear effort will keep creating exponential results. It won’t. At a certain point—often right around the seven-figure mark—the model collapses under its own weight. More hours begin to burn out the leader and the leadership team. More control creates bottlenecks instead of momentum. More involvement forces everything to route through a single person. The strengths that once produced success become liabilities. Eight Figures Is Not an Operational Challenge—It’s an Identity Shift Scaling to eight figures isn’t about optimizing your schedule or hiring more support staff. It requires something far more uncomfortable: It requires you to change. Not as a technician. Not as a lawyer. Not even as a CEO. You must evolve into something that many high-performing attorneys have never been taught to be: A leader of leaders. This requires a complete internal shift—from elite doer to builder of other elite doers. A doer controls and executes. A leader delegates and inspires. A doer solves problems. A leader asks better questions. The founder in Berlin had elevated himself into the CEO seat, but he was still operating like the most elite technician on the team. He was leading with the same instincts that once earned him success in the courtroom. And that’s why he was stuck. The Invisible Ceiling: The Belief You Don’t Know You Have Every founder carries a belief that helped them win early in their career. For many lawyers, the belief sounds like this: “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” That belief absolutely builds a seven-figure law firm. It absolutely destroys an eight-figure one. Because scaling requires you to let go. Let go of control. Let go of being the answer. Let go of being the bottleneck your entire team unconsciously depends on. But here’s the catch: You can’t see your own limiting beliefs. You’re standing inside the frame. You cannot read the ingredients on the cereal box from the inside. That’s why an invisible ceiling is so dangerous—it’s built from patterns you’ve repeated for decades, patterns that feel like strengths but function like restraints. Why You Cannot Break the Invisible Ceiling Alone Let me give you the blunt truth: There is no high-performing founder in the world who breaks through their invisible ceiling alone. Not because they lack intelligence. Not because they lack discipline. Not because they lack courage. But because no one in their life is positioned to tell them the unfiltered truth. Partners have their own political interests. Employees are influenced by power dynamics. Spouses want to protect you from discomfort. Friends want to support you, not challenge you. Only one person has no agenda other than your success: A coach. Someone who reflects the patterns you can’t see, asks the questions no one else asks, and challenges beliefs no one else would dare confront. This is why the founder in Berlin will not scale to eight figures until he stops trying to do it alone. And this is why my highest-performing clients scale faster than their peers—because they have a mirror, an accountability engine, and a strategic sparring partner all in one. Real-World Evidence: What Happens After the Identity Shift Let me make this real: A client of mine—also a seven-figure founder—was stuck. She had the team. She had the systems. She even had a leadership layer in place. But she still felt guilt about stepping back. She still believed she “needed to be in the weeds” to justify her value to the firm. She couldn’t imagine allowing her leaders to fail, even though failure is the only path to growth. Within six months of shifting from managing people to leading leaders: She worked fewer hours. Her firm’s revenue increased. Her leaders finally stepped into their full roles. She reclaimed her strategic headspace. The client experience improved. She became the CEO the business needed. She stopped being the operator and grew into the visionary. That is the identity shift required to go from seven figures to eight. The Question That Separates Leaders Who Scale From Leaders Who Stall If I could go back to that moment in Berlin, I still wouldn’t try to convince that founder he needed a coach. High performers shut down when you try to “fix” them. Instead, I’d ask him a simple question—the same one I’m going to ask you now: Are you willing to bet your eight-figure dream on the belief that you have zero blind spots? Sit with that. Now ask yourself a second question: What is the one belief that has always served you—but may now be the invisible ceiling holding you back? Every founder has one. The ones who scale are the ones brave enough to examine it. Your Next Level Requires a New You Scaling isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming more: More aware. More intentional. More visionary. More willing to be challenged. More willing to see what you cannot see alone. The leaders who reach eight figures are never the ones who go alone. They’re the ones who choose to evolve.
A systematic approach to BD doesn’t kill creativity. It enables it. Most firms treat business development like an instinct. You either have it or you don’t. But relying on natural rainmakers is risky. What happens when they retire, leave, or burn out? It also creates ego-driven cultures where the firm’s best interests take a back seat to the rainmakers. For most people, business development isn’t magic. It’s a process. And when you build it systematically, it can scale beyond personality and luck. 1. Start with a Method Charisma may win the first meeting, but structure builds the pipeline. Every firm needs a defined process for relationship development that clarifies expectations, focus, and follow-through. If you don’t already have one in place, try The Short List Method. (It’s simple, repeatable, and turns BD from guesswork into discipline): Identify your SMART goal. What are you trying to accomplish this quarter—more referrals, new logos, or upmarket traction? Make sure your goal is specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound. Create your Short List. Choose 9–35 key relationships that are critical to achieving your SMART goal. They should include key Clients, Prospects, and Connectors (both internal and external). Nurture your Short List through helpful, personalized outreach: introductions, insights, invitations, and relevant check-ins. “Spray and pray” email sequences don’t build trust. Play the long game. Our research shows it takes an average of fourteen interactions from first contact to first contract, but most people stop after just a few. Track your activity. Use a CRM or pipeline management system to keep your outreach consistent and visible. When your team follows this framework, BD stops being random. It becomes intentional, measurable, and manageable. 2. Build Momentum into Firm Culture The best BD systems don’t rely on motivation. They rely on momentum. Too many professionals say they’ll “get to BD when things slow down.” But they never do. Firms that win make BD part of firm culture: Incentivize business development properly. Your compensation structure communicates priorities. If the reward for BD is minimal, expect minimal effort. Create accountability that inspires. Regular coaching and mentoring are key. To make it scalable, introduce peer coaching or BD pods that make growth a shared responsibility. Professionals stay engaged when they see others doing the same work. Schedule regular outreach blocks. Even a 30-minute block each week can move the needle. Consistency matters more than intensity. When BD becomes part of how your team evaluates success, it shifts from a “nice to have” to a cultural expectation. 3. Measure What Matters If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Most firms still rely on lagging metrics like new matters, new revenue, and hours billed. Those are important, but they only tell you what already happened. A systematic BD process also tracks leading indicators: Number of proactive outreach actions Relationship engagement consistency New introductions or opportunities generated These metrics reveal what’s working early, so you can course-correct before the quarter slips away. 4. Build Feedback Loops that Reinforce Progress A system without feedback is just a checklist. People need to see that their efforts are paying off. You can strengthen feedback loops by: Inviting your team to shadow you on pitch calls and meetings. Give them a defined role, then debrief afterward so they can learn from what worked and what didn’t. Acknowledging and encouraging effort, even small wins. Many of your rising stars are still developing their BD skills, and encouragement from leadership goes a long way. Sharing wins firmwide, even if it’s just a reconnection that led to a referral or proposal. Celebrating effort metrics (number of meaningful touchpoints) alongside revenue metrics. Leading indicators like interactions are as critical as lagging ones like new engagements. Using your CRM or relationship tracker to spotlight what’s working and where the pipeline is leaking. Visible progress sustains engagement. When professionals see cause and effect, they double down. 5. Coach the System, Not Just the People Firm leaders should reinforce The Short List Method at every level—from onboarding to partner development. That means: Embedding BD goals into performance plans Training new professionals to build their own Short List Rewarding consistency and collaboration, not just big wins Recognizing when internal resources aren’t producing the results you want, and outsourcing to professional BD coaches who can accelerate progress When the system is institutionalized, BD becomes part of how the firm operates, not an afterthought. Final Thoughts A systematic approach to BD doesn’t kill creativity. It enables it. When professionals have structure, they’re freed from the guesswork and can focus on what they do best: building trust with clients, current and future. With The Short List Method as your foundation, BD stops depending on luck, personality, or “natural rainmakers.” It becomes a reliable, firmwide growth engine.
As attorneys, we are trained to anticipate risk and protect our clients from uncertainty. Yet many of us fail to apply that same diligence to our own practices. Succession planning is not just a professional courtesy—it’s a legal and ethical necessity. A Cautionary Tale The sudden death of a law firm’s founder or managing partner can trigger a cascade of problems—especially when no succession plan exists. One real-world example involved a 30-attorney firm with multiple offices in the Mid-Atlantic. After the unexpected passing of its managing partner, the firm unraveled within a year. Without a designated successor or leadership structure, attorneys began leaving, clients lost confidence, and operations ground to a halt. Eventually, the remaining lawyers voted to close the firm. Solo practitioners are particularly vulnerable. Many work until they pass away, leaving family members or colleagues to sort out the aftermath. In sole proprietorships, the firm legally ceases to exist upon the owner’s death. Without a plan, client matters may be left unresolved, and the firm’s assets are liquidated to pay debts. Even partnerships and LLCs can face dissolution or legal disputes if succession provisions are missing. Whether through internal leadership development, merger strategies, or buy-sell agreements, law firms must prepare for the unexpected. Succession planning isn’t just about continuity, it’s about protecting clients, staff, and the legacy of the firm. Ethical Duties Require More Than Good Intentions California attorneys are bound by fiduciary duties of competence, communication, loyalty, and confidentiality. These duties don’t end when we retire, become incapacitated, or pass away. If we fail to plan for the transition or closure of our practice, we risk breaching these obligations and exposing our clients to harm. The California Rules of Professional Conduct—particularly Rules 1.1 (Competence), 1.6 (Confidentiality), 1.15 (Safeguarding Client Property), and 1.17 (Sale of Law Practice)—set clear expectations for attorneys to act with diligence and care in managing their practices, even in transition. California’s Default Rules: Reactive and Risky If an attorney becomes incapacitated or dies without a succession plan, California law provides a framework—but it’s far from ideal. Under Business & Professions Code Sections 6180 and 6190, the Superior Court may assume jurisdiction over the law practice and appoint an attorney to wind it down. This process is designed to protect clients, but it can be slow, disruptive, and costly. The court-appointed attorney may not be familiar with the practice, the clients, or the systems in place. Without prior arrangements, even basic tasks—like accessing trust accounts, retrieving files, or notifying clients—can become complicated. Confidentiality concerns, malpractice risks, and administrative burdens often fall on grieving family members or unprepared colleagues. When There is No Plan If the court steps in, the appointed attorney or representative must: Secure the office, files, and trust accounts Notify clients, courts, and opposing counsel Review calendars for deadlines and court appearances Handle payroll, insurance, leases, and vendor contracts Reconcile trust accounts and finalize billing Safely destroy or return client files Notify the State Bar and other agencies of the closure This process can take months and may result in lost goodwill, client dissatisfaction, and even litigation. Proactive Planning: A Professional Imperative To avoid this scenario, I recommend the following steps: Designate a successor attorney: Choose someone you trust and formalize the arrangement in writing. This person should be prepared to step in immediately if needed. Create an emergency protocol: Include passwords, client lists, trust account details, and instructions for transferring or closing cases. Keep this updated and accessible. Consider selling or transferring your practice: If retirement or declining health is foreseeable, explore options for selling or transitioning your practice while you’re still able to oversee the process. Rule 1.17 governs the ethical sale of a law practice and requires client notification and consent. Communicate with clients and staff: Let them know you have a plan. This builds trust and ensures a smoother transition. Maintain insurance and records: Consider “tail” malpractice coverage and keep detailed records of client communications, billing, and file dispositions. Planning Is an Act of Compassion Succession planning is not just about protecting your business—it’s about protecting your clients, your colleagues, and your legacy. It’s a reflection of your professionalism and your compassion.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every activity under the heaven.” Many cases can benefit from early mediation. Parties often reject the notion of early mediation because they believe they need more information to resolve the dispute. In some cases, more information is necessary. In other cases, however, parties can assess litigation outcomes—based upon what they know, can reasonably anticipate and are willing to exchange in connection with the mediation—and meaningfully value the case without further litigation. Benefits of Early Mediation It can set the tone. Early mediation can help set a productive tone for the litigation. Early in my career, a senior attorney instructed me never to bring up settlement with the other side, believing it would be taken as a sign of weakness. When I later became responsible for cases, I began to raise settlement options early, expressing this premise: “We are on two parallel tracks, one to settle the case, one to try it.” And I proposed not letting one interfere with the other. It lets you learn about the case. Whether representing plaintiffs or defendants, busy litigation counsel tend to advance their preparation of a case for the next deadline. In some firms, lead counsel may rely upon others initially to analyze and prepare a case. In these instances, early mediation can be a catalyst to prompt a more comprehensive and candid consideration of a party’s claims or defenses. Exchanged briefs may clarify or provide additional information about the other side’s position. And early mediation offers an opportunity to learn about the opposing party and their counsel. It gives you a chance to settle the case. The benefits of an early resolution can be significant. Of course, ongoing litigation efforts cease and resources are preserved. Removing the stress (or at least the distraction) of a case allows parties to move on and turn their attention to other matters. An early mediation provides a forum for parties with intensely personal connections to a dispute to “have their day in court” sooner rather than later. For a defendant, risk becomes certain. And for a plaintiff, funds become available immediately. It provides information. Without settlement, one primary value of early mediation is information—about both the other side’s case and yours. Early mediation is an opportunity to develop your narrative and analyze how it will play out with a competing narrative. It requires a focus on damages and clarity about the range of potential recovery or risk. It may prompt you to revisit your expectations about case outcome (and thus case value)—whether because of new information or perhaps a mediator’s reaction to your case. When you properly prepare, early mediation should prompt parties and their counsel to consider litigation objectives—both in terms of what a litigant wants from the case and the associated costs (whether personal or financial). For a party funding their own legal expenses, a litigation budget delivered in advance of mediation will allow the party and their counsel to conduct a cost/benefit analysis of further litigation. Finally, early mediation—when approached with transparency, with reciprocity and in good faith—can create a path forward to revisit settlement as the litigation progresses. Downsides of Early Mediation It can be frustrating. A mediation that does not result in settlement often results in frustration or annoyance, usually directed at the other side: “This was just a waste of time and money.” “They just wanted free discovery.” “They didn’t come here in good faith.” Some frustration when early mediation leaves the parties far apart is certainly understandable. But a disappointing outcome does not negate the value of early mediation, especially when counsel work together to ensure the process is designed to be productive. It can be counterproductive. An early mediation can be proposed to send a message. It may be a defendant who wants to make sure the plaintiff personally understands the strength of the defense—not just plaintiff’s counsel. It may be a plaintiff who wants the defendant and their insurer to know the demand exceeds the deductible or self-insured retention. Or it may be a party that wants to show their resolve, perhaps refusing to negotiate or moving very little, and letting the other side know they intend to try the case in order to obtain a better settlement. In my experience, these tactics rarely have the intended effect; they instead just prolong the process of getting parties back to the table to focus on a reasonable settlement value. What Kinds of Cases Might Be Suited To Early Mediation? Those involving ongoing relationships. Early mediation can be crucial where preserving business or family relationships is a priority, despite the dispute. It can also be helpful to preserve a business operation or other asset that provides resources to parties, despite their conflict. Those involving pre-filing mediation requirements. Some contracts, such as real property leases or purchases, often include a pre-filing mediation requirement. Failing to fulfill a mediation requirement before heading to court can strip a party of the right to recover attorneys’ fees if they prevail. In other instances, breaching this contractual obligation can result in a motion to dismiss or stay pending mediation. Those for which early case valuation is possible. Early mediation is a good option in any case where the parties can assess litigation outcomes—based upon what they know, can reasonably anticipate and can obtain by right or in connection with the mediation. For instance, For early mediation in an intellectual property case, the defendant typically discloses revenue and units sold for accused products, together with financial statements covering the relevant period. For early mediation in a class or representative wage and hour case, the parties usually work from a common dataset covering the relevant period of time, including the number of current and former employees involved, the total number of workweeks (in a class action) or total number of wage statements (in a PAGA case) and where relevant company policies, samples of time records or wage statements, and time clock data. Could early mediation be effective for your case? Consider the following questions: What do you know about the potential recovery or risk in the case? What more would you like to know about the case to more confidently or accurately assess its value? Is the information available by right (e.g., Cal. Labor Code, 1198.5; Cal. Corp. Code, § 1601) or in a voluntary pre-mediation exchange between the parties? If not, what sources of information exist besides formal discovery or expert opinions? What range of uncertainty exists without that information? Can you meaningfully assess the case’s value by analyzing that range of uncertainty instead of waiting for certainty? Do you know enough about the case to explain your position, with at least some degree of detail, in an exchanged brief? Balanced against the cost of litigation, both personal and financial, clients and their lawyers should make sure they are not overlooking an opportunity to mediate early.
