Un-Billable Hour: Business Management Strategies for the Busy Lawyer Around the Community Table

In this episode of The Un-Billable Hour, host Christopher Anderson interviews Broel Law Group founder Erik Broel about what it means to build an “A Team,” how attorneys should hire and train their staff, and the underlying qualities of becoming a successful leader. Broel suggests that lawyers chart out and develop a position clearly before beginning recruitment. As resumes come in for the position...

All lawyers should start focusing on intake and lead conversion, since it is the easiest and cheapest way to increase revenue. For the purpose of this podcast, lead conversion happens when prospective clients are turned into paying clients. Lead conversion is just a part of intake, the process or system that takes a potential client from the point of contact with your law firm to signing up to be...

Consumers and clients believe customer service has become increasingly bad, yet most businesses believe their customer service is above average. Lawyers are certainly not exempt from this. However, in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and smartphones, unhappy customers are able to share their bad experiences to hundreds, thousands, even millions of people in real-time. So how do law firms, solo lawyer...

Most lawyers are technicians; they want to provide legal services but cringe at the necessary step of selling them. There is a negative connotation of sales and marketing in the legal field. Lawyers often feel like they are trying to convince a potential client to pay for something he or she does not really need. But what if lawyers began to think of marketing as a network of trust and sales as co...

Many lawyers believe they are not benefiting from the time and money spent on marketing their firm. Online marketing can seem complicated and time-consuming and most lawyers do not want to seem self-promoting so hiring marketers seems like the best option. However, the fact is that marketing a personal brand is both necessary and not as hard as it seems. Especially in solo and small practices, law...

Many lawyers are hesitant to regularly look at their finances. In addition to the regular workload and marketing, maintaining a budget seems overwhelming and is often undervalued in time management. After all, when managing a business, there are so many different factors that can affect cash flow and finances: personnel issues, economy changes, client payment plans, marketing and advertising, cler...

While identifying a client base, deciding on office space, and making countless other decisions, assumptions are made when developing a legal business plan that are, at best, educated guesses. Many startups have decided to follow in the path of previous companies only to find that their firm does not thrive in such a structured methodology. In the incredibly complicated world of legal business, so...

As the rate of new technology increases, it becomes more difficult for lawyers to keep up with industry standards for protecting client data confidentiality. In addition to the rigors of day-to-day practice, attorneys are expected to be familiar with terms such as SSL 256, SaS 70, and SSAE 16. On this episode of the Un-Billable Hour, host Chris T. Anderson interviews The Droid Lawyer blogger, Jeff...

Law firms are beginning to utilize Lean Six Sigma standards to improve service quality for their clients. This two-tiered approach is both paradigm and methodology aimed at increasing organizational efficiency and accuracy of work. It focuses attention and efforts toward changing those behaviors and systems that slow productivity and increase errors. On this episode of the Un-Billable Hour, host C...

Nearly every firm has clients who are difficult to collect from. Most lawyers are not trained to deal with that. On this episode of the Un-Billable Hour, host Chris Anderson interviews experts Loretta Ruppert and Jeff Krause. Together, they explore ways to effectively track and manage client billing. Loretta Ruppert is the current Senior Director of Marketing for the SaaS Product Platform at Lexis...

On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, joins Paramjit Mahli, a Development Coach/Consultant for lawyers at The Rainmakers Roundtable, to discuss some of the biggest mistakes lawyers make when it comes to business development and what kind of "skill set" lawyers need in order to be successful when it comes to business development.

Do you use an iPad in your legal practice? On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, chats with Tom Mighell, the author of three books about the use of iPads, iPad in One Hour For Lawyers, iPad Apps in One Hour For Lawyers, and soon to be released, iPad in One Hour for Litigators, about the explosive growth of the use of iPads in the legal profession, and Tom’s favorite productivity an...

Attorneys can turn into leaders by successfully engaging others during difficult conversations. Learn more about handling these tough talks, how to prepare and how to get the results you want during these conversations on the Un-Billable Hour with host Attorney Rodney Dowell, the Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistanc...

Are you on LinkedIn? Un-Billable Hour host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program chats with Dennis Kennedy, lawyer and co-host of The Kennedy-Mighell Report and Allison Shields, author of Legal Ease Blog, about their recently published book, LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers. Dennis an...

Find out how document assembly tools can increase efficiency and profits at your firm on The Un-Billable Hour. Host and Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program and Diane Ebersole, practice management advisor for the State Bar of Michigan explain how document assembly applications have a...

The largest proportion of attorneys work as sole practitioners, or within small firms and chronic stress is rampant among these attorneys, who face stress from all sides. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program joins returning guest, Attorney Eric MacLeish,...

Hiring your first employee can feel like jumping off a cliff, but in some circumstances it can lead to more efficiency and profits. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program joins Lee Rosen, founder of the Rosen Law Firm, a North Carolina family law firm, blo...

How does your firm track time? On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program joins Danny Wen, Co-founder of Harvest Software and Sri Vemuri, Marketing Manager at Harvest Software, to discuss how law firms can track time and invoice clients in a way that captures...

Law firms are increasingly being targeted by hackers seeking to access confidential business and personal information. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program welcomes Digital Detectives co-hosts Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc....

Feeling Stressed? On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program welcomes Attorney Eric MacLeish, principal of MacLeish & Woolverton, to talk about how firms can help their attorneys and staff handle the perils of stress.

One of the biggest challenges facing attorneys is how to acquire and maintain clients. A fundamental method of developing a client base is to create a referral network. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program welcomes Linda O’Koniewski, the broker/owner of...

Law firm administrators are the backbone of every law practice and they are often times met with challenges on a daily basis. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program welcomes Joanne Schnare, Executive Director for a Boston law firm and President-Elect of th...

A vast majority of attorneys in the United States and Canada must keep and maintain IOLTA trust accounts pursuant to very specific guidelines established by the governing body in each state. Despite the clearly defined rules, which in most jurisdictions, have been in place for years, some attorneys continue to put their license at risk. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Directo...

Podcasts have become increasingly available and cover topics of all flavors. On The Un-Billable Hour, host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Director of the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program and interim executive director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, welcomes St. Louis based legal technology writer and information technology lawyer and co-host of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, Dennis...

Why are the world’s best communicators often unable to have difficult conversations with clients, employees, partners, or even family members? Find out on The Un-Billable Hour, with host Attorney Rodney Dowell, Director of the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program and interim executive director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, along with Szifra Birke, counselor, consultant and co...