In Part Two of our new book, we’re excited to present some specific billing and business practices you can put into effect today to improve your firm’s profitability. You’ll learn:

Recently, TED posted a fun lecture by Google engineer Matt Cutts called “Try Something New For 30 Days“. The gist of the talk is: what are you waiting for? There are so many things you want to try, why not conjure up a little Morgan Spurlock-ness and sign up for your own 30-day experiment? It’s just about the right amount [...]

…There is a huge and very specific pocket of inefficiency that currently exists in the market for legal services.
While lawyers (particularly business lawyers) are trying harder than ever to generate and keep clients, there exists a ton of aggressive, smart entrepreneurs who need good legal services – and are willing to pay for them – but don’t seek them out for fear of irregular and/or unbounded bills.

Attorneys notoriously live (and die) by their calendars. Missing deadlines and hearings, I don’t need to remind anyone, can result in disciplinary actions. The attorney calendar is a fine, precision instrument like a car or space shuttle. It needs to be maintained, cradled, and tuned. Done the right way, calendaring can keep you more than organized: it can improve your [...]

While both clients and lawyers continue to lament the limitations and drawbacks of the traditional “billable hour” method of charging for legal services, a few new methods are rapidly gaining popularity.   There’s just no question that we’ll see these intriguing techniques continue to enjoy increased adoption during 2011 and beyond. 1. Bill By The Pound. A cousin of the old [...]

Fred Wilson – one of technology’s most prominent venture capitalists – posted a challenge to startup lawyers on his popular “AVC” blog after paying $17,000 in legal fees

Previously we took a look at 5 non-traditional “vows” that a new client can make to her attorney at the start of an engagement – promises that don’t usually appear in a standard engagement letter.   Today, we’ll consider a few non-traditional vows the lawyer can make to her client. Lawyer Vow #1: I promise to always give you a [...]

Bad billing habits are ultimately one of the key causes of lawyer job dissatisfaction.  Failing to send out timely bills (often caused by timesheet procrastination) directly results in higher receivables. Higher receivables lead to higher write-offs. Higher write-offs lead to less revenue.  Less revenue leads to all sorts of financial stress – and extra stress is certainly not something lawyers [...]

Lack of cost certainty has to be one of the leading reasons why we don’t use more legal services. I can’t prove it, but I’ve always suspected there is a heck of a lot of potential legal work out there that doesn’t end up on lawyer laptops solely because of the absence of a fixed price (or something close to [...]

First of all, business lawyers rock.  They’re among the sharpest thinking professionals in business, routinely pulling together complex deal structures, making sense out of rules and regulations, and giving great general business advice to clients. (Disclosure: Yes I’m biased, I started my career as a business lawyer.) Since leaving law for the tech world I’ve been on the client side, [...]