Archive for the ‘Google’Category

Open Plea to Legal Marketers … little help?

Me Learning to be Humble

Asking for Help ... Hat in Hand

Being the Practicehacker doesn’t mean I know everything. Take law firm marketing for instance.  
In real life I run a 3-lawyer suburban Chicago practice engaged in what I call “Small Business” law; i.e. we do pretty much everything a small business or its owners need their lawyer to do, including:
  • Business start-ups, incorporation, organization
  • Contracts: drafting, review, enforcement, terms
  • Hiring and firing of employees and contractors
  • Commercial litigation, collections, and defense
  • Real estate transaction, liens and construction
  • Business, stock and asset, sale and purchase
  • Divorce and estate planning for entrepreneurs
  • Bankruptcy, reorganization, crisis management
I can’t think of any aspect of practice organization,management, or marketing that I couldn’t improve. In fact, I am absolutely certain that I must learn to do a lot of things better. Of course, if I had to single out one thing for attention at the moment, it would have to be our law firm marketing.
Full disclosure: I’ve never been satisfied with my firm’s online or social media presence. I mean, my name is out there, but the picture that emerges of my firm seems fragmented and weak. Then again, my off-line presence is no better. I’ve prepared and delivered seminars, given talks both locally and nationally, and have had articles published all over. But to what end?
The worst part of the problem is that it feels like my office is being severely underutilized. After a harrowing couple of years in this see-saw economy, I finally have a stable team of trained lawyers and staff, with more becoming available all the time. But if what we have to offer does not reach the right Clients, it’s wasted. That’s the hardest part of the problem: matching the right skills with the right Clients and keeping the process going.
There is one final caveat: I need new marketing initiatives to have a measurable ROI so we can decide whether to stay with it, pivot, or abandon it and start over.  If anyone thinks they can take a crack at evaluating our situation, or knows someone else who can, please get in touch or leave that information in the comments to this post.  
Thanks to everyone who thinks they can help.

17

09 2011


by practicehacker
posted in bankruptcy, Blogging, business, Career and Job, competition, current-events, employment, facebook, Google, law office, Marketing, media, new media, old media, practice, practice management, referrals, social media, social media tools, the business of law, tips, twitter, Video, website, websites, Wisdom of Crowds, work, youtube
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Google Spreadsheets as your CRM System

Bankruptcy_case_management_hac

While I’ve tried to make Practicehacker the #1 place to find tools, tips, techniques, and technology for small firms and solo’s, how often do I feature a true practice hack? A better, smarter, faster, or cheaper way of getting things done? Not often enough. But this is the real deal. A genuine hack born out of the need to track contacts (i.e. CRM) using a free tool that doesn’t even seem suited for the task. Software Advice provides the full hack here.

Actually, I’ve used a hack like this one for years, but not in the CRM context. Instead I’ve used it to track the progress of cases and keep my staff informed by having the spreadsheet send automatic updates each time something changes. Simple, free, awesome. Now that’s practice hacking!

Ed. Note: If you have hacks of your own or know anyone that does, please encourage them to contact me at mhedayat@mha-law.com or just add their comment to this post. I’d love to be able to feature one of these hacks every week (or more often if I can). You’ll get full credit of course, and you’ll be helping your fellow lawyers and legal professionals to do things that much better. :)

Posted via email from practice (redux)

09

09 2011


by practicehacker
posted in Article, Blogging, business, collaborative tools, community, cool stuff, crowdsourcing, current-events, disruptive technology, document automation, free, Google, Google Apps, google docs, GTD, hacking, knowledge management, law, law office, manager, practice, Push Notification, remote, review, Spreadsheets, technology, the business of law, tips, tools, work
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Baby Steps to Social Media Awareness

Media_httpwwwsociable_kdurn
via sociablelawyer.org

With his breakthrough performance in Kindergarten Cop, Arnold showed us why he would someday be Governor of California and leader of the free-world. Or whatever. In the meantime, here are some “baby steps” (get it, Kindergarten, baby steps?) to using social media in your practice, courtesy of Sociable Lawyer.

