Time and again you have put your best foot forward.

You have tried to make things work.

But, despite your best efforts, your senior partner continues to plague your professional life in an unrelenting and inescapable way.

We know you may feel hopeless. You may feel desperate. We want to tell you that you are not alone. We work with so many attorneys who have been in similar situations to what you are facing right now.

The truth is there is an exit strategy to take and, let’s be honest, it can be developed over the span of your lunch hour. Open your own practice! Think about the flexibility that can come with being your own boss. Appealing, right?

Let’s dive into how you can use your lunch hour (or late tonight if your senior partner does not give you lunch) to take your career to the next level as you set forth how you are going to open your own firm. Let’s discuss a few things you will need to consider:

As you lament your senior partner woes and dream of opening your own firm, we encourage you to schedule a free 30 minute Strategy Session with the team at Practice42. We help build successful law practices. Talk to us about how we can help you on your journey to a brighter future in the law!

The life of an attorney can be a struggle in the best of times. Add a pandemic into the mix and it may feel downright unbearable. If fact, more and more attorneys say they are overwhelmed on a daily basis. Especially with the persistence of the COVID-19 crisis, attorneys and their support staff have faced unprecedented changes to their work, to their life, and to whatever semblance of work-life balance they have achieved. There is no question you are feeling the pressure and we want to share our tips for attorneys on how to avoid overwhelm during the pandemic with you!

On top of the anxiety generated by the rapid spread of a novel disease, attorneys have had to continue to find a way to work and take care of their families in the midst of everything else that is going on. One of the first things that have gone out the window, understandably, is self care. In discovering ways to take care of your work and your family, be sure that you find a way to take care of yourself as well.

Finding a way to recognize your body’s cries for help when stress starts overtaking you, can be critical to most effectively coping with everything COVID-19 has brought to our lives. Take the steps that work for you to fortify yourself against stress and anxiety. You will be a healthier person, a happier family member, and a more productive worker for it.

Many of us may see the signs of stress appear. We feel the anger and irritation rising within us, experience latent anxiety, and toss and turn well into the night. Regardless of seeing the signs, we drive (head on) through them! A key tip for attorneys to avoid overwhelm is to listen in to your body. Taking care of yourself can not only help minimize these symptoms, but can help address the root of the problem through giving you techniques to cope with and manage stress and stressful situations.

Stress can breed in isolation. While it may be your first inclination to keep all that generates anxiety close to you, taking time to reach out and connect with others can help build resilience against things like job stress. Your coworkers and those in your professional network are, more likely than not, experiencing similar difficulties. Talk to them about problems you are experiencing and collaborate on finding solutions. Have real talks with those you work with. Discuss how the pandemic is impacting your work and give everyone the ability to manage expectations accordingly.

In addition to accessing your professional network as a resource, talking to friends, family, and loved ones about how you are feeling can also help strengthen you during times of stress and crisis. We are all in this together. Do not forget it. No one seems to be immune from the pervasive effects that COVID-19 has on our society. Talk to people about how you are feeling and check in on them as well.

What other tips for attorneys on how to avoid overwhelm do you need? Consider this: During a time when so much feels outside of our control, it can be empowering to make a concerted effort in identifying what you actually cannot control and what you can control. Is there any way for you to develop a daily routine that even somewhat resembles the one you followed pre-pandemic? This can help you feel some sense of control amidst the chaos. Keep your schedule as regular as possible. Take breaks to do something active, get some fresh air, and check in with others.

Remember that you not only deserve time for yourself, but you need time for yourself. There may never seem to be enough hours in the day. Key tips for attorneys on how to avoid overwhelm include maximizing the time you have. Take a moment here and there to check in on yourself, and do something that you enjoy. Make a concerted effort to take regular social media and news breaks. While it can be important to check in on the state of the world, everyone needs a mental time-out from this on occasion.

Our team at Practice42 remains committed to helping professionals struggling during this time of so much uncertainty. Sharing these tips on how to avoid overwhelm during the pandemic, is just one of the things we can do! Please reach out to us for any assistance and schedule a free Strategy Session. Remember, we are here for you. Let us help!

