What's Your Type?
I ran across Matthew Butterick's wonderful Typography for Lawyers site today and wanted to share it here. Matthew's a typographer turned civil litigator who started the site to help lawyers write prettier -- if not better.
When you show up to make an oral argument, you make sure that you present yourself as professionally and persuasively as possible. Similarly, your written documents should reflect the same level of attention to typography.
I highly recommend you add this to your reading list. Now, if I could just stop hitting the space bar twice after each period.
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day, everyone. Here's a presentation full of "Lessons Learned" that uses pictures I've taken of my daughter, Gracie. Enjoy!
Tired of Talking About the Weather?
Here's a great collection of conversation starters from CanTeach. Organized helpfully in categories of "What is..." "What if..." "What do you think..." etc., I'd take a quick look at these next time you've got a get together and want to come up with something for everyone to talk about besides the weather or their occupation.
Looking for Cool Ways to Connect with Clients? -(STOP)-
Telegramstop is a company that will send an old-time looking telegram to anyone in the world for under five bucks. Could be a cool, retro way to connect with some clients or friends.
The Math of Justice
I'm a big fan of Craig Damrauer's New Math site. He combines simple text and visuals with math to describe sometimes complicated concepts. Here's his latest:
And my favorite:
Get Up and Think
Sitting at your desk trying to solve a complicated problem? You might be better off getting out of your chair and moving around. In this study, researchers found that, "a person's ability to solve a problem can be influenced by how he or she moves." In other words, our minds and bodies can work together to help us solve problems:
The new findings offer new insight into what researchers call "embodied cognition," which describes the link between body and mind, Lleras said.
"People tend to think that their mind lives in their brain, dealing in conceptual abstractions, very much disconnected from the body," he said. "This emerging research is fascinating because it is demonstrating how your body is a part of your mind in a powerful way. The way you think is affected by your body and, in fact, we can use our bodies to help us think."
Next time you've got a problem to solve, get up off your butt, move around a bit, and you might find that your body helps your brain find the answer.
100 Tweets: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less.
I really like Twitter. For those who follow me, you know that I try to share lots of legal-themed tips, thoughts and ideas. In fact, most of my Ten Rules posts started out on Twitter -- where I'll test 15-25 "rules" to see which ones work best before picking the ten favorites.
However, there's lots of stuff that lives on Twitter now that used to live here on the blog. And since I don't expect everyone reading this to follow me there (or go back and read through my 2000+ Twitter messages), I decided to compile a "Best Of" list of my favorite tweets.
So, here (in .pdf form) is a little e-book I've titled: 100 Tweets: Thinking about Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less. It contains my favorite 100 tweets, in no particular order, and should give you a sense of what I share on Twitter that you don't always see here.
If you enjoy it, and would like to follow me on Twitter, I'll see you there.
Talk to Me About...
Instead of using name tags at your next event, try this tip (found at The Kitchn blog) to get conversations started:
The idea is that instead of "Hello my name is..." stickers, you give your guess ones that read "Talk to me about..." Guests can fill in their career specialty, their hobby, their passion of the moment, or their favorite meal (just keeping it foodie, here!).
We picked this suggestion up from SwissMiss, who used it at a talk she was facilitating, and we think it's a brilliant idea for all sorts of social situations. Name tags like these are guaranteed conversation starters!
We think they also take away some of the discomfort factor. Personally, we feel much more comfortable approaching someone who wants to talk about a subject in which we're interested than we would just striking up a random conversation.
I'd take it a bit further, and give each guest 4-5 name tags. Every 30 minutes or so, have them switch out their "I want to talk about..." tag with a different subject.
Wonder what my friend Scott "The Nametag Guy" Ginsberg would think?
Get a Life -- In Only Two Days
I've been spending some time talking to the organizers of the Get a Life Conference, after connecting at Techshow and on Twitter. It looks like a great event, and I'm really working hard to figure out a way to make it -- and perhaps do some cool LexThink-like unconference stuff with them if I do.
Lots of great speakers, including the incomparable Gerry Riskin, are on tap. Expect lots of talk about practical ways to make your law practice a more profitable business. From their site:
In this two-day workshop, you’ll learn how manage all the moving parts of a successful law practice and still have a life. But there’s one very important thing missing – you! One of the greatest challenges you have is making time for what’s personally important to you – your hobbies, friends and family.
It happens May 27th and 28th in Chicago. Check it out, and if you'd like to go, here's a link to a 25% discount (Enter INSIDER upon check-out). I hope to see you there!
Afraid to Innovate?
Afraid to try something new in your business, figuring that if it really worked, everybody else would already be doing it? Think again! Here's a re-imagining of the lowly paper clip (from picocool):
Now, what's stopping you from thinking differently about your practice?
Client Collaboration and the IKEA Effect
One of my favorite lists of the year is Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2009. As always, the entire list is worth a read, but the one that caught my eye is one labeled The IKEA effect, which suggests that people are willing to pay more for things they had a hand in creating:
When people construct products themselves, from bookshelves to Build-a-Bears, they come to overvalue their (often poorly made) creations. We call this phenomenon the IKEA effect, in honor of the wildly successful Swedish manufacturer whose products typically arrive with some assembly required.In one of our studies we asked people to fold origami and then to bid on their own creations along with other people’s. They were consistently willing to pay more for their own origami. In fact, they were so enamored of their amateurish creations that they valued them as highly as origami made by experts.