Sales Management
Marketing evolves so quickly in the Internet age that sometimes businesses, and even marketers themselves, have trouble keeping up. While some take advantage of cutting-edge concepts and technology, others hold firm to old ideas that still seem to work, but could actually be hindering results. One of the key marketing metrics that every law firm should monitor is their number of qualified leads. Qualified leads allow you to target prospects most likely to become clients, concentrating your efforts where you’re likely to get the best results. Qualified leads are generally categorized in one of two ways: Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) A prospect becomes an MQL based on some type of interaction with marketing materials. In online marketing, this often involves actions like completing a form to request additional information or subscribing to an email list. Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) An SQL may or may not start as an MQL, but it meets other criteria set by sales staff that indicate a prospect is more likely to actually become a customer or client. This type of qualification and categorization does, indeed, help to concentrate sales effort on prospects who are more likely to become clients. However, it falls short in many ways. In reality, it is applying an old concept to a new technology. Why the Concepts of MQL and SQL Don’t Work in the 21 st Century The problem with the concepts of marketing and sales qualified leads is that they require prospects — even those ready to become clients right now — to slow down and take extra steps before they are connected with the person who will close the sale. This process is very much at odds with the instant gratification, get-it-done-and-give-it-to-me-now culture that we live in. Everything moves at the speed of the Internet. When people have questions, they want to talk in real-time. When they want to buy something, they want to buy it now. Older generations barely remember the once common phrase, “Allow 4 to 8 weeks for delivery.” Younger generations would laugh at the suggestion of waiting so long for anything. The idea of a marketing or sales qualified lead is tied to a time when businesses and marketers barely had any contact at all with the people they were trying to convert into clients. Advertising was blasted out on TV, radio or newspapers and correspondence was carried out with pen and paper through the post office. Times have changed. The Concept of Conversation Qualified Leads One of the biggest benefits the Internet offers marketers is unprecedented access to the audience they are trying to reach. Two-way communication is fast, free and easy. You or anyone at your law firm can reach out and talk to potential clients any time you wish. The concept of conversation qualified leads takes full advantage of the multitude of communication channels available through the Internet. It’s a concept so simple that it has been almost completely overlooked. Don’t make your prospects jump through hoops to get in touch with you. Make it easy for them. Just talk to them, and they will tell you exactly what you need to do to convert them. Qualify your leads based on actual conversations, not arbitrary actions taken through a website or an email. It may sound like a lot more work, but stop and think about it for a moment. Let’s look at someone who’s trying to contact you through live chat on your website or social media platform, versus someone who’s subscribed to your email list. Email Subscription When someone signs up for an email subscription, they’ve shown interest, but you don’t know exactly what they are looking for. Maybe they just want some information, but have no real intention of hiring your firm. You may have to send five, ten, or even more emails just to get them to take the next step and let you know what they really want. The bottom line is that this person has become a qualified lead, but you still don’t know what they want or if they’ll even convert into a client. That’s not to say that this type of lead isn’t worth following up with, but you obviously get a much clearer picture of what you’re dealing with when there is a conversation involved, and you get that picture much faster. How to Start the Conversation Communication with prospects is not difficult. In fact, you’ve probably already got plenty of possible clients waiting to talk to you. There are four main ways of initiating the communication that leads to conversation qualified leads: Live chat on your website Chat bots on your website Live chat through social media Chat bots through social media Live Chat Adding the option to chat with someone live on your website can make a tremendous difference in how visitors react to your law firm’s brand. People absolutely love the idea of getting real-time answers, rather than filling out a form and waiting hours or even days for someone to respond. It really goes a long way toward building trust and confidence. There are plenty of free and paid solutions that make it easy to add live chat to any website. Once it’s set up, it’s as simple as keeping a web page open in a tab of your browser and answering basic questions when someone asks for help. Some social networks, like Facebook, will also let you chat live with your followers. Chatbots It might seem a bit impersonal at first, but chatbots can also do a good job of qualifying leads while keeping up the fast pace prospects expect. Bots can be set up to answer the most common questions your firm receives, and then either pass new leads off to a live person, or allow the visitor to schedule follow-up if nobody is available immediately. Again, bots can be set up to interact with visitors on your website, or through social networks. Using Data Analytics to Enhance Lead Qualification Incorporating data analytics into your lead qualification process can further refine how your law firm approaches potential clients. By leveraging detailed insights, your firm can identify patterns, preferences, and behaviors that signal a high likelihood of conversion. Behavioral Tracking: Analytics tools can monitor how users interact with your website, emails, and social media. Knowing which pages they visit, how long they stay, and which content resonates with them allows you to better understand their needs and level of interest. Lead Scoring Models: Data analytics enables the development of lead scoring models that assign values to leads based on certain behaviors, such as website visits, downloads, or social media engagement. This helps prioritize high-value leads and guide your team’s outreach efforts accordingly. Predictive Analysis: By identifying trends in the behaviors of converted leads, you can predict which current leads are more likely to convert and adjust your approach to them. Predictive analytics helps your firm focus its efforts where they’re most likely to be successful Utilizing data analytics in combination with conversation-driven strategies ensures your firm is optimizing lead generation efforts, making informed decisions, and accelerating the path from prospect to client. Key Takeaways In the end, other than talking directly to potential leads, your firm won’t need to change anything else in their marketing strategy. You can still use all the same advertising methods and lead processing procedures. When someone clicks on an ad and returns to your firm’s website, they’ll still see the same landing pages. They will have the option to speak with someone live, either in addition to or instead of filling out a form. When someone has been established as a lead, they’ll still be handed off to the person most able to serve their needs. Nothing changes there. What you’ve done by opening these direct lines of live communication is to take full advantage of the Internet to put your absolute best leads on a fast-track to becoming clients. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. The job of closing the sale is easier, and the client is happier. Your firm, quite literally, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by embracing the concept of conversation qualified leads.
When lawyers collaborate with an outside writer to help them craft and publish thought-leadership marketing content, they are making a small investment for which they could realize significant ROIs. I frequently speak with lawyers and law firm marketing or business development professionals regarding their firms’ investment in their content marketing and thought-leadership marketing programs. These conversations frequently touch on those lawyers’ and law firms’ experience and interest in collaborating with an outside writer (also known as a “ghostwriter”) to help those lawyers craft and publish thought-leadership marketing content like blog posts, bylined articles, client alerts, and the like. Very often, when I have these conversations, the “B” word is mentioned. You know, “budget.” Inevitably, a lawyer or law firm marketing/business development professional will tell me that they’re not quite sure if they have the budget—whether at a firm level, a practice group level, or a personal level—to spend on collaborating with an outside writer. Instead, they will explain to me that they could just save that money by writing that content themselves or having their lawyers write it themselves. At this point, I often remind the lawyer or the marketing/business development professional that allocating funds toward their content marketing and thought-leadership marketing efforts, including collaborating with an outside writer, like all other forms of marketing, is an investment. Those lawyers and their firms are spending money up front on a form of marketing in the hopes that by spending that money now they will bring in new client matters soon, and that new business will more than pay for the cost of the marketing efforts required to bring in those new matters. When it comes to collaborating with an outside writer, there are (at least) three ways lawyers can realize a return on their investment—one of which is guaranteed. 1. Write Less, Bill More The first way lawyers can realize an ROI when collaborating with an outside writer, which also happens to be a guaranteed ROI, is that lawyers free themselves up to be able to work on billable client matters. A lawyer who bills $400, $500, or $600 an hour but pays an outside writer $150, $200, or even $250 an hour, is going to realize a return on their investment—likely of at least 2x. By taking the reins on a piece of marketing content, an outside writer frees that lawyer up to service their clients and bill that time. Of course, if the lawyer was forced to write that piece of content themself without assistance from an outside writer, that lawyer would be unable to bill their time to a client. This first ROI is an instant, direct, and guaranteed ROI for lawyers and their law firms. 2. Content Leads to a New Matter The second way lawyers can realize an ROI when collaborating with an outside writer is when a piece of marketing content crafted by that writer directly leads to a new client matter. Perhaps that piece of content is a bylined article in an industry trade publication. Maybe it is a blog post a lawyer or their firm shared on LinkedIn or Twitter. Maybe it is a client alert. Or maybe it is a free guide or checklist. Whatever it is, it so thoroughly—and credibly—addressed a legal issue that a past, current, or prospective client is currently facing or expects to face that they felt compelled to reach out to the lawyer and eventually engage them. Given the fact that it is unlikely, without the assistance of the outside writer, that that particular piece of marketing content would have been written and published when it was (after all, that’s why the writer was hired), there is a direct connection between what a lawyer or law firm paid the writer and the fees the lawyer and law firm could expect from this new client matter. In this instance, it is almost a certainty that the lawyer’s or law firm’s investment in a piece of marketing content crafted by an outside writer will be dwarfed by the fees from the client matter that piece generated. 3. The Cumulative Effect of Content The third (and final, at least for the purposes of this article) way lawyers can realize an ROI when collaborating with an outside writer is what I refer to as the cumulative effect of content. When a lawyer collaborates with an outside writer over a long period of time, that lawyer will amass a body of work that is going to be more expansive than what that lawyer could have created on their own based on the competing demands on their time they face each day. That body of work as a whole is a signal to past, current, and future clients and referral sources that the lawyer has deep knowledge and mastery of the legal issues that arise within their practice area(s). After all, the lawyer wouldn’t have so much to say about those issues (in the form of thought-leadership marketing content) if they didn’t. That body of work creates a perception of thought leadership and mastery. That perception could very well compel clients and referral sources to contact the lawyer about assisting them with their legal issues. In these instances, that body of work led directly to new client matters. But that body of work, composed of blog posts, client alerts, bylined articles, and ebooks (along with perhaps videos, podcast episodes the lawyer has appeared on, and other indicia of their deep legal knowledge), also signals to other key audiences that the lawyer is someone they should be talking to about their area of expertise. Those key audiences might have platforms that lead to new client matters. Perhaps a representative from a trade organization comes across a lawyer’s body of work and thinks the lawyer would make an excellent speaker at an upcoming seminar. And that speaking engagement then leads to a new client matter. Perhaps a reporter from an industry trade publication or national business publication comes across the lawyer’s body of work and decides to interview that lawyer and include quotes from the lawyer in an article they are working on. That published article then leads to a new client matter. In these examples, a particular piece of content did not directly lead to new client matters. But the cumulative effect of that content, the perceptions created by that content, opened up doors for a lawyer that eventually led to new client matters. Investing in the Future of Your Legal Practice and Law Firm Content marketing and thought-leadership marketing, like all forms of marketing, are investments. They are not sunk costs. It is possible, if not probable, that you will realize a return on your investment in a content marketing or thought-leadership marketing program when you collaborate with an outside writer. I’ve identified three ways you might realize such a return. Remember, when you are contemplating investing in your content marketing and thought-leadership marketing programs, particularly when collaborating with an outside writer, you’re making an investment in the future of your legal practice and your law firm.