1. Do not be afraid to try
2. Share your knowledge
3. Polish your online rep
4. Strength in numbers

Posted via email from practice (redux)

 

11

06 2011


by practicehacker
posted in collaborative tools, community, conduct, crowdsourcing, de.licio.us, facebook, friend connect, friendfeed, Gmail, Google, google buzz, google docs, Google Places, google wave, knowledge management, law, law office, Lifehacker, linkedin, lists, martindale-hubbell connected, mashable, myspace, practice management, social graph, social media, social media tools, social networking, technology, the business of law, tips, tools, twitter, Wisdom of Crowds, youtube
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Attack of the Local Q&A Sites

Bet you don’t know which pizza place in Des Moines has the best deep-dish. Bet you didn’t know you wanted to know, either. Well you do. And these sites are going to tell you where to get it. So ask yourself. Were you thrilled by location-based service Foursquare? Did you jump for joy when Q&A phenom Quora came online? If so then you’ve been waiting for these 1/2 dozen local Q&A sites.  Each one is begging to show you what’s going on in cities and countries you’ll never visit and have no business asking about:

  • Hipster – Site hasn’t even launched and it’s already hiring. How cool are these guys?
  • Loqly –   Finally, a site that focuses on what’s really important: the local bar scene.
  • Gootip – Actually knows where you are and offer local opinions on stuff. Uh, thanks?
  • Loqize.me – No idea what these guys are trying to do. I signed up for the beta though.
  • Localmind – Seems the most commercially oriented and potentially the most practical.
  • LOCQL – This is the Microsoft entry. Eh. I could go either way. But thanks for playing.

Now pardon me while I track down a dry-cleaner in Nome, Alaska. Awesome!

Posted via email from practice (redux)

07

06 2011


by practicehacker
posted in business, collaborative tools, Foursquare, geolocation, Glympse, Google Places, location-based, mobile, Opzi, Quora, research, review, search, social media, social media tools, social networking, startup, tips, website, Wisdom of Crowds
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The Hosted Apps Dilemma

This recent piece in ComputerWorld highlights the growing interest in hosted Microsoft Exchange. No surprise; but why now? And if you use Hotmail or Gmail, you may even ask why hosted Exchange is worthwhile at all. If so, consider this:

First, hosted Exchange offers full-featured contacts, calendaring, and e-mail in tight integration, just like the Outlook on your desk. Meanwhile, it spares users the typical pain in the ass features of a self-hosted Microsoft product: compatibility issues, upgrades, backup problems, disaster-recovery, smartphone support, spam filtering, patching, etc. In effect, with hosted Exchange you get your own “virtual e-mail server” in a secure, faraway datacenter, but only pay for what you use, usually on a monthly basis. Microsoft has been using this deployment model for some time in the educational market and it has worked.

Second, whereas Microsoft takes a top down approach to security, Google generally works from the bottom up. For instance, Google generally starts with consumer-facing products and scale them upwards until they can work in an enterprise environment. Thus Gmail, Google Calendar, GTalk, and a host of Google consumer toys has been integrated and reborn as Google Apps. Microsoft on the other hand usually starts with enterprise products, makes an obscene amount of money via licensing, and scales down to smaller business and consumers. This was the genesis of Outlook.

Third, consider that the gap between Google Apps and Microsoft Office is getting narrower all the time. And with its Office 365 product Microsoft is blurring the line between it and Google even further. Office 365 retains the look and feel of MS Office, while saving the organization tons of money and virtually eliminating the need for beefed-up IT departments (sorry IT guys).

As with all technology, lawyers are the last to know. Once the cat is out of the bag though, news spreads fast. Your opponents are going to take every advantage they can, so you should too. Ultimately hosted applications such as Exchange and web-based applications like Office 365 and Google Apps are the future. And why not: law firms are about serving clients, not endlessly fiddling with their IT infrastructure.

24

05 2011


by practicehacker
posted in alternative, archiving, business, calendar, collaborative tools, competition, cool stuff, current-events, disruptive technology, e-mail, enterprise, Gmail, Google, Google Apps, google voice, law office, management, Microsoft, Microsoft Outlook, Office, Operating System, outsourcing, practice, practice management, research, review, SaaS, school, software, storage, technology, the business of law, tips, tools, Windows, Word
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Chromebook is here … but will it last?

12

05 2011


by practicehacker
posted in business, chrome os, collaborative tools, community, cool stuff, current-events, disruptive technology, Google, law office, Mobile device, software, technology, the business of law, tips, tools, Video, work, youtube
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