Although each practice management software is different in its offering and in its application, there are similarities between the services they provide. After all, they are designed to meet the needs of law practices of all sizes, which share many similar needs. As you think about what you need in your practice, consider these solutions for your firm:

Not sure what you need? Curious about aspects that you may not know about yet? Do not wait to schedule a consultation with us on how we can help you improve and streamline this side of your practice.

In 2019, most of the law firms we work with store much of their business information, including client information and legal documents, on their company servers or within their cloud. Although none of us want to think about it, have you considered what a cyber-attack could do to your law practice? A data breach could potentially not only cost you and your law firm time but also money and reputation.

Unfortunately, cyber attacks are more prevalent than ever.

In fact, research tells us that “… since January 1, 2016, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks have occurred on a daily basis (on average). That is a 300 percent increase from 2015, when 1,000 attacks occurred daily.”

What is the cause of these cyber attacks? Is there something we can do to protect our law firms? Are these threats internal or external? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves as we endeavor to be intentional about our law firm technology policies.

While it may be uncomfortable to think about, we also need to determine if the real result is within our firm, originating with our own employees. This is not just an issue that law firms face, however, as industry experts agreed “more than 40% of senior executives and small business owners report that employee negligence or accidental loss was the root cause of their most recent data security breach.”

If these cyber attacks originate in house, we need to ask the very important question: Why?

Is it the lack of attention to detail on behalf of our employees? Are all of us too busy to make an effort to stay up-to-date on patches, software fixes, and avoidance of dangerous email? Do we take proactive steps to train our employees on cyber risks and how to avoid them? Or, although it is terrifying to think about, are your employees actively making your company vulnerable to data breaches? 

As you work to minimize the risk of a cyber-attack in your law firm, you must come to terms with the fact that your employees may play a role in putting your company in jeopardy.

The truth is, security measures do not have to be complicated to be effective. For example, leaving an unlocked laptop out at the end of the day is an easy way for a security breach to happen. It can be avoided with the simple security measure of always locking law firm devices at the end of the work day. 

Another example is outlining how communication will be managed in your firm. In other words, do you share important internal data or have vital internal conversations over email or face-to-face? You may want to rethink how you communicate in light of the 2016 scam at Snapchat.  Snapchat experienced the impact of employee vulnerability when a hacker pretended to be the company’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, and sent an email to an employee requesting payroll information. The employee fell for the scam, causing Snapchat to face a data breach that included the release of 700 employees’ information.

How can you reduce the risk of your employees falling for scams or forgetting simple things such as locking their laptops or being victims of cyber terrorism? The simple answer is to be intentional in your cyber training policies. From employees securing important information on laptops and cell phones, even when they are on a coffee break, to putting policies in place that limit access to hardware and data, or just maintaining different levels of internet access, all of these procedures should be outlined in your law practice’s Tech Handbook and training should be offered frequently. 

The key is to take action. Do not wait to put secure policies in place today to ensure that you are limiting the risk associated with your employees and cyber-attacks in your law firm. We know this can be hard to start and even harder to work through. Remember, we are here as a resource for you. Do not hesitate to contact us with your questions so we can help you reach your goals for cyber security in your law firm. 

Research tells us the average person spends over four hours on the phone every day. When it comes to using a smartphone, many of our clients let us know that they have serious concerns about security. Therefore, we would ask, how long do you spend on your phone? More importantly, if you are spending most of your time on your iPhone, how secure is it?

Do you have the new iPhone X? Have you installed the iOS 11 update? We encourage you to consider making security a priority. You may want to take a few minutes today to clean through your security settings to ensure your device is as safe as you can make it.

Ready to learn more about security on this device? Check out our seven tips to maximize the privacy on your iPhone today!

1. Update your apps. Many of us have a tendency to ignore the number that overlays the top right of our App Store app. This is a notification to let you know it is time to update your phone! Take a minute to actually update all of your apps that have alerts. These updates can fix any bugs within the apps, as well as, update any Security settings.