In today’s legal landscape, marked by rapid change and high demands on time, the integration and effective use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is not just a technological upgrade but a critical pivot towards operational excellence and client service enhancement. Overcoming the inherent resistance to change in legal environments is essential, as the successful adoption of CRM systems directly correlates to a law firm’s efficiency, client relationship management and ultimately, its competitive edge. Embracing a strategic approach that prioritizes value, simplicity and efficiency is key to unlocking the potential of CRM systems. This approach can transform them from mere administrative tools to indispensable assets for business development and client engagement. Here, we outline six pivotal strategies to facilitate this transformation and elevate CRM adoption among attorneys, ensuring that your firm not only keeps pace with the industry’s evolution but leads it. 1. Communicate the Direct Benefits Strategy: Explicitly explain how the CRM system benefits the individual lawyers, not just the organization. Implementation: Conduct workshops or one-on-one sessions demonstrating how CRM usage can streamline their marketing and business development efforts, ultimately leading to personal success and client satisfaction. Simplify and Personalize the User Experience Strategy: Opt for CRM systems with user-friendly interfaces and customizable dashboards that align with the daily needs of lawyers. Implementation: Choose CRMs that can integrate seamlessly with other systems lawyers use daily, like billing and document management, to create a centralized, efficient workspace. 3. Demonstrate Ease of Accessing Valuable Insights Strategy: Show lawyers how they can independently derive valuable insights from CRM data with minimal effort. Implementation: Regularly schedule sessions with marketing professionals to assist lawyers in updating and extracting relevant contact information and insights from the CRM. 4. Streamline Sharing of Appointments and Activities Strategy: Select a CRM system that facilitates easy sharing of appointments and activities, allowing marketing teams to provide proactive support. Implementation: Implement features where marketing professionals can access attorneys’ schedules to prepare strategic materials and insights for upcoming client or prospect meetings. 5. Ensure Data Integrity Strategy: Maintain accurate and up-to-date CRM data to ensure reliability. Implementation: Establish a regular data cleaning process, which can be outsourced if necessary, to maintain the CRM’s integrity and usefulness. 6. Redefine CRM Success Strategy: Shift away from traditional models that heavily rely on attorneys for data entry. Implementation: Adopt newer CRM approaches where the bulk of data entry and management is handled by support staff or automated systems, reducing the burden on attorneys and focusing their involvement on strategic input and relationship management. Conclusion: A Value-Driven Approach The cornerstone of successful CRM adoption lies in the “value exchange.” By making it straightforward for attorneys to contribute and extract value from the CRM, law firms can foster a culture of active participation. While the journey to full CRM adoption is gradual, the investment in these modern strategies is crucial for long-term benefits, enhancing both the efficiency of lawyers and the overall success of the firm.
Following up on my recent piece about navigating the complex landscape of 2024 law firm rate setting, I’d like to delve deeper into the symbiotic relationship between law firms and their clients, especially when discussing rates and value. Rate Setting Isn’t Adversarial At its core, rate setting is not about drawing a line in the sand against your client. It’s a strategic process that aligns the firm’s value proposition with market dynamics and client expectations. When approached collaboratively, it allows both parties to benefit mutually. A well-thought-out price strategy ensures firms deliver optimum service while clients feel they’re getting their money’s worth. Open Conversations Tighten Bonds A transparent discussion about rates and the firm’s value can bring them closer to their clients. By opening this communication channel, firms can better understand clients’ needs, expectations, and reservations. Clients, in turn, appreciate the honesty and effort, leading to enhanced trust and loyalty. It’s not just about numbers; it’s about mutual respect and understanding. Cutting Rates Isn’t Always Beneficial It may seem counterintuitive, but a reduced rate doesn’t always translate to added value for the client. While initial cost savings might appear attractive, they can sometimes come at the expense of quality, efficiency, or expertise. Over time, this could lead to suboptimal results, potentially costing the client more money and missed opportunities. Towards a Value-Centric Model The conversation needs to shift from mere pricing to the value delivered. Consider introducing the concept of Legal Service Return on Investment (LROI). It’s not just about the hours logged; it’s about the tangible and intangible benefits clients derive from those hours. This might include the successful resolution of a case, the prevention of potential legal pitfalls, or even the peace of mind of knowing they have expert counsel on their side. A Legal Service ROI emphasizes the impact and outcomes rather than just the input. It challenges firms to evaluate and demonstrate their worth continuously, ensuring they remain aligned with client expectations and market dynamics. This innovative approach to value can foster a more collaborative and beneficial relationship between firms and their clients. A Glimpse into the Future As we stand on the brink of the AI age, the concept of value in the legal realm is set to undergo significant transformation. In my upcoming blog, I’ll explore how AI might redefine pricing models and what it means for law firms and their clients. But one thing remains constant: the pursuit of genuine value. Whether through human expertise or machine intelligence, the goal is to deliver unparalleled service and results. To understand more about the value-driven approach to legal services and how it can revolutionize your firm’s relationship with its clients, stay tuned. Think innovatively, and let’s journey together into the future of law firm pricing.
Ring ... ring ... ring ... ring ... ring ... Goodbye. Chalk up another lost client to your front desk. How seriously have you invested time and money into your intake department? Before you answer that, let’s step back a minute and consider the story of the young fisherboy. This angler grew up on the river with his father learning the art and craft of fishing. His dad would catch the fish and let his boy zealously reel them in, one by one. Eventually, the boy accepted the process of taking the rod from his father each time he had one hooked. Eventually, one day his father stopped going fishing with him and depended on his son to bring home dinner. The boy soon realized that he could no longer rely on his old process of depending on his father’s ability to set the hook. He had to learn to set the hook himself. I implore you, teach your staff how to set the hook. Stop treating your website leads like they’re referrals. The Problem With Referrals There’s no doubt that referrals are the best possible lead source. It is said that the average company generates 65% of its new business from referrals (NYT). Furthermore, your clients are said to be four times more likely to hire you when they are referred from a friend or from someone they trust. However, there are two major difficulties with referrals: You have to pay out a hefty sum at the end of the case (for a contingency fee-based lawyer); and There just aren’t enough of them. If you have accepted those two facts, you have likely considered Internet marketing for your law firm. The process of riding a bull is not the same process as riding a bike. Each requires its own unique techniques and training (although I can’t personally say I’ve ridden a bull). With Internet marketing, you should avoid applying your referral processes and mindset when handling your lead intake. Otherwise you risk damaging your law firm’s bottom line. A person who calls you after finding your website on the Internet, with no prior knowledge of your firm, has no personal loyalty or ties to you or your great firm. In fact, they have no reason to hire you other than what is said in those first few minutes when they call in. If you don’t have someone willing to greet them with exceptional service and a sales mentality, you will lose out to a law firm that does. Referrals vs. Internet Leads Here are some key points to keep in mind: Referral: A referred client will leave you a voicemail and wait for your return call. Internet: An internet lead will move on. Referral: A referred client will punch buttons through a phone tree in an effort to talk to you. Internet: An internet lead will hang up and call someone they can talk to immediately. Referral: A referred client may overlook your tired, disinterested intake “professional.” Internet: An internet lead assumes your intake “professional” is a reflection of your entire firm and representation ability. They move on. I strongly urge you to stop treating your website leads like they’re referrals. You are costing your firm tens of thousands in case fees and are wasting significant marketing dollars. Consider applying a portion of your advertising toward your intake team. Hire rock stars and offer ongoing training and coaching. Your intake process is one of your most important functions to growing your case load on the Internet. The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad. —A.K. Best
According to a national survey, the number 1 fear people have is speaking in public. Fear of dying is ranked number 7. So just remember when you attend your next funeral that more people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy. I realize speaking is not for everyone, but if you enjoy speaking or educating people in a group, then speaking and seminars can be one of the best ways to grow your practice. There are very few practice areas I can think of whose marketing efforts would not benefit from participating in some form of education-based seminars or presentations. Giving a seminar or presentation can give you massive credibility, if it’s done correctly. It is also a proven lead generator, if the follow-up is efficient. For those litigators and trial attorneys, giving a seminar is old hat. You educate your juries on a regular basis and often some of the best public speakers I’ve seen are the trial attorneys. For the rest of us, there are many options to select from. Here are seven common ways you can implement speaking to generate more clients for your law firm: Give a public seminar or presentation Give a private, client-only seminar in your office Give an after-dinner presentation to a group of clients brought together by one of your referral partners Give a presentation over a conference bridge line (teleseminar or webinar) Be one of the experts on a panel with affiliated professionals (a banker, another attorney, a CPA or financial advisor) Give a keynote speech to a trade association Be the moderator/facilitator of a panel discussion There are three basic types of seminars you can participate in: Wholesale Seminars This is where you work with a referral partner who sets up a meeting with his or her existing clients and you speak to their clients and educate them about what you do. A common example of this is when an estate planning attorney works with a local financial advisor and speaks to the advisor’s clients on asset protection strategies. One of our estate planning clients used this type of seminar very successfully when he teamed up with a well-known certified financial planner. The advisor had a large client base and they spent a few thousand dollars each month on promoting the events via ads in local newspapers. They held most of the seminars for two hours on a Saturday morning and usually had 30 to 60 people show up. Each person spoke for about an hour. We helped our client implement a strong follow-up program and by the second event he was signing up 30-40% of the attendees for a free estate planning consultation! He was able to sign up over 60% of those people as new clients with an average fee of $3,500. When you do the math, if they only had 30 people show up per event and only 30% of them signed up for a free consult (9 people) and he closed 60% (that’s 5 new clients) at $3,500 each, that means that particular seminar was worth $17,500 in new work for the firm. Now multiply that by one to two seminars per month and you can quickly see how this can add up. Retail Seminars This is where you set up a public seminar (this can be free or paid) and you invite people to attend and listen to your presentation. For example, a small business attorney can invite local business owners to attend a half-day seminar on common legal issues faced by growing companies. I’m not sure why, but many attorneys seem to do this kind of seminar for free. I’m more in favor of charging a reasonable fee, as long as you are going to provide good content for attendees. This not only keeps out the tire kickers and your competitors, but also generally attracts a more serious person to your event. A retail or public seminar is usually the most expensive to conduct because you must market them heavily to generate enough attendees to make it worth your while. If you select to conduct retail seminars I recommend you either do a series (perhaps one topic each quarter) or you hold the same seminar multiple times per month or year. This is the model we use for our Rainmaker Retreat two-day law firm marketing boot camps for attorneys. We hold the same event 10-12 times per year across the country. Referral Partner Seminars This kind of seminar involves speaking to a group of potential or existing referral partners in a group setting. For example, you set up a meeting of CPAs and speak to them about how to generate cross-referrals with your law firm and how the two professions can work seamlessly together to better serve the client. Alternatively, you go to your local CPA society and offer to give a seminar at an upcoming meeting about a topic of interest to CPAs. As someone who makes their living from speaking, I know it can be a difficult, yet rewarding form of marketing. Yet, I always have attorneys come up to me afterwards and say something like this, “I gave a speech once and I didn’t get any new business from it.” Well, if you find yourself among the skeptics, here are some critical law firm marketing tips to remember so you can achieve better results from your speaking and presenting efforts. Tip 1: Only Speak to Decision Makers The first important tip is to always speak to the right group, and the right group are decision makers, not gate keepers! Make sure you get in front of the right group—people who can either refer you clients or who are highly likely to need, want and be able to afford your services. You can best accomplish this by asking the following questions: What is your average attendee like? What are the typical job titles of attendees? What is the size of the average attendance? What percentage of your usual attendees are decision makers? What kinds of topics have had the best turnout? Who has recently spoken to your group and what did they speak about? How did that go? Tip 2: Educate Your Audience Make sure your talk is about something they care about. Make it educational. Do not stand up there and spout legal jargon and legal theory or sections and codes because that’s not what people want, unless your audience is other attorneys. Most audiences want practical, useful information they can take away and immediately implement. Give them lots of practical, useful information that will help them. You may say, “Well, I don’t want to give away the store. I don’t want to give them so much information that they can do it themselves.” Please understand, if you could give them enough information where they could do it themselves, the people who actually would do it for themselves and not hire you are not good prospects for you. You want to target the people who have the money to hire an attorney and do not want to do it for themselves because they either understand the risks of doing so or simply do not have the time, energy, effort or expertise needed to successfully complete the task. You do not want to hire tire kickers or “do it yourself-errs” because they typically will only hire you if you have an absolutely ridiculously low price. At the Rainmaker Retreats, we actually follow the opposite principle. We purposefully try to overwhelm our audience with so much practical, useful, step-by-step information. Why? Because we want them to walk out of the room with so many great ideas that they don’t know where to start so they will turn to us and hire us to implement a proven law firm marketing plan for them. You must recognize that not everyone in every audience is in your target market and you need to qualify them as much as they qualify you! You want to ensure they need you, they want you and they can afford your prices. If you don’t want to attract “yellow page clients” then don’t charge yellow page prices. Tip 3: Obtain All the Attendees’ Contact Information Ideally, you want the attendees’ contact information before they ever come to your event. If you are speaking for an association, simply ask for it (be specific and ask for their first and last name, email and phone in an excel file), sometimes they will give it to you and other times they won’t. Either way, have a plan for obtaining the attendees’ contact information at your presentation. If the conference organizer will not give it to you, simply do a giveaway for a prize. You can try to be a little creative in your giveaways without going overboard like a bestselling book, a gift card to a local restaurant, a digital camera, a set of golf clubs, a coupon for a massage, tickets to a play at a theater, or a nice bottle of wine. Simply have them pass their business cards to the front or pass out 3×5 cards and have them fill out their full name, phone and email address and pass it to the front. Do a drawing for the prize at the end of your seminar. Obtaining their contact information is critical for success in speaking and seminar marketing. Tip 4: The Fortune Is in the Follow-up If you are a regular reader of this column, you have heard me say this before: the fortune is in the follow-up! The number one reason why lawyers don’t achieve great results from speaking and seminars is because they don’t have a written follow-up system. You must develop a follow-up strategy before your talk. Let’s say your follow-up strategy is a series of emails, phone calls and maybe a letter or postcard. Your follow-up system would include 4 emails, 3 phone calls and 1 letter. Email 1 would be sent within 24 hours post-seminar. It would be a thank you email with an offer for a free consultation, a special report or an audio CD. Phone Call 1 would be made by your staff and would be made within 24 hours post-seminar. The call would be to thank them for attending and make the same free offer that’s made in the email. Letter 1 would be sent out the next day (they should receive it within 3 days if they are local) and the letter would repeat what you have written in the email. All of this would happen in the first 24 hours after the seminar. Some of you will question if that’s too aggressive an approach. Let me assure you, it is not. A quick follow-up system like this demonstrates a high level of professionalism and commitment to your attendees. It tells them that you care about them and most of them will be impressed that you followed up so quickly. Email 2 is sent three to five days after the event. Remind them about the seminar they attended and invite them to sign up for a consultation or your newsletter. Email 3 might offer a brief tip about the topic you spoke about: top 10 tips or recommended resources, etc. Every person should be followed up with at least three phone calls before you stop trying to reach them. Every attendee should receive at least 5-7 emails and 1-2 printed letters from your law firm. If you use this kind of follow-up system, you will find significantly better results from your seminars and marketing efforts. Make sure you have a follow-up system in place before your presentation and make sure you have your staff doing most of the work. Your focus is on becoming a powerful Rainmaker for your law firm, serving your clients with excellence and bringing in new clients.
