Law Office Management
Jul. 2, 2008
Big Tech for Small Firms
Tips for small firms on how to make the most of technology.
Technology is a great leveler for small law firms-for both good and ill. Done right, using computer technology can help small shops compete with larger firms; done wrong, it can eat into your profits in a surprisingly short period of time. Either way, technology doesn't come cheap. ¶ "To me, the biggest eye-opener is the
expense and the time-consuming nature of maintaining even a small computer system for four attorneys," says Mary McNamara, a partner at Swanson, McNamara & Haller in San Francisco. "There's quite costly monthly maintenance of computers and very regular replacement of machines. Our computers last three years if we're lucky, and we've gone through tons of laptops."
Here, then, are some tips on how small firms can make technology work for them.
YOU CALL THAT A WEBSITE
"There are a lot of ugly and nonfunctional lawyer websites out there," says Matthew Butterick, a Southern California lawyer who runs Atomic Vision, a company that provides technology help for small law firms and sole practitioners. "It seems to be a serious disease in the legal community."
Indeed, it's surprising that the same lawyers who meticulously map out how jurors might respond to a particular nuance of a case put almost no thought or creativity into their firm's website. As Butterick notes, troll the Internet for lawyer websites-if you dare-and you'll be amazed at how bland and unimaginative many of them are. Hey, look, here's a picture of the glass tower where the firm is located! And here's an empty conference room with some Aeron chairs clustered around an oak table. Attorneys, it seems, have a serious edifice complex.
All of that blandness gives small firms a real opportunity to differentiate themselves from the pack when they design their websites. (That's if they even have a website. According to a 2007 survey by the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center, one-third of small firms and two-thirds of solo practices have no Web presence at all.)
A few rules from Mattew Butterick: First, forget the building shots-no one cares. Instead, seek to humanize your website. Show a picture of yourself or a small group of attorneys actually helping a real person. Keep the look simple, clean, and approachable. Never, ever feature a flash introduction that forces users to sit through a 15-second animation of your firm's name swooshing across the screen-they will have already clicked away to another firm's site. On the first page, make sure you address the most important questions: Who are your potential clients? What do they need to know about you? Are you telling them that as quickly as possible? And don't forget the cardinal rule: Make it easy for potential clients to get in touch with you. Put your contact information (or a link to it) on every page of your site.
TO BLOG, OR NOT BLOG?
The short answer: Don't!
OK, there's a little more to it than that, but here's the deal: If you're not blogging now, why should you start? And if you do start a blog, are you committed to updating it regularly?
Most attorneys at small firms are busy enough keeping up with their cases without taking on a blog. However, there are a few exceptions. If you have a very specific area of interest in law, one that can help make your firm stand out from the crowd, a well-written blog can be a provocative attention getter and a potential rainmaker. Matthew Butterick points out one example of a well-done blog is The UCL Practitioner, written by San Francisco class action attorney Kimberly A. Kralowec. It has a very tight focus-California's Unfair Competition Law-and is updated frequently.
But blogs are a bit like children: surprisingly easy to create but very difficult to maintain. Too many lawyer/bloggers simply end up writing about what's going on in their office, rather than addressing issues in their field of law. Even more deadly is the blog that starts with grand intentions and then dies a long, slow death. Far better to have no blog at all than to have one that was last updated eight months ago.
So the blog buzz be damned; unless you have a very specific passion you want to write about, and the time to do it properly, resist the temptation to start a blog.
HARDWARE: THINK INSIDE THE BOX
Tech consultants say that a surprising number of small firms these days have computers without any brand name on them. "They'll tell me, 'Oh, yeah, our IT guy built these for us,' " says consultant Butterick. "And I'm thinking, that's ridiculous. What happens in two years when the IT guy leaves?"
When it comes to computer hardware-a major expense at any firm-some small firms make it harder on themselves than they need to. Forget about thinking outside the box-just get something inside the box that you know is going to work, because it's worked for thousands of other firms. According to the Legal Technology Resource Center, 80 percent of surveyed law firms run either Dell or Hewlett-Packard desktop computers.