2. Take advantage of the privacy feature. Whether you have an iPhone X or only the iOS 11 update, you can now have access to a privacy tab that shows you what permission you have given to each one of the apps on your phone. As you search through your Privacy settings, be sure to ask yourself which apps should have access to what. Considerations can include access to things such as your Location, Photos, Microphone, and more.

Further, look for the Analytics and Advertising tab located at the bottom of your privacy settings screen. Within the Analytics tab you can decide if you would like to allow Apple to gather your data. Turning off this feature means you may no longer receive targeted ads that follow your interests.

3. Unlock your phone the hard way. While using facial ID and thumbprint can make unlocking your iPhone a lot easier, it is not your safest option. Your safest option may be to have a passcode on your phone and only use the passcode to unlock your device. You may disable your fingerprint and Face ID in your Settings app.

4. Take advantage of your emergency lock. If you find yourself in a situation where you do not want someone to have access to your phone or someone attempts to take it, tap your power button to lock your phone. Your phone should be locked until you enter in your password.

5. Turn on your emergency SOS features. Go into your Settings app and select Emergency SOS. You can add in emergency contacts that can be contacted upon an emergency. You may also turn on the “auto call” feature which will dial 911 upon using the SOS feature.

To use the SOS feature, press the Sleep button five times rapidly. This can trigger the Emergency SOS feature which sends a message and reaches out to your Emergency contacts, as well as 911, if you have auto call turned on.

6. Turn off your messaging previews. You may go into your notification settings and turn off your iMessage preview to ensure that your messages are kept private. You may also set an expiration on when you would like your messages to be deleted rather than saving all of your messages in your phone forever, unless you want to.

7. Take advantage of Safari’s safety features. The browser Safari gives you different options to help boost your privacy on your phone. Go into Safari in your Settings app and access these settings which include blocking cookies, fraudulent website warnings, and more! Next time you are in your Safari app, take a second to clear your website data and history.

Through investing a few minutes into organizing your data and privacy on your iPhone, you can improve your safety within your device. Consider making these changes sooner rather than later. Does this article raise more questions than it answers? Do not wait to ask us your questions!

When you implement your marketing campaign it gives you the opportunity to interact with your audience. Social media for law firms can help you do this! Your custom social media strategy can include campaigns that reach out to your clients, potential clients, local professionals, and your community as a whole.

From Facebook and Twitter to Google My Business and LinkedIn, social media for law firms can give your business the opportunity to engage with your audience!

One of the best parts for law firms using social media is it is a way to interact with potential new customers and help ensure your current clients are more loyal. Unfortunately, without social media, the only interaction you may have with your potential clients and professional network may be if they are already familiar with you or if your law practice. You need to be there when your audience has questions that only you can answer!

Social media for law firms allows you to take control of the educational content you want to reach your intended audience!

Need some tips on how to do this the right way in your social media campaign for your law firm? Let us share three tips for law firms using social media with you right here!

Tip 1: Answer questions! Your potential clients are looking for answers to their questions. Makes sure you are answering them. Keep a running list each week of the most frequently asked questions. Each week, post both the question and the answer on your law firm social media pages.

Tip 2: Stay engaged when it comes to social media for law firms! Don’t let more than a day or two go by without engaging with your audience. They want to hear from you, even if it is just a quick tip!

Tip 3: Keep your contact information current! Most importantly, never make it hard for an existing client or a potential client to reach you. There will be frequent software updates to your law firm social media accounts. Make time to ensure all your accounts are up-to-date at all times because you always want your clients to be able to reach you.

Nowadays, consumers interaction matters more than ever. Therefore, when we talk to law firms, we are always quick to point out that you can use your law firm’s social media to gain insight on what your clients are thinking. What are they interested in seeing or learning? Social media for law firms allows us to gain more insight into the important data we need in our firms!

The age of the internet changed the ways that law firms function. Law firms need real results that can be generated from custom law firm social media campaigns. Are you doubting whether or not your potential clients and professional network actually use social media? Did you know there were over three billion social media users in 2018? We have seen tremendous growth in this area since 2000. That year, it was reported that only one hundred people had access to the Internet. In 2018, 77 percent of Americans have a social media profile.