It’s a common sentiment, you think you’ve done everything possible to build your law business… You have worked hard on building a business that represents your ideals. You have built relationships in your industry. You have a great office space that you have spent time decorating to make your clients feel comfortable. You have hired an all-star staff. You have advertisements in relevant marketing channels. You have created a beautiful website that clearly depicts your firm’s purpose, but you still aren’t signing the cases that you want. This is a frustrating reality for many legal professionals, who have spent an unmeasurable amount of time and energy making their business the best it can be, but are not seeing the expected results. A simple area many professionals tend to ignore is the quality of the images they are posting on their site. In a society so hyper-focused on image and a marketing landscape where consumers have to digest thousands of images per day, your photos have to be top-notch, or you are wasting your time. Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University, explains how important images are to digital marketing in an interview for Nieman Reports, saying: “Processing print isn’t something the human brain was built for. The printed word is a human artifact. It’s very convenient and it’s worked very well for us for 5,000 years, but it’s an invention of human beings. By contrast Mother Nature has built into our brain our ability to see the visual world and interpret it.” —Marcel Just, Director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Carnegie Mellon University Professional Law Firm Photography Tips Be Personal Stock images always seem like a great idea at the time. They are cost effective, professional, and a stock image exists for almost any situation you can think of. However, stock images are impersonal, and many fall into the fake or cheesy categories. Stock images don’t give a genuine representation of the people behind your firm, making you seem untrustworthy, which is the last thing any law firm wants. Images of actual people sitting in your law firm will always win out. Be Interesting Your clients are inundated with images through media outlets that flood our inboxes, mailboxes, and social feeds. If your image does not spark any emotion in the viewer, it is worthless. I’m not necessarily talking about an intense emotional connection, but some type of spark that will keep your visitor interested. If your firm is involved in the community, give visitors a glimpse of your staff working hard to help locals. If you have a big case going on or an interview, snap a behind-the-scenes image so clients feel like they get the inside scoop on your work. Be Specific I have a background in retail marketing; nothing drives me crazier than an image with no subject and distracting background clutter. Make sure that your consumer knows exactly how your image relates to the topic they are reading about. To achieve this, you can blur out the background slightly or take images with a crisp clean background. Be Current Keeping out-of-date photos on your site signals to visitors that you don’t pay attention to detail and don’t care about being current. These red flags signal to your consumer that you may treat their case the same way. One of the easiest ways to tell if your photos are outdated is by examining the fashion and style choices made in the photos. A good rule of thumb is to update attorney profile images every year or two, and update images when you hire or lose staff members. In addition to the standard photos, continually post images from current events happening at your firm. Be High Quality The final and most important aspect of any photo is the quality. No matter how personal, interesting, specific, or current your images are, if they are of sub-par quality, you might as well not even have them on your site. A low quality image on a website demonstrates that the creators are apathetic to quality overall and will likely be apathetic to the quality of a client’s case. The best way to solve this problem is to hire a professional photographer to come to your business and take photos of your staff and your space. Types of Images to Include On Your Law Firm Website Smiling headshots of staff Group shots of staff inside or near your building Photos of staff interacting with clients Photos of your office(s) (Google offers Business View, a service where a professional photographer creates a virtual tour of your office the same way Google Street View does. This is a trust signal for Google and for your clients.) Behind-the-scenes shots Photos of staff collaborating with each other Images/videos of clients for testimonials
How do you help a client who doesn’t know what’s best for them and focuses on the wrong area? I work with hundreds of law firms every year and one of the most common requests I hear from attorneys is, “I need more leads.” Yet when I inquire further into the specifics of their situation, I often find that lead generation isn’t their primary problem—it’s lead conversion. Let me explain. I was recently speaking with a bankruptcy attorney who claimed he needed more leads to build his practice. I asked him approximately how many leads were coming into his law firm each month. Needless to say, I was astounded when he informed me his firm’s marketing was consistently generating in excess of 100 to 150 new leads every month! Even with modest conversion rates you should be able to generate at least $500,000 annually with this many leads. Yet he was experiencing serious cash flow issues. I kindly told him I did not believe his biggest issue was lead generation; it was lead conversion—converting more browsers into buyers. I walked him through our Rainmaker Lead Conversion System and how it could help him fix his follow-up and convert more prospects into paying clients. Unfortunately, either I did not do a sufficient job of justifying my response or he did not believe me because he persisted in the belief that he simply needed more “qualified leads” and all his problems would be solved. Lead conversion is the most overlooked area at most law firms and it has the potential to significantly increase your revenues this year. Imagine the impact on your firm’s revenue if you improved the rate of conversion by just 10%, much less the 20-40% increase we have seen when using a formal lead conversion system. I often ask attorneys about their closing rate—the number of appointments they turn into paying clients—and they invariably say that it’s “very high” or “excellent,” but careful examination tells a different story. I find the majority of attorneys significantly overestimate their closing ratio. Just like practicing law, converting leads into paying clients is a skill that takes practice, but you need to understand how to track your data and analyze it. Three Major Areas to Analyze There are many variables you can consider if your practice isn’t generating the revenues you want, but after nearly a decade of specializing in helping law firms improve their lead generation and lead conversion strategies, I have found there are really three major areas that tell most of the story: 1. Lead Generation This is the system of attracting new potential clients to your law firm. You can use both online and offline strategies. Online or internet related strategies include a website, blog, social media and search engine optimization. Offline marketing strategies include referrals from current and former clients, monthly newsletters, building relationships with potential referral partners, networking, speaking and seminars. It’s important to know that lead generation is the second most expensive thing you will have in your law firm, the first being payroll. You must take a systematic approach to lead generation. Without this, you are reduced to sitting in your office waiting for the phone to ring or a referral to walk in, which is not a good place to be. 2. Lead Conversion This is your ability to turn leads into paying clients and is what I will focus on in this article. 3. Client Retention How to keep your paying clients coming back for more and/or referring your firm to everyone they know with a similar problem to theirs. The first step in lead conversion is to develop a “universal lead definition” (ULD)—what precisely is counted as a lead, who counts the leads, how you track the leads, and what does not constitute a legitimate lead. We teach our clients that a lead must meet all three of these criteria: Someone who has never done business with you before (versus a repeat client). Everyone who contacts the firm via email, phone, social media, personal referral, internet, networking event, seminar, etc. They express an interest in your services. In order to build a financially successful law firm, you must be committed to tracking every single lead and following up with them religiously! Far too many attorneys only track the appointments that show up (and if truth be told, they are not even very good at doing that) or how many of the people they meet with in person who sign up as a paying client at the initial consultation. What they don’t recognize is that is only the fourth stage of lead conversion and there are five stages. Here are the five stages of lead conversion for law firms: Number of leads into the top of the funnel Number of leads that turn into appointments Number of appointments who show up Number of appointments who sign up at the initial consultation Number of appointments who sign up later No lead conversion system is complete without tracking all five stages. How many of your leads turn into actual appointments? How many of those appointments actually show up? How many of those people who show up sign up at the initial consultation? And how many people sign up later down the road? Each of these numbers is critical to track because if you know what your conversion rates are at each stage then you can determine where your biggest challenges are and develop a plan to improve. The greatest value of a true lead conversion system is that it gives you direct insight into the actual state of your company and allows you to efficiently automate the follow-up process with dozens and even hundreds of leads. We have helped our clients compete with and beat much larger law firms simply by creating an exceptional follow-up system. Lead generation too often comes down to a firm’s financial ability to “throw money at the problem,” but a lead conversion system can level the playing field and give small firms a true unique competitive advantage. What Is an Acceptable Conversion Rate? Conversion rates can differ widely, depending upon your practice area, but in general the lower your average client is “worth” to your firm the higher your conversion must be in order to run a successful firm. For example, if you practice consumer bankruptcy and the average chapter 7 client pays you $1,500 to handle their case, you must have a higher conversion ratio than the business litigation attorney whose average client pays them $50,000 to $100,000 in legal fees. For consumer attorneys you need at least a 15-20% conversion rate to run a decent practice. This means for every 100 leads your marketing generates, you need to sign up a minimum of 15-20 people. Consumer firms with a comprehensive lead conversion system often experience double this rate, which means they can be very profitable. Think about it this way: if you generate 50 leads per month and close 10% at an average fee of $5,000 per client, that means you made $25,000 in gross revenues (assuming 100% collection rates). However, if you increase that conversion rate to 20% you would double your revenues—with the same amount of leads! The key point is that even small increases in conversion rates can make a significant difference in your revenues. How to Increase Your Conversion Rate The key to increasing your conversion rate is to fix your follow-up! This is another area that many attorneys think they are doing a good job, but upon further investigation I often find massive gaps in their follow-up process. Too many firms follow the approach of “only taking one bite out of the apple,” that is to say they try to get the prospect to retain at the initial consultation (or worse, over the telephone), and if they do not first succeed then they give up and go on to the next person, without ever trying again to get that business. This is a major mistake! When someone doesn’t retain you at the first meeting, rarely does the problem that brought them to you go away on its own accord. Understand that when they don’t hire you, they are not saying “no,” they are usually saying, “not yet” or “I’m not ready.” But circumstances can change and sometimes very quickly. All of the sudden the legal issue goes from the back burner to the front of their mind and retaining an attorney becomes the most important thing in their world. If you have a system that helps you stay connected with them via email or periodic phone calls, then they will more than likely retain you when they are ready versus going to one of your competitors. However, if you fail to fix your follow-up, when they are ready they will likely start the search all over again and you will likely lose this client forever. Let me give you a simple illustration. When an attorney calls me to get some ideas on how to market their law firm, I often end up inviting them to attend one of our Rainmaker legal marketing seminars, but often the dates of our seminar conflict with their schedules. It’s not that they don’t want to go, it’s “not yet” or perhaps they are not mentally ready to make the jump to the next level. Either way, if I depended on my memory to follow up with them some time in the future, we would be in serious trouble! Instead, we have implemented a comprehensive follow-up system that includes multiple keep-in-touch emails and automated reminders that help us remember to call that person weeks or even months after the initial call. In addition, we are committed to sending out a newsletter every single month and have been doing so for years. I regularly hear from new clients how they have been receiving my newsletter for 5 to 10 years and finally were ready to sign up and start working with us. Talk about a long sales cycle! It’s a good thing I don’t depend solely on people like that to build my company. The point here is if you have a comprehensive system that follows up with potential clients for long periods of time, you will reap the benefits. If you are interested in how a lead conversion system can help your firm fix your follow-up and convert more browsers into buyers, I invite you to call our office and set up time for us to talk.