What does this mean for professional service providers? Instead of defaulting to a "Let me handle that for you" position with clients, require them to actively participate in their case. By collaborating with them, and allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the work you (both) do, they'll likely value your services more and be happier with the end result.
Let Your Clients Decide Your Price
One of the biggest barriers lawyers must overcome when contemplating alternative pricing models is understanding just how customers perceive the value lawyers provide.
One of the ways I've combated this in my consulting practice (and at LexThink Innovate) is I let customers set the price of the work I do -- after it is done.
Below is a copy of my "You Decide Invoice" that I use for all my consulting work. The relevant provisions read:
YOU DECIDE: Your absolute satisfaction with LexThink isn’t just our goal, it’s the measure of our worth -- and the determination of our fee. The rules are simple: you pay us what you feel we were worth to you. You decide, no questions asked. The only rule? We want to know why you paid what you did, and how we could have done better.
and
WHEN TO PAY: While we leave our fee in your hands, we can’t leave it there forever. Please send us your payment and feedback within 21 days after you get this invoice. Please send a copy of this along with your feedback and your payment. Thank you for your business.
On the second page (not shown), I ask for feedback from the customer:
Tell us, in as many words as you want, how we did. Think about your expectations, the result, and how it felt to work with us. Also, let us know if we can share your feedback with others -- and if we can give you credit. Attach more sheets if you need to.
That's it. I explain to the customer before they engage me that they'll set my price, and then give them the invoice as soon as the engagement's done. So far, I've always received at least as much as I've expected -- and most importantly, usually more than I would have charged if I'd set my price before beginning.
I also know that when I will ultimately receive less than I expect (or not get paid at all), it will tell me I need to learn lessons from the engagement, and improve my services (or be more selective with my clients) so it doesn't happen again.
What's keeping you from experimenting, and letting a few (trusted) customers name your price?
Who needs those Guinness Book folks?
Ever wanted to set a world record and not have to worry about those sticklers from the Guinness Book of World Records? Check out The Universal Record Database. An open, participatory site for posting your own world "record" and daring anyone out there to top it.
Some of the featured records include: Most People Complimented in One Minute, Most Panama Kicks in One Minute, and Fastest Time to Open a Can of Campbell's Alphabet Soup and Spell "Pantyhose".
The site is equal parts brilliance and sheer stupidity -- and it is utterly addictive.
Now for the "legal" bit: How about brainstorming a world record for your firm to set? You can post it for the world to see. Imagine how much fun you'd have, and think about the all the fun press you'd get. I'm already thinking about what we can attempt at LexThink Innovate. Any ideas?
UPDATE: As I write this, there are no "records" posted involving "law" "lawyer" or "legal".
Ten Rules of Legal Innovation
"Innovative Lawyer" shouldn't be an oxymoron. Lawyers -- who are constantly applying their creative, problem-solving skills to help clients -- too often turn their innovation engines off as soon as their "billable" work ends.
If you're a lawyer, and willing to set aside some time to innovate, I am happy to help you. Until then, I give you my Ten Rules of Legal Innovation. Enjoy!
1. The practice of law requires precedents. The business of law does not. Knowing that other firms aren’t doing what you are isn’t cause for concern, it’s cause for celebration.2. There are (at least) ten things your clients wish you’d do differently, and I bet you don’t know what they are. Innovation begins with conversation. Engage your clients so they’ll keep engaging you.
3. If you’re the first lawyer to do something that other businesses have been doing for years, it isn’t innovative, it’s about time.
4. When you focus on being just like your competitors, the worst thing that can happen is you might succeed.
5. If you have to tell your clients you’re being innovative, you probably aren’t.
6. Innovation is just like exercise. It isn’t particularly hard to do, but you won’t see results if you don’t practice it regularly. Also, the more you do it, the better you’ll look (to clients).
7. The best ideas in your firm will come from your staff. While you’re paying attention to your clients, they’re paying attention to your business. Ignore them at your peril.
8. To be a more innovative lawyer, look inside the profession for motivation, but outside the profession for inspiration.
9. Your failure to capture your ideas is directly proportional to your failure to implement them.
10. Remember, though your clients may tolerate your failure to innovate, they’ll never forgive your failure to care.
If you enjoyed these, check out my other posts in the series: Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing.
Also, if you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.
Get Started Today!
From Daring Fireball comes this nugget of advice that should serve as just enough of a push to get you to start that something you've been putting off:
Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.
So, what's stopping you now?
Looking Back to the Future?
My friend Jordan Furlong writes a great post titled These are the Days of Miracle and Wonder about lessons we can learn from Obama's win. The great takeaway:
Twenty years ago, our parents would never have believed it. Twenty years from now, our children will take it for granted.