Why do social media marketing statistics matter to your law firm and how should they influence your marketing decisions?

These numbers matter. They stress the importance of social media for law firms and the influence on your clients, potential clients, and community.

Social media for law firms is more important now than ever before.

Nowadays, it is a mistake if a business is not taking advantage of social media. Not only are they missing out on marketing opportunities, they may be behind their local competitors that are taking advantage. In today’s marketplace, more studies show that consumers do not trust a business that do not have a social media presence.

Put simply, law firm social media marketing gives your practice access to connecting with your audience.

Social media allows your law firm to create brand awareness and educate your potential clients by answering their questions. Your social media can act as the face of your law firm. This channel allows you to communicate as a brand and develop a voice that educates your local audience. Further, this visibility gives your firm the opportunity to acquire new customers and gain loyal followers. In fact, according to a recent study, 53% of Americans who follow brands online are more loyal to those brands.

Your law firm’s visibility through social media helps gain client support. When someone is looking for a new doctor or lawyer to go to, the first thing they do is research. They’ll look for a law firm’s website but also at the social media. Creating great social media law firm profiles and consistently posting to it will help build trust with your prospective consumers.

We know that as a busy attorney, law firm social media may be the last thing on your mind. You’re in the midst of trying to manage your clients, your employees, and generate new business. Although it may be hard at times, we encourage you not to ignore law firm social media in your firm! We encourage you to learn more from our team on how to make a difference with law firm marketing. We provide custom solutions to firm’s just like yours and want to support you in your journey to success.

Are you aware of how Facebook’s most recent update directly impacts the modifications you can make to the preview window when link sharing for your law firm? Curious? Wondering what’s so newsworthy?  Keep reading…

Last week Facebook changed the way the link sharing preview window operates. The bottom line is this – you can no longer modify the content in the preview window. You have to use the content furnished to you from the website that you want to use. This is the content you will pull through for link sharing purposes.

First of all, you may asking, what on earth is the Facebook link sharing preview window feature?

This is the functionality within Facebook that shares a snippet of the article, website, blog or any URL-based content you are sharing. Still confused? Let’s share a visual example.

Open your browser and then open both a window to Facebook and a window to the Practice42 website. Let’s say that you decide you want to share a Practice42 blog post about using Adobe DC in a law firm. You would make a copy of the URL where the blog was located and paste it into your Facebook post.

If you look at the information that automatically pulls from our website, you will see that the title, the image and a brief description of the blog is automatically loaded onto your Facebook post. This is the preview window. It will accompany what you say in your post. Prior to last week, however, all three of these pieces were customizable.

Is limiting or preventing customization new? It is new to Facebook but it isn’t new to the social programming world. Presently you cannot alter the pulled information on Google+ or Twitter. You can still alter data on LinkedIn and Tumblr. Why did Facebook make this move? You can read more on Facebook’s direct reasoning by clicking this link but the main goal is to limit the fake news outlets availability to manipulate data for their own purposes.

With this foundation in place, we can ask the most important question – will it impact you and your practice?

Yes and no (#lawyeranswer). Let’s dive into the three main issues.

First, there are links you may be using from popular and/or newsworthy websites where there is difficulty pulling relevant text-based content through to Facebook. For example, you find a great article you know your clients want to read but the link preview window shows text-based content that is completely irrelevant to what you want to discuss. Does this mean you shouldn’t use the article? Not necessarily.

The second issue comes from the images tied to the articles you want to use. Often images are missing, distorted or irrelevant to the article. Anyone who posts frequently to Facebook knows a modified image might be much preferred and relevant to the content. This strategy, however, won’t work going forward.

The third issue that this raises is we have to make sure our own houses (i.e. law practice websites) are in order. Is our website metadata current? Does the information we furnish through link building strategies satisfy the three part test for people who want to use it?