A good lawyer biography provides an overview of your strengths and accomplishments, tells an engaging story, and describes the benefits you bring to clients (as it draws in your reader), piquing their interest so they want to learn more. It does not recount your entire career, list every case you won, and document every deal you closed since you graduated from law school. Five do’s and don’ts to make your biography stand out, whether on LinkedIn, your firm profile, or in the program notes for your next speaking gig: 1. Lead Off with How You Help People (Not Just Your Title) You need to tell people what you do and how you can help them. “Jennifer Jones is a Partner in the Litigation Group” does neither. Instead, make the opening sentence a value proposition that clearly states how you help clients, like: “Jennifer protects biotech startups against product liability theft and losses.” If that’s all that visitors to your website read, they’ll know what you do—what you’re good at—and what you can do for them. If your practice covers multiple disciplines, include that in your introductory paragraph as well. “In addition, she helps IP rights holders monetize their intellectual property and has particular strengths managing pharmaceutical and biotechnology patent portfolios across the globe.” 2. Tell Stories Client stories are engaging testimonies of your skills and commitment to clients. Always include one or two representative examples of your work in the text of your bio to demonstrate your experience and show readers how you solve the business and legal problems they face. ...demonstrate your experience Ideally, you’ll be able to tie practice strengths into the case studies you provide. “Biotech clients count on Jennifer’s understanding of sophisticated technology—she has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yale—to guide them as they pursue licensing and sales opportunities for their products. In one such instance, she helped a small biotech startup license their genetic engineering process to a global pharmaceutical company for an eight-figure sum.” 3. Don’t Talk Too Much When it comes to bios, less is often more. That doesn’t mean that you should exclude significant capabilities and practice strengths, but rather that you should always maintain a critical eye on the length of your bio when deciding what to discuss. Ask yourself if this skill or that experience is relevant to the audience you’re trying to reach. If so, keep it in. If not, consider highlighting it elsewhere, like in a representation list or with a practice group designation. Ask yourself if this skill or that experience is relevant to the audience you’re trying to reach.Of course, there’s no ‘right length’ for bios, particularly since they must complement your firm’s style and conventions and align with the time you’ve been practicing. Still, my rule of thumb is typically between 250 and 350 words for senior associates and junior and mid-level partners. First-year associate bios will be shorter, in the 100-150 word range, and those for senior partners and firm leadership can easily approach 500 words. 4. Use Plain English Nobody likes legalese. Not other lawyers, not CEOs and business managers, not even your mother. (Really. Just ask her.) And certainly no one wants to dig through legalese in a lawyer biography. Use plain English phrasings to make your bio easy—and enjoyable—to read. Avoid overly technical descriptions of client problems you’ve solved, lawsuits you’ve argued, and negotiations you’ve handled. Simple and relatable language that everyone understands will make your talents stand out so that readers won’t be left scratching their heads wondering what you actually do. 5. Don’t Hide Your Personality Remember the proverb “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? Turns out it’s true for lawyers, too. Describing your activities outside the office gives readers the complete picture of who you are, what you care about, and how you spend your time. Extracurricular activities—professional and personal—can also be a great conversation starter. Law is a relationship business, and those relationships are often boosted by affinities you share with peers and prospects. Clients want to hire real people to do their work, people with personalities and interests that go beyond their practice. Whether you’re president of an industry trade association, a long-time runner who’s completed marathons in 25 states, or a volunteer at the local food bank, talk about it in a sentence or two at the end of your bio to illustrate what you do when you’re not working. Your bio should tell your story, what you’re good at, and why clients should hire you. Now get writing.
As social media marketing continues to grow in popularity, a question we often get asked by our clients is if posting on social media helps SEO. Read on to learn the answer to that question and learn more about the impact that posting on social media has on your SEO efforts. Social Media and Its Effect on SEO So, does posting on social media help SEO and your organic rankings? In short, the answer is no—however, posting relevant links from your website to social media can help not only boost your brand awareness but can drive traffic to your website as well. In fact, according to a study by Hootsuite and We Are Social, there are currently over 4.2 billion active users on social media worldwide. This represents a significant potential audience for businesses that are active on social media. In short, social media—while it does not have a direct impact on SEO—is a key asset in any digital marketing strategy. How Social Media Efforts Support SEO Investing your time in social media efforts while also investing in SEO can have a positive impact on your overall online presence. In fact, social media efforts support SEO in many different ways including: Social Media Profiles Can Show up in Search Results Have you ever done a branded Google search and had social media profiles come up in the results? I know I have! Well, if you have a strong social media presence, your profiles on those platforms may rank well in search results for your brand name or other relevant keywords. This can lead to increased visibility and potentially increase the traffic coming to your website. Drive Traffic to Your Website and Improve Visibility As mentioned previously, social media posts can drive traffic to your website. In fact, when you post content on social media, it can be shared by your followers and potentially reach a wider audience. If this content includes a link to your website, it can drive traffic directly to your site and even potentially improve your local search rankings. In addition, posting consistently on social media can help increase your visibility. With billions of people on social media sites, the more you post, the more eyes you can get on your posts. Going back to the point mentioned previously, a strong social media presence can help you rank higher for branded terms and thus increase your overall visibility online. Increased Brand Recognition Another way social media affects SEO is by increasing brand recognition. Essentially, the more channels you can have your name on, the more people will start to recognize your brand. So, if you are consistently posting on, say, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn just to name a few, people will begin to recognize your brand more and use those branded terms to find you online. Essentially, it can increase the branded organic traffic that comes to your website in a positive way Increase the Lifespan of Posts Social media affects SEO by increasing the lifespan of posts. For example, say you recently wrote an article that was seasonal as in having something to do with the winter season. Well, social media can help increase the lifespan of this post and help make it relevant again when a year passes and you reshare the article link on your social media profiles. This brings relevancy back to the article even though it was posted a while ago and, in the case of our example, a year ago, thus increasing the lifespan of the post by another year. This same method can be used each year by simply sharing the seasonal article on your social media profiles during the time of year it is most relevant. Gain More Backlinks Lastly, social media affects SEO by giving you the potential to gain more backlinks. For example, the more places you share your articles, the more people will see that article. The more people that see your article, there is greater opportunity for someone to discover it and even link back to it and as you may already know, backlinks are an extremely important part of any long-term SEO strategy. To reiterate, social media is not a ranking factor when it comes to SEO; however, posting consistently on social media and having a strong social presence can help your business in a variety of ways.
Technology
If you haven’t tried ChatGPT yet, you’re missing out! It’s a powerful tool that can be used to save time across a variety of tasks. Is content creation one of the things that ChatGPT is useful for? While some people suggest using AI tools to write web content, most experts recommend against it. In this article, I’m breaking down what you need to know about using ChatGPT for creating your law firm’s website content. The Risks of Using ChatGPT for Web Content ChatGPT and similar AI tools are extremely valuable if you’re looking to work smarter rather than harder. That being said, using these types of platforms does have a downside. Here are the key risks associated with using ChatGPT to create web content. ChatGPT can be wrong— and often is. One of the main problems with AI tools is the confidence with which they display incorrect information. Though the tools will always generate a response, you might not get accurate information. That would never be a great thing, but it’s especially troublesome for the legal industry. People searching for legal content must be able to rely on the truthfulness and accuracy of the information they find. ChatGPT relies on patterns in its existing training data, which can fall out of date (or be based on information that wasn’t correct in the first place). Proceed with caution when leveraging AI tools for information that you present as factual. AI tools are short on creativity and depth— ChatGPT cannot produce original ideas or content. It can only leverage information that’s already out there. Even if you are super careful about the prompts you enter, the content you get back is unlikely to be as engaging as what a human would write. Furthermore, you can’t expect such a tool to match your brand voice or be consistent with what you’ve already published. Readers who follow your blog or normally read your content are likely to recognize a different tone. AI-generated content lacks emotion and won’t be able to humanize your firm’s brand. Who owns AI content? Since we know that ChatGPT gets its information from the training data it has access to, there’s no good way to know where the information really comes from. The content it supplies exists somewhere else on the web—but you have no way to cite the original publisher. That also means that if you prompt ChatGPT with “Write a blog article about 5 steps for filing unemployment claims”, what is returned will have been published elsewhere—maybe even by a competing firm. So, who would own that content? You wouldn’t just go to another firm’s blog and copy their content, but ChatGPT isn’t all that different. ChatGPT content can reflect biases— There can always be inherent biases present in the training data AI tools use. As of right now, we don’t really know the source of all ChatGPT data and how it’s reviewed for biases. We don’t know if information has been fact-checked or how. Information could exhibit stereotypes or make assumptions that make people uncomfortable. This could lead to all sorts of issues that you don’t want to deal with. Information can’t be verified due to a lack of crawling— ChatGPT cannot crawl the web like a search engine. Unlike traditional search engine results, ChatGPT is based on a current database and can’t “look around” for new information. That means content may not be up to date on the latest laws, regulations, rulings, or other important legal matters. Again, this is particularly troublesome for anyone offering legal insights. You’re much better off relying on the specialized expertise of your team, even though it takes more time. Your Website Deserves Better Than Generic AI Content Your website isn’t just a digital brochure—it’s your most important business development tool. The words on your site should reflect your firm’s expertise, speak directly to your ideal client, and guide visitors toward taking action. That’s why using ChatGPT or other AI tools to generate web copy is particularly risky. Beyond the issues of inaccuracy, lack of originality, and brand inconsistency, AI-generated content often misses the mark on search engine optimization (SEO), user experience, and conversion best practices. In a competitive legal market, that’s a risk your firm can’t afford to take. At Good2bSocial, the digital marketing division of Best Lawyers®, we specialize in building high-performing legal websites that don’t just look good—they drive measurable results. Our human experts ensure your content is aligned with your brand voice, optimized for search, and strategically crafted to convert visitors into clients. How Law Firms Can Use AI Tools Like ChatGPT Strategically While we don’t recommend using ChatGPT to write your law firm’s website content from scratch, that doesn’t mean AI tools have no place in your marketing workflow. When used thoughtfully, they can support your content creation process without compromising quality or credibility. Here are a few ways law firms can leverage ChatGPT strategically: Brainstorming content ideas If you’re stuck on what to write about, ChatGPT can help you quickly generate blog topic ideas based on your practice areas or common client questions. Creating first drafts for internal content ChatGPT can assist in drafting internal documents, social media captions, or outlines for longer-form content that a human will then refine and edit. Summarizing complex legal topics AI can be useful for distilling large amounts of information into simpler summaries—as long as a legal professional reviews and verifies accuracy before publishing. Repackaging content for different channels Repurpose your existing content into email copy, meta descriptions, or content snippets for platforms like LinkedIn by using AI to speed up formatting and ideation. Grammar and clarity checks Tools like ChatGPT or Grammarly can help clean up grammar and improve sentence clarity during the editing phase. Pro Tip: Always treat AI-generated content as a starting point, not the final product. Human insight, legal accuracy, and emotional intelligence are still irreplaceable—especially in an industry built on trust. Takeaway There are many great use cases for ChatGPT, but creating web content isn’t one of them. In fact, doing so can actually hurt your brand if the information you share is inaccurate, out of date, or just plain unengaging. Remember, part of the appeal of original content is to connect with your audience at a more human level. Relying on technology may have the opposite effect.
In recent years, 3D animation has emerged as a powerful tool for teaching and transforming complex information into a digestible and compelling visual. Animation brings a case to life and can have a greater impact on juries, judges, and tribunals than still images by comparison. Based on years of experience in the courtroom, we have developed five tips and considerations to optimize the use of this invaluable litigation tool.
