System of a Down: How to Reverse Engineer a Law Practice

jaredcorreia@gmail.com — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 04:48:51 +0000

When you build a law practice, sometimes it comes out looking like one of those old Volkswagen kits: personally beloved by the builder, while others looking on are just like, ‘What the actual fuck?’

I do think that the vast majority of solo and small firm lawyers have a good sense of how to run a business. The failure is often in the execution. Development usually does not go beyond the business plan stage, if it ever even gets there.

Businesspersons often think of creating systems, and then choosing programs to run those systems. The question is usually not asked in the reverse. Hence, ‘here’s my paperless workflow, what system should I use now’ is a more common application than ‘I bought Adobe Acrobat, let me build a paperless workflow around its functions’. I would submit that the second arrangement might be the better formulation.

If, in defining your law firm’s communication methodology, you based that determination on how you would use Slack, as an internal and external conversations driver, you might discover a more seamless approach than if you stumbled upon it later. If it’s true that a law practice management software is the most important product a law firm can invest in, doesn’t it make sense to choose that anchor software first, and then create your workflows based on its features? Isn’t this a better approach than choosing the same old software, because you don’t want to test anything else, and then complaining, after you start using it, that it doesn’t do what you want it to do? One of the reasons lawyers don’t like to adopt new technology (even when it’s better) is because they don’t want to undergo a learning curve. Selecting a software product with a full understanding of its features, and building your practices around that, reduces or eliminates that learning curve.

With the current focus on attorney competence related to technology, taking a more proactive approach to software choice and implementation not only makes sense from an efficiency perspective, it may also be a new and improved way to ward off malpractice.

. . .

Liner Notes

‘Keep on Tryin’’ by Timothy B. Schmit

Both Sides Now: Cloud Services End Internal Law Firm Debates Over Mac vs PC

jaredcorreia@gmail.com — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 18:40:13 +0000

There is still some discussion over whether law firms can efficiently accommodate both Mac and PC users. I’m not sure why. To my mind, that one’s been solved.

Back in the day (like five years ago, not the 1880s), it was far more difficult to absorb Mac users into what were, traditionally, PC-based law firms. Law firms would run Parallels, or contrive clunky information-shifting and -sharing architectures, any of which everyone hated. Frustration did abound.

However, the ascendancy of the cloud has essentially made hardware choice irrelevant, or eliminated some of those choices entirely. Cloud services are, at base, device-agnostic. Because those services operate via the internet, it doesn’t matter what device you’re using to access them, so long as you have internet access. Beyond even the question of Mac versus PC, it doesn’t matter that you decide to use a tablet instead, of whatever brand. The same goes for smartphones, since relevant cloud softwares will feature mobile applications built for iOS and Android. (Nobody has a Windows Phone anymore, right?) What that means is that your law firm could be all Mac or all PC or whatever combination thereof you want, and if you’re using cloud software exclusively, everyone will be accessing the same programs, featuring the same data, in the same way.

Mac versus PC, then, only remains an issue for law firms that maintain a dedication to premise-based software. Of course, it’s easier than ever before to ditch premise-based software, as even companies that made their bones selling premise-based software are moving to create cloud versions or (less effectively) online access portals for their software. While there are some software types for which improved cloud options for lawyers would be helpful (I’m thinking, immediately, of document assembly), at a very basic level, a law firm could adopt a cloud-based case management system, and deposit the majority of relevant law firm data there, at a shared and easily-accessible (by approved parties) repository — via whichever hardware those parties choose to access that data.

The adoption of a cloud-based technology infrastructure means that law firms can bury the Mac versus PC debate forever, and focus on more important things — like data security in a BYOD culture.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that your Mac-using friends won’t still try to convert you.

Liner Notes

Personally, I use a PC; but, what the hell . . .

‘Mack the Knife’ by Bobby Darin

microsoft – Red Cave Consulting

System of a Down: How to Reverse Engineer a Law Practice

Both Sides Now: Cloud Services End Internal Law Firm Debates Over Mac vs PC