The three part test we recommend to all of our clients is:

1. Educational,

2. Accurate, and

3. Visually triggers a social conversion or brand recognition..

Where do we go from here? These are our five best practice recommendations after sitting down to strategize on what to do next after last week’s news broke.

1. Double-check all programmed content. Facebook has implemented this change. Any of your pre-programmed posting is not guaranteed to be published the way you want it to be.

2. Check your website metadata. What will your posts about your firm look like? If you haven’t taken the time to get your content optimized for social media, you can’t put it off anymore. We want your clients, the public and all your audiences to be able to use your content, and use it well.

3. Be prepared (and required) to re-authenticate. Anytime there is a major platform overhaul, you may be required to logout and login from any device or programming tool you use. Go ahead, be proactive and do it now.

4. Don’t be misled by your publishing tool. Although most publishing tools are taking this extremely seriously they are also letting us know that they cannot guarantee what a post will look like when it is published.

5. Brace yourself for “good enough” and trust the message. This is a statement that we hate to make to you but this Facebook change means you will not be able to completely control the way the data in the post looks. Even the best programmed post is at risk of poor pulling at the time you use it. This means text, images and sizing may go sideways at any time. Make sure your social media message is relevant and well-written, especially in light of the heads-up that you may have poor preview window content.

Confused? Need help? We hear you! Remember, at the end of the day, you hold the keys to your own success! Need helping getting started? Give us a call at 850-933-5072 or email us at yourpractice@practice42.com.

When it comes to managing your employees, your projects, your workflow… and keeping all the information organized and in the right folder, what do you consistently use?  Are you using a legal practice management software for this purpose? Or are you stepping out of the practice management software arena and finding solutions in apps? Is everyone on your team engaged and active?

If there’s one thing that the new generation of workforce has in common, it’s the use of the smartphone for everything. Word processing, calendaring, texting, chatting, collaborating, multi-tasking, the former communication only device is now used for just about anything you can think of in your business. Finding the right day-to-day task software to increase your efficiency, your productivity and your profitability in your law firm may be less about tethering it to your practice software machine and more about expediting and consolidating communications.

In our company, we love Evernote and Slack, but that doesn’t mean that the literally hundreds of other options are not great! Azendoo, Fleep, Jostle, Moxtra… there are many other options for you depending on what you want to get out of your practice. The question becomes: Just what do you actually use the software for? Other than having it sit on your smartphone or tablet with the proverbial answer “well, I downloaded Evernote two years ago but didn’t have time to get into…”

Let’s take a minute and talk about the five benefits of task software we love!

1.  Your team will be more organized. Want to stop misplacing things or being on the wrong page with responsibilities? Visualizing what is actually going on in your business can be a powerful option that tools like this enable you to see. Collaboration tools can be an incredibly powerful tool for you to use and enable you to take your organization to the next level.

2.  Real time task management. Tired of having an outdated task list? Frustrated when your team members forget to update it? Put it in list or a chat or a workflow in any of these software tools. If your receptionist sends out the new welcome packets to your new clients she can check off that the work was done in real time so you can get the update and keep the pulse on how things are getting done in your office.

3.  Stop the email madness. These tools allow you to put your whole team in one conversation. Say goodbye to miscommunication and extensive e-mail threads. Now your team can find everything they need to know in one location. No more shuffling through e-mails to find files.

4.  You can share any type of document with your team at any time. Keep in mind, not all apps have the same functionality. You want to choose a tool with access to whatever information you use in your business. PDF’s, docs, videos, photos, powerpoint presentations, whatever it may be…you can share it with your team! Sometimes it is hard to attach certain documents over e-mail or they get lost in the shuffle, but these tools solve this problem.

5. Relatively low cost. The costs for most programs like these are based on users or business level. Be sure to consider the free trials available and take the time to use them. Want to learn how to use one of these for free? With Slack there is free trial for an unlimited amount of time!  Why would you not want to take advantage of a free app that will make your business and team more organized? If you want to upgrade Slack you can pay a cheap $6.67 monthly, and you can receive Slack credits which will give you benefits.