Ask any long-time HR professional what the most significant change of the last few years has been, and they’ll all tell you the same things: the use of HR technology and the investment in human capital. The two are intrinsically linked to the success of organizations in today’s economy. As the face of HR changes, so too do the methodologies used. HR technology has paved the way for streamlined operations, seamless collaboration, and data-driven decision-making. From recruitment and onboarding to performance management and employee engagement, this powerful solution empowers organizations to optimize their workforce like never before. But does all of this change truly benefit employees, HR leaders, and organizations? Let’s take a look. The Evolution of HR Technology Over the years, HR technology has undergone a remarkable transformation alongside the importance of the department. Today, organizations rely on sophisticated software systems to streamline their HR processes and enhance overall efficiency while keeping the heart of HR the same. In the early stages, HR technology mainly focused on automating administrative tasks such as payroll processing and employee record management. However, as businesses recognized the potential for greater optimization, more advanced solutions were developed. One notable evolution is the rise of employee self-service portals. These online platforms empower employees to independently manage their personal information and professional development. This shift towards self-service not only reduces administrative burden but also enhances employee engagement by providing instant access to critical resources. With the emergence of mobile applications explicitly tailored for HR functions—such as recruitment apps or performance tracking tools—accessing vital information has become even more accessible through smartphones or tablets. As we continue into an increasingly digital age with rapid technological advancements—including data analytics capabilities like predictive analytics—it’s safe to say that this evolution will persist. The future holds exciting possibilities for leveraging AI-powered chatbots for candidate sourcing or utilizing virtual reality simulations for immersive training experiences. It also holds hope for Human Resources compliance, a growing area of risk and concern for organizations. Benefits of HR Technology in the Workplace HR technology has revolutionized how businesses manage their workforce, bringing numerous benefits to the workplace. One of the key advantages is increased efficiency and productivity. With automated processes for tasks such as recruitment, onboarding, and performance management, HR professionals can save time and focus on more strategic initiatives. Alongside this shift is an improvement in data accuracy and analysis. HR technology enables organizations to collect and analyze vast amounts of employee data, providing valuable insights for decision-making. From identifying skill gaps to tracking employee engagement levels, this data-driven approach helps companies make informed choices about talent management. HR Technology for Compliance Additionally, HR technology enhances compliance with labor laws and regulations. By automating processes related to payroll calculations or leave management, companies can ensure accurate record-keeping while minimizing errors that could lead to legal issues. Challenges in Adopting HR Technology Implementing HR technology can revolutionize the way organizations manage their workforce, but it has its challenges. One of the main hurdles companies face when adopting HR technology is resistance to change. Employees may be hesitant to embrace new systems and processes, causing a reluctance to fully engage with the technology. Another challenge is ensuring that the chosen HR technology aligns with the organization’s needs and goals. With numerous options available in the market, selecting the right solution can be overwhelming and time-consuming. It requires careful evaluation of various factors such as scalability, integration capabilities, and user-friendliness. Integration with existing systems poses yet another challenge. Many organizations have legacy systems in place that need to seamlessly integrate with new HR technology platforms. This can require significant effort from IT departments to ensure smooth data migration and synchronization between systems. Data security is also a concern when implementing HR technology. Organizations must ensure that sensitive employee information remains protected from unauthorized access or breaches. This means investing in robust cybersecurity measures and staying up-to-date on compliance regulations. While there are challenges involved in adopting HR technology, they can all be overcome through proper planning, communication, training, and support from management teams. Future Trends and Predictions for HR Technology The world of HR technology is constantly evolving, with new trends and advancements emerging each year. As organizations strive to stay ahead in the competitive market, it’s essential to keep an eye on the future of HR technology. Here are some exciting trends and predictions that we can expect to see in this field. The AI of it all. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a bigger role in HR processes. From automating repetitive tasks to analyzing employee data for better decision-making, AI will revolutionize HR operations. VR & AR come to the table. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will be used for immersive training experiences. Imagine employees being able to practice their skills in a virtual environment or attending virtual meetings from anywhere in the world. Data analytics drive strategic decisions. Data analytics will become even more crucial in driving strategic decisions within organizations. With advanced analytics tools, HR professionals can gain valuable insights into workforce patterns, engagement levels, and talent acquisition strategies. A mobile-first world. Mobile-friendly applications will continue dominating the HR tech landscape as employees increasingly rely on smartphones for work-related activities such as accessing payroll information or requesting time off. Employee well-being takes center stage. Employee well-being technologies will take center stage as organizations recognize the importance of promoting physical and mental wellness among their workforce. Employee data. Blockchain technology may find its way into HR systems, ensuring secure storage and verification of sensitive employee data like certifications or performance records. Personalization is no longer optional. Personalization will be key when it comes to delivering tailored experiences for candidates during recruitment processes or providing customized learning opportunities for employees’ professional development. Gen-Z pulls focus. Gen Z-focused tools and platforms specifically designed to cater to younger generations entering the workforce are likely to emerge as companies adapt their practices accordingly. As these trends unfold, it’s clear that technological innovations have immense potential when it comes to transforming traditional human resource management practices. How HR Technology Can Drive Organizational Success HR technology has revolutionized the way organizations manage their human resources. With advanced software and tools, companies can streamline their HR processes, improve efficiency, and drive organizational success. One key benefit of HR technology is its ability to automate time-consuming tasks such as payroll processing and employee onboarding. By automating these processes, HR professionals can focus on more strategic activities that contribute to the overall success of the organization. Another advantage of HR technology is its ability to provide real-time data and analytics. This allows managers to make informed decisions about talent acquisition, performance management, and employee engagement. By having access to accurate data, organizations can identify trends and patterns that help them optimize their workforce. HR technology has the ability to change the way HR departments function within an organization, but it has to be done in a way that makes sense—and that is often not up to the HR leaders, unfortunately, but other decision-makers within the company. Collaborating with the people using these products will yield greater results in terms of implementation, ROI, and understanding. HR Technology Is Your Friend, Not a Foe The evolution of HR technology has been remarkable, with advancements in artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and cloud-based platforms revolutionizing the HR industry. These innovations have enabled businesses to automate processes, gain valuable insights into their workforce, and make data-driven decisions. All of the benefits of adopting HR technology are evident across various aspects of the workplace. Improved efficiency in recruitment and onboarding allows organizations to attract top talent quickly and seamlessly integrate them into the company culture. Performance management systems help managers provide regular feedback and coaching, leading to increased productivity and employee satisfaction.
Even though online marketers seem to come up with new strategies almost weekly, email marketing remains one of the most reliable and profitable forms of online marketing. As social media continues to grow and content marketing techniques dominate SEO methods, email marketing continues to show a strong track record and high rate of success. If your law firm wants to get the most out of email marketing, though, it’s important to do everything you can to create campaigns that maximize lead generation and minimize costs. Email serves as a powerful direct communication channel that enables your organization not only to pinpoint potential leads but also to foster meaningful relationships with them, ultimately guiding them toward conversion into valued customers. Here are eight essential tips that will help you to do exactly that. Don’t Overcomplicate Email Marketing One of the biggest causes of failure with email marketing is simply overcomplicating the whole process. Compared to other digital marketing techniques, email is pretty straightforward and easy to understand. Whether it’s going to ten people or ten thousand, the bottom line is that you are just writing an email. Writing a good email message is going to do more for you than any other “trick” you might come across. 1. Use Relevant Subject Lines Subject lines have the potential to make or break an email campaign. In an email message, the subject line serves the same purpose as the headline on an article. It’s a big factor for drawing clicks. The pivotal moment when your audience decides whether to open your email hinges on their assessment of the subject line. While you can’t guarantee that any email gets opened, you can almost guarantee that people are going to see that subject line in their list of new emails. Make sure the subject line of the messages you send are relevant, interesting, and most of all, they tell the reader what they can expect to see if they open the email. If you’re giving away an eBook, putting on a webinar, or have something else of value for your readers, don’t try to be overly creative and surprise them. Put it right in the subject line and get them excited to see what’s inside. Enhance the effectiveness of your subject lines by making them actionable. Instead of a generic phrase like ‘New eBook,’ infuse a strong Call to Action (CTA) into your subject line. For instance, ‘Download our new eBook’ not only informs your audience about the content but also encourages them to take immediate action, directing traffic to your other platforms. 2. Keep Designs Clean Sloppy design and formatting can make someone close your email just as quickly as they opened it. It gives an instant impression of a lack of professionalism and can drive away leads that would have otherwise converted. If you are running a do-it-yourself campaign, you should strive to keep things as simple as possible. Write your messages the same way you would write any other email and don’t try to be too fancy with anything. Consistency is key when it comes to follow-up emails. By keeping them consistent in terms of color scheme and layout, you reinforce your brand’s identity. Consider incorporating your company’s logo into the email design as well; not only does this add a touch of professionalism, but it also establishes a visual connection between your brand and the content of the email. If you’re looking for a bit more than a plain black and white email message, you can hire a professional designer to create something for you or check with your email service provider to see if they have ready-made templates you can use. 3. Strive for Easy Readability Every email message your firm sends out needs to be easily readable and digestible. You should use large, clear fonts that readers won’t need to squint to see. Make sure the body of your message is easy to scan, just like you would a blog post. Make important points bold, or use bullet lists to make them easy to see. Above all, ensure that your call to action (CTA) is prominently displayed, starting right from the subject line, and seamlessly integrated throughout the email body. Utilizing action-oriented words like ‘attend,’ ‘register,’ or ‘read’ not only creates a clear and compelling CTA but also guides your recipients towards taking the desired actions you intend them to. Write your messages assuming that the recipients will be reading it while they are doing something else like commuting to work or waiting in line. This will help you to streamline your messages and make sure that you’re highlighting the most important information. Ensure that there is an easy way for the reader to actually complete the action after the email. Including hyperlinks within the email can streamline downloads and attendees. 4. Define the Purpose of Each Email Complete email campaigns can be made up of just a few individual messages or a few hundred messages. Either way, each individual message should have a clearly defined purpose as it’s put together. With one message you may want to educate the readers about a certain area of law. With a different message, you might be trying to get people to sign up for a webinar. Or you might be trying to drum up some attention for your social media presence. Whatever it is that you want to accomplish with each email message, you should have that purpose in mind right from the beginning and stick to it as you go through the process of creating the message. Details That Can Make a Difference Going beyond the basics of just writing a good email message, there are several things you can do to make each message more effective. By keeping an eye on some of the less obvious details, you can tune your messages and campaigns to continually get better results over time. 5. Use Specific Targeting No matter how big or small your email list is, you’ve probably got more than one audience under the surface. Some subscribers might be older while others are younger, and there are probably people interested in the different types of services that your firm provides. If you separate each of these subgroups and market to each of them with messages designed for their specific interests, you will be much more successful at converting leads. Using specific targeting strategies allows you to send the right message to the right people at the right time. This can lead to higher open rates, click-through rates, and most importantly, conversion rates. 6. Write Engaging Content Just like blog posts, if you want people to read your emails, the content has to be engaging, relevant, and interesting. Everything should be coherent, not a mismatch of random topics just there to fill up a page. Short and interesting articles in your emails will get your readers back to your website, your blog, or wherever else you’d like to direct them. Remember, the key to engaging email content is to provide value to your recipients. Make sure content meets their needs, interests, and preferences, as this will increase conversion rate. 7. Test Your Messages Even if your campaigns are doing well, it’s important to keep testing new ideas. You never know when you’ll come across something that can boost your returns even more. Most email service providers will allow you to conduct A/B testing or split testing. The basic idea is that you can send out two similar messages with specific differences, like the subject line or the wording of a call to action and see which generates a better response. When the test is complete, you can pick out the characteristics of each batch that worked the best and use those to improve future emails. When conducting A/B testing, it’s crucial to methodically test one variable at a time to isolate the specific impact of each change. Typically, you can experiment with elements such as subject lines, call-to-action (CTA) buttons, images, and send times. This approach ensures that your test results yield statistical significance, providing valuable insights. Over time, these tests serve as a valuable tool for refining your email campaigns and enhancing their overall effectiveness. 8. Analyze and Tune The most important thing to remember is that email marketing is not a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. You should regularly monitor things like open and click-through rates to make sure everything is going as planned. Sometimes just a small change in content can take your messages from people’s inboxes to their spam folders. If you’re not watching what’s going on, results could be disastrous. At the same time, you may need to make changes to keep open rates stable. If people start to think they’re just seeing the same thing over and over again they will understandably lose interest Takeaway: It doesn’t matter if your firm is just starting out with email marketing or if you’ve been doing it for a long time. Law firms of every size and type can benefit from an integrated email strategy.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have proven to be pivotal tools for numerous industries, and the legal sector is no exception. As law firms ramp up their marketing initiatives this October, it’s crucial to understand how a robust CRM system, bolstered by high-quality data, can elevate their marketing efforts. Importance of CRM in Legal Marketing Streamlined Client Interactions: A comprehensive CRM system captures every interaction, such as calls, emails or meetings, ensuring lawyers and their teams remain informed and can tailor their approach to individual client needs. Targeted Marketing Campaigns: By leveraging client and prospect data from CRM, law firms can create segmented marketing campaigns. For instance, a campaign targeted at clients seeking real estate legal advice in the fall can be distinctly different from one aimed at businesses looking for corporate legal services. Referral Tracking: Many lawyers acquire new clients through referrals. With a CRM, it’s easier to track which referrals come from where, enabling firms to focus their marketing efforts and appreciation on their most valuable networks. Data Quality: The Bedrock of Effective CRM For a CRM system to be effective, the quality of the data fed into it is paramount. Here’s why data quality is critical: Accuracy and Relevance: Ensuring that client data is accurate is vital. Incorrect contact details can lead to missed opportunities, while outdated information can render marketing campaigns ineffective. Enhanced Decision Making: Quality data enables law firms to glean actionable insights, from understanding which services are most sought after, to identifying the most influential referral sources. Personalization: In the age of digital marketing, personalization is key. Accurate and up-to-date data ensures that marketing campaigns resonate with their intended audiences. For instance, recognizing that a client has recently started a family business can lead to tailored communications about legalities related to family enterprises. Integrating CRM and Data Quality into October Strategies Incorporating CRM insights can refine each of the October marketing strategies mentioned above by: October Starter Webinar or Workshop: Use CRM data to identify topics that have been frequently discussed or queried by clients over the past months. This way, you can create content that directly addresses the pressing needs and concerns of your clients. Consider sending out pre-webinar surveys, leveraging CRM to select potential attendees and tailoring your content accordingly. By aligning your webinar or workshop topics with real-time data, you not only ensure relevancy but also boost engagement rates. Participate in Local October Festivities: Identify and reach out to potential clients or networks using CRM segmentation. By understanding the demographics, interests and preferences stored in your CRM, you can choose festivities that will best resonate with your target audience. Ensure your presence at these events is optimized for the clients you aim to serve. October Synopsis Newsletter: Include an item addressing common questions or issues stored in the CRM. This is a great way to demonstrate that you’re actively listening to your clients. Personalize the newsletter based on the data segments. For instance, for corporate clients, provide insights into upcoming legal changes that could impact their businesses. This proactive approach, fueled by CRM insights, establishes you as a thought leader in your domain. Strategize Ahead: Use CRM analytics to predict future client needs and craft early bird offers accordingly. By analyzing historical data and trends from previous years, you can anticipate client requirements in the coming months. Perhaps there’s a seasonal surge in certain legal queries around winter. Offer discounted packages or consultations related to those specific services. This preemptive approach positions your firm as both insightful and client centric. Revitalize Your Digital Footprint: Embed CRM feedback or client testimonials to make your website and social media more authentic and relatable. Positive feedback and testimonials can serve as powerful trust signals for potential clients. If, for instance, a client praised your swift response time or detailed consultation in the CRM feedback, highlight such commendations on your homepage or in your social media campaigns. By incorporating real client experiences, you humanize your brand and reinforce your credibility. Forge Ties with Autumn-centric Businesses: Use CRM to identify businesses that are active during the fall and approach them for collaborations. By understanding which businesses peak during the autumnal months through CRM analytics, you can offer specialized legal packages or workshops tailored for them. By deepening the integration of CRM insights into these strategies, legal professionals can craft more intuitive, targeted and successful marketing initiatives for the seasonal shift. With a focus on data quality, law firms can ensure that their marketing strategies are not only timely but also personalized, efficient and effective.