What amazing thing can you do TODAY in your practice that was unfathomable in 1988 but will be commonplace in 2028? Get to it!
Ten Rules of Legal Technology
For your consideration: Ten "Rules" of Legal Technology. Not many are new, and very few apply only to lawyers, but these are a few more nuggets I'm pulling out of previous posts to fill out my portfolio of speeches I've got "in the can." Enjoy:
1. Since the first PC, legal tech companies have been promising to helplawyers capture more time. Capturing time isn't the problem, chargingfor it is.2. It is more important to get better at working with people than it is to get better working with technology.
3. You should never have a bigger monitor or more comfortable chair than your secretaries do.
4. Never brag about implementing technology in your firm that your clients have been using for a decade.
5. The single piece of technology all lawyers should learn to use betteris their keyboard.
6. Sophisticated clients don't demand sophisticated technology, they demand sophisticated lawyers. They assume the technology is part of the package.
7. Social Media isn't technology. It's your Rotary Meeting on steroids -- though there are less lawyers in the room and the clients are better.
8. Want to invest in an inexpensive communication technology guaranteed toimprove your thinking skills and increase collaboration with clients?Buy a whiteboard for your office.
9. Belt, meet suspenders: One backup solution is never enough.
10. The only technology ROI that matters is your clients' return on their investment in you.
Bonus Rule: The one piece of technology your clients wish you'd get better at using is the telephone. Call them back!
Also, check out Ten Rules About Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing. If you'd like to hire me to speak, head over to LexThink.
Meet Your Future Clients
The other day, I suggested in my Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing that:
9. Your future clients have been living their entire lives onlineand will expect the same from you. If you’re invisible on the web, youwon’t exist to them.
Now, I've stumbled across this article from Adweek titled Generation Watch Out that explains better than I ever could what I meant:
Today's young talent represents not-able cultural shifts: They'redigital, message savvy, global and green. (Listen to the Flobots'"Handlebars" and you'll get the picture.) They mark fundamentalchanges from previous grads entering the industry. They're moreassociative, culturally networked, nimble and intuitive. Whilethey're more cynical than cohorts past, they're also more apt tocall BS or volunteer for environmental or political causes. Theyare easy in their gay-or-straight, vegetarian-or-meat,tatted-or-not choices. F-bombs are tossed around like Frisbees.These kids run hard, adapt easily....
It's the shortcut generation. That toolbar up top is forold-timers; these guys learned to Cmd-Option-Shift-A in middleschool because it was cool, not necessary. Desktops areinstitutional holdovers. Everyone has a set of on-the-go tools:camera, laptop, videocam, hard drive, cool bag to tote it all.They're experts early on, manhandling Final Cut or Flash withintuitive authority. They're Idea 2.0, the mashup generation andone with confluence, that place beyond convergence where the oldsloughs off and the new quickly gets morphed into the cultural DNA.All this makes them, at their best, unbelievably creative andproductive. On the other hand, they also think they have all theanswers. Morley Safer wrote recently of this generation'sentitlement issues: They've grown up with everyone as winners, withinspired birthday parties and planned events, with middle-classprivilege and opportunities at every camp, academy andtake-your-kid-to-work experience. They expect careers, not jobs.And they expect to have their names—very soon—in an annual or thismag. Hell, they know their blog on a good day might get moreeyeballs than the trades.
Get to know them. Understand them. Because love 'em or hate 'em, they're not just your children, they're your future clients, employees and partners. Learn to serve them or they'll serve themselves.
Want to avoid your clients?
OK, I'm not advocating this, but if you've got just a minute and don't want to talk to that client who goes on and on and on ..., try Slydial. The free service promises to to connect you DIRECTLY to a person's mobile voicemail. They don't answer, but get your message, and you can go back to being productive.
Ten Rules About Hourly Billing
After the great response I got to yesterday's Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing post, I've decided to share a few more "Rules" of Hourly Billing I've culled from my blog and my speeches. Enjoy!
1. Ask your clients what they buy from you. If it isn’t time, stop selling it!
2. Imagine a world where your clients know each month how much your bill will be so they could plan for it. They do.
3. If you don’t agree on fees at the beginning of a case, you’ll be begging for them at the end of it.
4. Sophisticated clients who insist on hourly billing do so because they’re smarter than you are, not because they want you to be paid fairly.
5. When you bill by the hour, your once-in-a-lifetime flash of brilliant insight that saves your client millions of dollars has the same contribution to your bottom line as the six minutes you just spent opening the mail.
6. Businesses succeed when their people work better. Law firms succeed when their people work longer. Your clients understand this -- and resent you for it.
7. Every time your clients jokingly ask you, “Are you going to charge me for this?” they aren’t joking -- and they’ll check next month’s bill to be sure.
8. The hardest thing to measure is talent. The easiest thing to measure is time. The two have absolutely no relationship to one another. Your law firm measures talent, right?
9. Would you shop at a store where the cost of your purchase isn’t set until after you’ve agreed to buy it? You ask your clients to.
10. There are 1440 minutes each day. How many did you make matter? How many did you bill for? Were they the same minutes? Didn't think so.
If you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.