Communication, project management and task delegation are a vital part to every business. Don’t wait to try these out to keep your law practice moving in the right direction because, at the end of the day, you hold the keys to your own success.  Need help getting started? Let us know! You can give us a call at 850-933-5072, send us an email at yourpractice@practice42.com or fill out a contact form so we can contact you!

Are you one of the many people who want to learn how to use Adobe in their law practice management, but just don’t know how? The numerous features that Adobe has makes it very appealing to the customer, but it also makes it a complicated tool to learn quickly. Teaching yourself and your law practice Adobe without any assistance can be a daunting (see multi-hour) task. The good news? There are a great quantity of resources, support and community forums out there for you to get the most out of Adobe, even from the company itself on the Adobe Support website.

Looking for law practice management enhancements to add? Adobe offers multiple products; InDesign for design work, PhotoShop for your photos, and Document Cloud (DC) for your workflow, just to name a few. You can license one or multiple products in your office. Specifically in this article, we are discussing getting started and the use of Adobe DC.

Here are our 9 Law Practice Management Best Practice Tips to help you gain a better understanding of how to use Adobe and its most versatile tools.

1. Take time to learn. Accept the fact that learning how to effortlessly use Adobe will not happen overnight!  Any new skill takes practice, and the same is true for using Adobe. It will take several times to learn each tool and master it correctly. Be prepared that the product may update as well, requiring a realignment on your end when that happens.

2. Break the learning into pieces. All of the Adobe products have feature after feature after feature, all layered on top of each other. This is excellent news for your office efficiency and productivity but can be a hard learning curve initially. Instead of tackling the whole software at one time, create miniature goals for yourself. Make a list of the key features that drew you to the program and decide which one you want to add each week. Set aside an hour or two each week to work with the software until you are comfortable using it every day.

3. Learn the integration from Microsoft Word to Adobe Pro. For professional offices, being able to save a word processing document into a PDF is essential. It is also important to be able to take a document out of PDF format and into a word processing format. Keep in mind, word processing isn’t the only Adobe exporting feature. You can also export to picture files, Excel and other file types you need in your office. To start, make sure both software programs on your computer recognize each other and then try the functionality out.

4. Don’t forget security.  You may not want to send or use an unsecure PDF. Adobe DC has security functions that allow you to set password, control user access and lock the original PDF. Using the Publishing Sensitive Information feature is a tool you want to become familiar with and then decide how you and your team will use it in your office.

5. Learn to create a document ready for e-signature. One of the best features of Adobe DC is the ability to create a document that is ready to sign. After you have exported your document from your word processor into Adobe, you can use Adobe Sign to prepare it for signature. Adobe intuitively fills in the signature boxes for you within the tool.

6. Master the Pen Tool. The Pen Tool allows you to create many different designs and graphics but for attorneys you can also use it to write, comment and highlight important parts of an Adobe document. This multi-purpose tool is a good one to learn from the start.

7. You can edit PDFs in Adobe as well. (This is a different part of Adobe, it is called Acrobat DC) Through Adobe you can add text boxes, remove language you do not want and edit text within your PDF. This can make your PDFs more useful and comprehensive in your practice. Learn more by clicking this link.

8. Learn to save your documents. One of the most fundamental parts of using Adobe is knowing how to save your documents. After all, you don’t want to spend hours of time just to find out it saved to your computer incorrectly and is unable to be viewed. When saving your document, you need to make sure you save it as the correct file type. For example, you do not want to save a .doc as a .pdf. Make sure you pay attention to these details and train your team.

9. Use it anywhere! Gone are the days when you or your employees need to be tethered to a desk. Adobe DC can be used across multiple-devices including tablets and smartphones. Decide how this feature can best support your practice and train your team. When using a tool like this, don’t forget to address device security in your technology procedures manual.

There are so many resources and tutorials out there for beginners using Adobe. If you don’t master something within the first week, keep trying and push yourself, and you will succeed. Remember, at the end of the day, you hold the keys to your own success! Need helping getting started? Give us a call at 850-933-5072 or email us at yourpractice@practice42.com.

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