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool to create and enhance advertising campaigns, but it is important to ensure that the ads are legally compliant. Generative AI, a type of AI that can create new content, including text, images, video, audio, code, and simulations, has become increasingly popular for use in many industries, including advertising. However, there are a myriad of legal issues that can arise when using AI to create ads. Many advertisers, advertising agencies and public relations firms are now using AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine and Google’s new Bard chatbot to brainstorm ideas for ads and advertising campaigns. Using AI merely to help brainstorm new ideas presents some legal risks. However, using AI to create ads, either in whole or in part, presents numerous legal risks. Here are some guidelines to follow when creating ads using AI to help reduce some of the legal risks. 1. Document the Creative Process Used to Create Ads When Using AI Under recently published guidance by the U.S. Copyright Office, works created with the assistance of AI may be copyrightable as long as they involve sufficient human authorship. The Copyright Office has stated that “it is well-established that copyright can protect only material that is the product of human creativity.” According to the policy statement, works created by AI without human involvement cannot be copyrighted because they do not meet the human authorship requirement. “When an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the ‘traditional elements of authorship’ are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user.” However, a work containing AI-generated material may be copyrightable, such as when a human selects or arranges “AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’” Therefore, advertising that is created solely by AI is not entitled to copyright protection in the United States. There must be sufficient human involvement, which should be documented. A best practice is to document how the advertising was created, such as by saving the history of the prompts used, subsequent steps taken to modify the prompts, steps taken to modify the output, and other ways in which the advertising was created. Copyright protection for advertising created with AI varies by country. In the United Kingdom (UK), advertising and other works created solely by a computer can be protected. The UK Intellectual Property Office has stated that “computer-generated works without a human author . . . are currently protected in the UK for 50 years.” The European Union (EU) is less clear. It has stated that an AI-generated work “could qualify as a work protected under EU copyright law on condition that a human being initiated and conceived the work and subsequently redacted the AI-assisted output in a creative manner.” When there is no copyright protection for advertising created by AI, companies may not be able to enforce their rights over others if the advertising is copied, even if it is blatantly copied. 2. Review All Claims to Ensure That They Are Truthful, Nondeceptive and Substantiated Advertising created by AI is subject to the same false advertising rules as all other advertising. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prohibits advertising that is false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. False advertising is also prohibited under state and local laws and can result in law enforcement action by the FTC and other federal agencies, state attorneys general, and local district attorneys, as well as lawsuits by competitors under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act and lawsuits by consumers, including class actions. The remedies for false advertising consist of cease-and-desist orders, injunctions, monetary penalties, and/or corrective advertising. In addition to monetary penalties, financial losses from false advertising can include fines and attorneys’ fees; the cost of defense; the cost of replacing existing advertisements, displays and packaging; the cost of fielding consumer complaints; the cost of issuing refunds; and the loss of sales due to damage to consumer trust. FTC Chair Lina Khan has stated that the FTC will be taking an active role in ensuring that the rise of AI does not violate consumer protection and antitrust laws. In a guest essay in The New York Times, she wrote: “As companies race to deploy and monetize A.I., the Federal Trade Commission is taking a close look at how we can best achieve our dual mandate to promote fair competition and to protect Americans from unfair or deceptive practices.” Additionally, objective claims for products and services must be true, nondeceptive and adequately substantiated. AI chatbots can make up facts that may seem plausible but are not true and generate misinformation. According to an article in The New York Times, “because of the surprising way [AI chatbots] mix and match what they’ve learned to generate entirely new text, they often create convincing language that is flat-out wrong, or does not exist in their training data. A.I. researchers call this tendency to make stuff up a ‘hallucination,’ which can include irrelevant, nonsensical, or factually incorrect answers.” Advertising created in whole or in part by AI can contain hallucinations and other misinformation. Of course, claims for products or services based on AI hallucinations are likely to be false. Consequently, it is important that advertising created by AI be carefully reviewed to make sure that it is not false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. 3. Be Careful to Avoid Copyright Infringement Many AI chatbots are trained by analyzing huge amounts of data from the Internet. Advertising created by AI reflects this data. In some cases, the output of AI can include identifiable portions of the training data. When such outputs are used to create advertising, there is a risk of infringement of third-party copyrights by reproducing copyrighted material without permission. Advertising created by AI may also constitute a derivative work of copyrighted material, which also creates a risk of copyright infringement. Specifically, if the advertising created by AI is too similar to a copyrighted work, the advertising may violate the Copyright Act or foreign copyright laws and expose the advertiser to copyright infringement claims. The difficulty is that because users of AI are not aware of all the copyrighted material on the Internet (and used to train the AI), users may not know how similar the advertising is to a copyrighted work and may publish infringing advertising. Even if this does not give rise to copyright infringement claims, it can cause significant damage to the advertiser’s reputation. Advertising created by AI should be carefully reviewed to ensure that it does not infringe third-party copyrights or result in reputational damage to the advertiser. 4. Be Careful Not to Use an Advertiser’s Confidential Information for Prompts Prompts are the queries that users input into an AI system to generate an output. Prompts can be used by AI software for training purposes to improve their models. Users should be careful to avoid sharing confidential or sensitive information when creating prompts, since AI systems can incorporate the prompts to generate outputs for other users. If an advertising agency, a public relations firm, or an employee of an advertiser uses the advertiser’s confidential information in prompts to create advertising with AI, this could result in liability based on a breach of confidentiality. Likewise, if a prompt uses a company’s trade secret, providing that data to an AI model could result in the information losing its trade secret protection. If a prompt uses information subject to the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine, that information may lose its privileged status due to waiver of the privilege. Prompts that contain personal information can raise privacy law compliance obligations. There are United States and EU requirements regarding notice, consent, and data rights, such as the rights of individuals to access, delete or correct information. Many states have stringent consumer privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which was strengthened as of January 1, 2023. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to the online collection of personal information about children under 13 years of age. In the EU, companies must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when using AI tools. The GDPR covers the use of personal data to train, develop or deploy AI. 5. Review the Terms of Use of the AI System Companies using AI to create advertising should review the terms of use of the AI system to understand the ownership and other rights involving the prompts and the output generated by the AI system, such as advertising. For example, OpenAI’s Terms of Use provide: As between the parties and to the extent permitted by applicable law, you own all Input. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, OpenAI hereby assigns to you all its rights, title, and interest in and to Output. This means you can use Content for any purpose, including commercial purposes such as sale or publication, if you comply with these Terms. OpenAI may use Content to provide and maintain the Services, comply with applicable law, and enforce our policies. You are responsible for Content, including for ensuring that it does not violate any applicable law or these Terms. These terms apply to all OpenAI products, including ChatGPT, GPT-4 (OpenAI’s most advanced AI model) and DALL-E2 (an AI system used to create images and art from text inputs). Since the AI system may have rights to use the output, the system may reproduce the same or similar content for another user. This can result in copyright infringement claims and reputational harm based on plagiarism. 6. Establish AI Usage Policies for Employees Considering the risks when using AI to create advertising, advertisers, advertising agencies and public relations firms would do well to develop AI usage policies for employees. If a company permits its employees to use AI to create advertising, there should be protocols for the use of AI tools and for review of the advertising before it is published. Specifically, the usage policy should contain guidelines for employees to seek approval to use AI to create advertisements and to use AI for other purposes. The guidelines should also cover what the review process of the advertising will entail, including higher-risk areas that employees should be aware of when using AI to create advertising. It is important for employees to understand that they should not use AI to create advertising unless they are permitted to do so by their employer. For example, the guidelines could prohibit employees from using AI tools for advertising unless approved by the legal department.
Dan Martin, Trial Consulting Lead at IMS Consulting & Expert Services, shared his predictions concerning the types of trial technology that attorneys soon will be seeing—and using—in the courtroom and in online trials. When Dan Martin first started in the trial consulting profession 25 years ago, the practice of videotaping depositions was still fairly novel. Today, not only are many depositions videotaped, but their capture is often accomplished remotely. The attorneys Dan partnered with in the ’90s were still arriving at trial laden with graphics printed on large boards, a presentation medium that, while not forgone, has largely been supplanted by video displays. He has seen Ultra HD (4K) video slowly begin to take the place of plain old HD, which took the place of standard definition…and so on. Once satisfied with 2-dimensional graphic images, clients are increasingly requesting 3D animations. And the swiftest legal technology transformation Dan has witnessed took place about two years ago, when legal proceedings through the use of Zoom technology began to be conducted online. Innovation in Trial Technology As a trial consultant expert at IMS Consulting & Expert Services (one of the largest litigation support firms in the world), Dan has his fingers on the pulse of the courtroom technology industry. He and his colleagues typically are not only among the first to offer new technological tools to law firms, but they also play a role in the development of these innovations and are very often the catalysts for their widespread usage in courtrooms. When asked about courtroom tech and media trends on the horizon, Dan predicted we will continue to see a widening frontier in trial graphics that mirrors technological innovations taking place all around us. Dan shared, “My guess is that we’ll begin to see some level of augmented reality and virtual reality technology make its way into courtroom displays available to juries. To me the question is how ubiquitous that technology will become in the coming years. Lots of courts provide jurors with their own individual display monitors. It’s not farfetched to assume that jurors will be reaching down for a headset in five or ten years.” Augmented and Virtual Reality Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are similar in that they enable people to experience 3D images virtually, but there are differences between the two technologies. AR adds virtual images to a real-life setting, while VR replaces the real-life setting with a completely virtual reality. They could walk around the structure and examine it from every angle. VR, on the other hand, might be used in an environmental case, for instance, to allow jurors to fly over the scene of a contamination site, and thus, gain a sense of the scope of damage. Holograms Dan offered another prediction too: “We’re probably not far off from seeing hologram technology come to the courtroom. It’s pretty exciting to think of all the potential applications for storytelling, and ultimately as a teaching tool. Imagine using holograms to present an anatomy tutorial in a personal injury case or to spin a chemical compound around in front of a jury box in a biopharma patent case.” Holographic technology is similar to AR technology in that they both can be used to bring a nonreal 3D object into a real-life space. They differ in that holograms are created by a process that uses a split laser beam and photographic plates and AR is created digitally. Also, the resolution of a hologram is lower than that of an AR image; however, the hologram has an advantage in that it can be seen with the naked eye, meaning no headsets are needed. 3D Animation While Dan is excited to see these innovations appear in the courtroom, he said the high-tech tools his graphics team already has at its disposal, in most cases, relay information to jurors just as effectively. “In addition to traditional trial graphics and simple 2D animation, 3D animation continues to be an amazing tool. We’ve used 3D for years to teach concepts, to put forth a version of events, or provide the lay of the land. Now we’re seeing apps that use LiDAR-type scan data to quickly develop objects in 3D space. Anyone can play with this stuff,” he continued. Dan was referring to the new LiDAR sensor feature that is available on iPhones versions 12 Pro and up. LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging, and this technology uses waves of light pulses to generate information about the shape of an object or objects within a scene. A person with an iPhone can now download a scanner app, scan any object or scene with their phone, and then bring that scan into a 3D program (such as Blender) and use the information to create a 3D image for screen or to create a tangible model. The 3D image created by an iPhone can even be placed directly into a PowerPoint program. Using the morph feature within that program, the object’s movements can be displayed in a series of still slides—thus allowing jurors to see the image from every angle—or the object can be entirely animated on one single slide. Drone Footage Dan and fellow IMS Trial Consultant Andrew Buckley recently created an internal presentation entitled Camera Obscura: A Peek Inside the Black Box of Media Production at IMS. This demonstration contained drone footage of a swamp that was remarkably crisp and clear, so our viewers felt like they were actually there. When asked if drone footage of that caliber is rare within the trial graphics industry, Dan responded: “Anyone filming in 4K video these days, and most are, can achieve crisp imagery. What sets our drone videos apart from that of other trial consulting firms is the level of artistry, the viewpoints that we are able to capture. In order to create high-level drone footage, you need a skilled pilot who possesses the sensibilities of a professional photographer-videographer. At IMS, we happen to have a great one: my colleague Andrew Buckley.” Challenges to Consider Adopting New Technology While state-of-the-art display methods are widely used by law firms and their clients, including during online trial proceedings, some courtrooms may be a bit behind the times. “Your new tech is only as good as your display, and in terms of display equipment, lots of courts are stuck in the past,” Dan revealed. “We graphics people love our color-corrected 4K monitors and widescreen presentations, but the hot seat operators—the people who have to deal with actual tech in the courtroom—are often dealing with outmoded courtroom equipment with different parameters and are trying to fix things on the fly.” Dan gave two reasons why courts are sometimes slow to adopt recent technologies. The first is that they need to be absolutely certain innovations will not be unduly persuasive. Second, initially, new technology is very expensive, and courts may have little incentive to upgrade. “We are always going to design for the highest quality,” he said, “but we still need to be able to display those graphics in a courtroom that has old-fashioned equipment. They’ll be high quality, just not at their full potential. And the truth is, we’re not designing solely for the courtroom. Leading up to trial, graphics preparation aids the attorneys in their strategy development. Sometimes it’s the power of a great presentation that leads the other side to decide to settle.” Connecting Messages With Media The arsenal of display tools trial consultants and graphic designers have available to them has grown immensely and will continue to do so. But just like a power drill will not do the job of a tweezer, no tool is intrinsically superior to another. Each has their own purposes, and some are better suited than others to relay particular messages to jurors. “We never put the media before the message. We help tailor the presentation to the narrative and the strategy. It’s that alignment that keeps jurors alert and intrigued.” Dan and his team consider several factors when making determinations about the mediums to use in a legal matter. They make their decisions based on the key points that are crucial for jurors to receive; the testimony styles, capabilities, and preferences of attorneys and witnesses; and the cost. Our trial consultants and designers often have the luxury of being able to choose between several display alternatives—all of which are capable of effectively doing the job. Get Ahead of the Curve The only constant in life is change, and that adage is particularly true when it comes to trial technology. When AR, VR, and even holograms one day hit the courtroom, Dan and his trial consulting and graphics teams will be ready to utilize them. They ever invest in new technological tools, become proficient in their use, and share them with their attorney partners. The one thing that never changes is Dan and his teammates’ overarching goal, which is to ensure attorneys are optimally positioned to win cases.