Also, don't scrimp on memory or monitors-no one ever complained that their monitor is too big, or their computer has too much memory. But look for value. Remember that no matter what kind of computer and monitor you buy, there will be something bigger and better in about two years. So why get committed to anything expensive or complex? When it comes to hardware, get in line and follow the herd. Moo!
GET REAL ABOUT DATA
Small firms are often in the dark when it comes to backing up their data in a way that's truly reliable. According to the 2007 Legal Technology Resource Center study, 4 percent of surveyed law firms had no data-backup system whatsoever. Some attorneys seem to think that data backup means taking your laptop home with you so you have a copy of at least some of your desktop files. Which works all right until someone steals the laptop from your car, or you find that the laptop doesn't contain the files you really need to retrieve.
Nothing puts a small firm in a large hole faster than losing data. So it's essential that small firms get in the habit of making multiple copies of all files and storing them in a different location. If that sounds like too much of a hassle, there are a growing number of online services that will do the job for you automatically. One such service, Mozy (www.mozy.com), charges as little as $5 a month (for one user) to back up all of your data online. (A ten-person firm can expect to pay about $90 a month.) Once you sign up, Mozy installs some software that looks like a hard drive on your computer. Designate which files you want to back up, and how you want to schedule them, and the service takes care of the rest.
YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS YOUR BRAND
If your email address isn't "yourname@yourlawfirm.com", you need to change it. Right now. First of all, your email address is your brand-it says something about who you are. As Butterick says, an email address like johndoe@aol.com says, "I am resistant to change and stuck in 1992." Not a good first impression. Plus, AOL affixes an ad (one of their choosing) onto every email you send.
Getting a domain name is easy and cheap. Online services such as GoDaddy.com will sell you a domain name for as little as $6.95 a year. And if you're still really wedded to that AOL email account, you can easily set it up to have the mail from your new domain name forwarded to your old AOL account. So you'll still be stuck in 1992, but you won't be announcing it to the rest of the world.
GMAIL - THE ULTIMATE FREE LUNCH
Everyone knows there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially at a small firm where you can't just bill the client for the meal. The one exception to the rule is Google's mail service, Gmail. Gmail is not just a fast, reliable email service; it's also a digital-storage system that's absolutely free.
Matthew Butterick advises that you should simply sign up for a free Gmail account and then configure your current email client (the yourname@ yourlawfirm.com) so that every piece of email and every file attachment you send and receive also gets sent to your Gmail account. That way, if you're on the road and your firm's primary server is down for some reason, you can always get on Google and access your mail. Google's storage limits are so generous that you'll never have to delete anything, and there's no limit to the number of accounts you can have. Some attorneys set up separate Gmail accounts for specific clients, so that all of the email generated by a particular case goes into a single, easily-searchable Gmail account. Now go out and have yourself a nice lunch-on Google.
GEN IN SYNCH
One recurring problem small firms have with technology is that when it comes to data, not everyone is on the same page. Some files reside on a desktop computer; others are stored on a laptop someone takes home every night. Getting your hands on the right file and the right machine can be a chore. What you want is for all of your computers to be storing the same data, so anyone can work on any machine at any time. And the easiest way to do that is with what's known as a synchronization program.
Synch programs install a tiny widget on all of your machines that automatically locks them into storing the same data. Once installed, the program ensures that the laptop you take with you on the road and the desktop computers in the office contain the same data. If you add, change, or delete a file from one location, the synchronization program will add, change, or delete the same file from the other locations. There are a variety of synch programs to choose from, with names like SyncBackSE (www.2brightsparks.com) and ViceVersa (www.tgrmn.com/web/ file_synchronization.htm). Microsoft's offering, called SyncToy, is available as a free download (www.microsoft.com/ windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/ prophoto/synctoy.mspx).
TECHNOLOGY IS NOT YOUR SAVIOR
"Some attorneys really enjoy spending money on technology or a new gadget," says Atomic Vision's Butterick. "What they're not so good at is thinking, 'Hey. I'm going to take the time and really learn how to use this.' "
In the end, stripped of all the bells and whistles, technology is simply a tool. It's not useful to you unless it fits into your workflow. Keep it simple and figure out what works best for you. Technology alone will not save you, but, as Butterick says, "If you're winning cases, your technology is fine."
Alexandra Brown
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