The word “disruption” triggers heavy, often negative, images or connotations. Almost no one likes disruptions, such as not being able to go to work due to illness or Netflix lagging due to bad internet as you’re trying to watch Lucifer. And even over the past two months, the lives of millions of people have been disrupted due to war and conflict. The instability and uncertainty that are generated by disruption can be extremely unsettling. But as much as we fear and dislike disruption, there’s also plenty of reason to enjoy and even celebrate disruption. That’s because the definition of disruption is a break in the status quo, or some interruption in the normal way of carrying out some activity. In other words, there’s no reason why disruption must always be bad. There are many cases when disruption has been a force of good that has greatly enriched the lives of everyday, ordinary people. The definition of disruption is a break in the status quo, or some interruption in the normal way of carrying out some activity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is frequently described as a source of disruption, and that it will steal the jobs of hard-working individuals. It is true that AI is a disruption, but before you cave in to all the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), don’t forget that AI is a source of positive disruption. What the naysayers often leave out is that AI is not just a positive disruption capable of greatly improving peoples’ lives, but it’s a game-changing innovation. What Is Innovation? In general terms, innovation can be described as creating something that generates value. To complete the loop, the amount of value generated often depends on how innovative that something is. Innovations can occur with both emerging as well as time-tested tech. An example of the former might be augmented or virtual reality, while cell phones and smartphones are an instance of the latter (keeping in mind that telephones were invented in 1876). It’s also possible that an innovation can be the result of combining both emerging and established tech. Types of Innovation When it comes to innovation, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” definition. Just like we mentioned that innovation can appear from emerging tech, established tech, or a mix of the two, there are also several types of innovation. Some are small steps that build off of previous ones, whereas others are massive, life-altering, game-changing leaps (you know, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”). There are many ways to categorize innovation. But one of the simpler approaches is to think about it as if it were a graph. On the y-axis, you have the “newness” of the technology. In other words, how young and novel it is. On the x-axis, it’s the impact the product or service will have on the market. With both axes set, you can divide the graph into four main quadrants: incremental (low newness, low impact), sustaining (low newness, high impact), radical (high newness, low impact), and disruptive (high newness, high impact).
Lawyers and professional services providers: Do you want to thrill your clients, customers, prospects, and other contacts (CPs)? If so, either become “ultra-responsive” or at least consider leveling up your responsiveness game and tool kit. The fact is this: In this current hybrid work world, the expectations, platforms, and tools available for and components of responsiveness have changed considerably! Studies show that many CPs now expect, want, and may need to reach a lawyer or other professional instantly, or receive some type of response “right away”—and by right away, CPs mean in less than one hour. Don’t believe me? Ask your clients, including (but not limited to) the general counsel, in-house counsel, C-suite executives, deal makers, referral sources, internal professional staff members, and other professionals you serve and work with. Decades of studies and surveys have shown (and continue to find) that the #1 complaint CPs have about lawyers (and other professionals) is their lack of timely responsiveness. This lack of timely responsiveness applies to ALL lawyers, whether a plaintiff or defense firm, and whether serving individuals, corporations, nonprofits, or any other entities, and applies to many other professional services providers too. Lack of timely responsiveness leaves CPs feeling like you are too busy for them, they are unimportant, they/their matters are not a priority or important to you, and generally are unwanted and/or unloved. Plus, lack of timely responsiveness threatens lawyers’, law firms’, and other professionals’ existing client and other relationships, reduces your new business pipeline, and can negatively impact future growth. The standard response time in the legal industry to get back to a CP used to be within two hours, but now it’s more like five minutes! Why? Because most CPs seek to contact a lawyer due to a stressful, important, or urgent situation/matter. Most CPs these days (especially C-suite decision-makers, business owners, and entrepreneurs) are in a hurry, need legal advice/service fast, and don’t have a lot of time to waste waiting—for anything. What Is the Number of Rings (and Total Time) Before Your Voicemail Picks up When Someone Calls Your Office and Cell Phone? If any of your phone lines make a caller wait for more than 15-30 seconds before your voicemail picks up, you have a problem. Many hard-driven professionals and clients are in a hurry, are short on time, and do not want to wait for a minute or more before they can leave you a voicemail (if you don’t actually answer within three rings, which is optimal). Check your setup now and minimize the number of rings before a personalized voicemail greeting picks up. The maximum number of rings should be five (but ideally, three). Do You Have a Personalized Voicemail Message on Both Your Office and Cell? You should take the 5-10 minutes needed to personally record a short and sweet voicemail recording on all your phones. Include the name and phone number for your assistant or someone else in the firm whom a caller can contact if they have an immediate/urgent issue. Return calls within three hours. Work with your secretary/assistant to have him or her return your calls within three hours if you are unable to return them yourself. If you are too busy, don’t think it’s important, feel as though you are too important and high ranking or simply don’t have time to record a personalized voicemail greeting, then (and only if it’s truly necessary) ask an assistant to record one for you, but be sure it’s short and optimized. If you have not recorded a personalized greeting on both your office and cell, consider doing so now. What Secure Messaging Options Do You Have and Use? According to the Legal Trends Report published annually by Clio, many CPs (especially younger ones) would rather text or email their lawyer than talk on the phone or face-to-face. They prefer not to call your firm or meet with you in real life. Most of us in the legal industry know that standard text platforms are not very secure, and while Google Voice provides a free forwarding number and texting through an app or browser, it may not be very secure either. So, ask yourself: Are you using stand-alone and secure messaging apps like Signal or What’s App for business? If not, ask your clients whether they would like secure messaging as a communication option. Does Your Website Have a Chat or Contact Us Option That Is Staffed Regularly? If your firm has a chat or “Contact Us” feature on your website but no one checks it or responds regularly to inquiries and questions, consider improving your process. If your firm does not have a way for CPs to contact you on your website, create one ASAP and be sure to respond in a timely manner (i.e., as close to “right away” as is possible). Optimize Your Email Email Response Time—Now that “right away” is the new standard, ask yourself: How long (minutes/hours/days) does it take for me to respond to 1) what I perceive as important and urgent emails, and 2) the emails I receive that I do not perceive as important or urgent? Use Your Assistant/Professional Staff: Arrange to give your primary assistant access to your email (not the contents of the email, just the occurrence of incoming emails), and train them regarding how to respond for you. For example, “Sue is in court all day today. Please let me know if your email is urgent, and I can text her. Thank you.—Assistant Name, contact info.” Use OOO (Out of Office) Messages: If you are a lawyer or other professional who does not currently practice a disciplined, daily email approach, or if you are super busy and not always able to check and read your email at least once a day (ideally four to five times daily, based on CPs’ expectations and “need right aways” as described above), consider creating an OOO message and then use it every day. For example, “Thank you for your email. Due to my workload, I only check my email twice a day, at around 8 am MST and 3 pm MST. If you need to reach me urgently, please (either) call my cell _______ or contact NAME (assistant/backup) email, phone.” Check Your Email Signature: Ask your clients whether your email signature is received in their inbox as an attachment. If so, streamline and optimize yours. The email firewalls in many (especially large) companies and organizations either block images or convert email signatures into images, which is a small but frequent annoyance to clients because they are not sure when an attachment is substantive, especially when they are on the go, using their cell/mobile. Your Presence on and Use of Social Media Platforms, Especially LinkedIn: Is your LinkedIn profile optimized? If you don’t think LinkedIn is a valuable tool and you don’t spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, check out the great two-part article, “Why Lawyers Need LinkedIn” by Ross Fishman. If you are not using LinkedIn to research, keep in contact, and stay in touch via its LinkedIn messaging feature, you are missing out. Don’t let the “I’m too busy” excuse impede your responsiveness as described above (and ultimately your success). The fact is, if you have a job (and even those who don’t have a job but raise children or care for a family), you are busy almost ALL the time. We all need to force ourselves to make time to schedule and do these types of very important yet not necessarily urgent tasks so that we stay in tune with the times. Or, maybe hire a virtual assistant to help.
What Should the Legal Industry Expect? With new technologies frequently surfacing during an eDiscovery review, it is time for legal departments to take a deeper dive into blockchain so they can be prepared for what is to come. Legal professionals are aware of what blockchain is and may even use this technology for some business functions like smart contracts or payment for services via cryptocurrency. However, blockchain is still evolving and there are many unknowns about how this technology operates and what role it will play in both the legal industry and general business. Blockchain—The Basics Blockchain is a complex type of distributed ledger technology that the legal industry is still learning about. A few important distinguishing features include: Users can record transactions over a distributed network that is very secure. Identities of the individuals involved in a transaction are not disclosed. The network can be either public or private. The transactions are permanent. The blockchain also creates a recorded transaction history that users can access, but never alter. Third-party facilitators are unnecessary. An established protocol instructs computers on the network about when a transaction is verified and should be added to the ledger. This is commonly referred to as mining and is the only way a transaction can become a permanent part of the blockchain. All of these features make blockchain appealing to individuals wanting to carry out secure transactions where asset ownership is permanently recorded without the need for a bank. It will only continue to gain popularity and continue to branch out to other areas besides virtual currency. Especially if smart contracts gain more acceptance, legal departments will start to see increasing exposure to blockchain technology with their corporate clients. P redicted eDiscovery Implications Just as with any emerging data source, litigators need to be ready for collection and review hurdles that blockchain could impose. As more businesses utilize blockchain, it will pop up as discoverable electronically stored information (ESI) in cases and investigations. To prepare for this, legal departments should anticipate potential challenges, develop new protocols, and keep informed on new blockchain developments. Being able to advise corporate clients about what to be mindful of when deploying or encountering blockchain technology and accounting for this in information governance plans will limit eDiscovery issues in the future. The first step is to anticipate what will be easy and what will be challenging when dealing with blockchain as a source of ESI during litigation. Blockchain data contains several features that are attractive to litigators. The fact that the transactions are permanent and do not allow for editing ensures that a party cannot tamper with any relevant blockchain ESI which can limit the time spent on eDiscovery disputes (like spoliation) and aids with data authentication. However, the fact that blockchain transactions conceal identities makes it difficult to prove that a party or other person relevant to the case participated in a certain transaction. Legal departments should account for extra costs and time to track down proper custodians, establish identities, and decode blockchain transactions. Utilizing experts and AI-powered solutions may help accelerate this process and yield efficient results. These resources could provide methods to strip anonymity from transactions that are relevant to litigation. Additionally, when collecting blockchain data, lawyers need to prepare for any obstacles or unique methods they may need to deploy. Whether the data is easily exportable will highly affect collection practices. From what we know about blockchain, this may be an easier task than anticipated. The fact that the transactions take place over a secure network should make collection an easier feat than some unstructured data like chat messages or various dark data sources. Still, it is important to talk about blockchain collection with a legal department’s eDiscovery vendor to understand the process and plan eDiscovery workflows. Information Governance Considerations Even though the data contained in a blockchain transaction is reliable, there will definitely be more steps and new considerations—especially as the technology matures. As such, when a party needs to authenticate blockchain data as evidence for a case, they should expect to utilize additional resources and encounter evidentiary roadblocks. To avoid expending unnecessary resources, it is important to weigh the cost benefit of using this data as trial evidence. Organizations should account for these costs and concerns in their litigation readiness plans. To be proactive, legal departments should start talking about blockchain and resulting information governance considerations with their corporate clients. Taking this approach aligns with the current trend of taking a more business-centered approach with legal transformation efforts and ways to be more efficient. Besides accounting for blockchain in litigation readiness plans, organizations should have policies around using blockchain for internal and external business purposes. Updating data classification and mapping protocols will also help better manage these transactions if they become discoverable ESI in a future case. Other helpful actions include monitoring new blockchain developments, providing training opportunities to staff, and seeing how courts handle future blockchain eDiscovery issues. It is important to remember that how this technology influences litigation will change as legal departments discover best practices for eDiscovery workflows pertaining to blockchain. Therefore, it is crucial to keep track of any case law and court rulings on blockchain and eDiscovery to help refine practices. Just as lawyers have recently seen the courts respond to eDiscovery obstacles and arguments pertaining to AI usage, blockchain questions will undoubtedly follow.
