A colleague recently sought advice on the following (facts have been changed):

I recently achieved a fantastic result for an out of state client who had a matter in my jurisdiction.  The client now wants me to help with all of his legal work, and asked me to assist with a matter in his home state where I’m not licensed involving a subject with which I have limited experience.  Should I take the case and retain outside counsel to assist or just refer it out entirely?

The question is trickier than it seems. If my colleague had asked about an inquiry from a prospective client with a matter he couldn’t handle, referral is a no brainer. There’s simply no reason to try to hang on to a matter outside your expertise and jurisdiction and either incur the cost of retaining outside counsel (which will potentially increase the cost to the client) or run the risk of unauthorized practice or malpractice if you don’t.  Moreover, referral doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll lose devised ethically compliant ways to facilitate payment of referral fees.

But things are different when servicing established clients. Some lawyers are loathe to refer an established client because they fear the other firm may try to poach the client. The prospect of poaching doesn’t worry me – after all, if another firm steals my client, it’s my bad for not having done enough to keep him (that’s true even if the other firm badmouths me – because if a client believes those lies or doesn’t feel comfortable enough to bring them to my attention, then I haven’t done my job in maintaining a trusted relationship).  What does concern me, however, is that if I refer a client to another firm, those lawyers may not take care of the client as I would, or deliver the same quality of service that I provide. Indeed, there’s a very, very small group of colleagues whom I trust enough to serve my existing gold-standard clients.

If you know me from my social media circles, then you know that my heart belongs to my sweet, deaf sheepie Francesca (or SanFran-cesca as I’ve taken to calling her after several west coast trips last winter).  Best dog ever, SanFrancesca kept me company under my desk during the years that I worked from home, always offering a furry shoulder to cry on or cheering me just by her enthusiasm for the most mundane routines, like our daily walks or a belly rub.

Now, nearing ten years old, SanFran is showing signs of age; she has difficulty standing for long periods and experiences bouts of incontinence (because Francesca came from a puppy mill, she sadly suffers many ailments like  deafness, hip dysplasia and arthritis that are exacerbated by in-breeding)  As a result, though she tries hard to please, Francesca can no longer withstand the rigors of grooming – and most grooming shops now refuse to service my girl because she can’t stand on the table or wets while she’s waiting for pick up. Fortunately, we discovered that one groomer offers Senior Sundays – a special date set aside to accommodate older dogs.  Groomers take the dogs in more quickly so they don’t have to spend time in the pen, and don’t schedule as many appointments so that they can give the older dogs breaks.  There’s a small premium for Senior Sundays but it’s worth the added cost to ensure that my sweet SanFran gets the special care and grooming she needs.

So naturally, I got to thinking about how this kind of dog day afternoon concept might work for a law practice — setting aside a day each week or month in your practice to serve a particular client niche without otherwise diluting your brand, changing pricing structure or committing to permanent changes firm practices across the board. For example, if you’re an attorney who represents younger clients, you may find that many of them either bring young children to the office (which can be distracting) or cancel at the last minute due to childcare concerns. In response, you might set aside two days a month as a Kid-Friendly Consult Day – where you offer child care or entertainment for young children so that you can meet their parents uninterrupted.  You could sponsor free consultation days or small business advisory sessions or even days that clients can bring their dogs to the office.

For all of the reasons described here by my colleague and Allison Shields, I love infographics — a visual chart that depicts complex processes or statistical trends in a captivating way.  I have a Pinterest Board where I collect infographics on green technology, and my Twitter bio, @carolynelefant highlights my affinity for them.

Still, I was never content to remain a collector or passive fan of the infographic – I was just itching to build one myself. Because my graphics skills leave much to be desired, and I didn’t feel like shelling out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to a professional just to satisfy a whim, I put my infographic urges on the back burner, waiting for the day that a DIY option would emerge.

Last weekend, I attended my 25th law school reunion up at Cornell Law School.  Considering that the Class of 1988 was Cornell’s centennial graduating class and that the silver anniversary is fairly significant, the turnout wasn’t great.  Out of a class of 175 students, only 19 of us showed up – a figure that’s even less impressive considering that 3 of that group work at Cornell and live in Ithaca.  Yet, even though the vast majority of my classmates — at least 80 percent — went directly to large firms in big cities after graduation, five of the 19 that returned for the reunion started and run our own solo and small firm practices.

The statistics are even more interesting than that.  All five of us who have our own firms have been in business six years or longer; we all have at least one part-time staffer or associate, while two employ five or more attorneys.

Yet when the Dean spoke about the state of legal education and job prospects for grads, what do you think he focused on? The percentage of lawyers headed for large firms, followed by those bound for public interest. The Dean also noted that like many other law schools, Cornell funds eleven post-graduation public interest fellowships to mitigate the impacts of the current economy on new grads.

Don’t get me wrong – public interest work is important, but funding students to work for free doesn’t make much sense in the long run. The public interest positions occasionally lead to full time work (either funds free up so the organization can hire, or the contacts generate lead to jobs). But otherwise, it seemed to me that the funded positions merely delay inevitable unemployment to a year after graduation –beyond the time frame in which post-graduate employment statistics are ordinarily gathered.

Over four years ago – lightyears in Internet time – I blogged over at Nolo’s Legal Marketing Blawg about using ebooks to market a law practice. As a marketing tool, ebooks work for many reasons: foremost, they provide value by educating prospective clients and offer lawyers an opportunity to convey their expertise.

Yet despite the benefits of ebooks, during my speaking engagements over the years, I’ve found that only a handful of lawyers actually include them as part of their marketing portfolios.  For some, the thought of writing an entire book is intimidating while others didn’t quite understand the concept of an electronic publication or were deterred by the anticipated cost of designing and producing a book.

Now, four years later, most lawyers understand the ebook concept – and Amazon has made self-publishing easier than ever. While I’ve been sitting around toying with the idea of aggregating MyShingle content or other legal papers for a Kindle ebook, San Diego Car Accident and Injury Attorney Joseph Dang has gone ahead and done it.  Using materials that he’d already prepared for prospective car accident clients, Dang set aside a weekend to repurpose them as copy for an ebook, entitled The Dirty 8: The 8 Dirtiest Insurance Adjuster Tricks that Can Cost You Thousands. Dang sourced the formatting to a contractor he found on Fiverr (see my post here) and by the end of the weekend, had uploaded the book to Amazon for sale.  

Seems that big law just can’t catch a break.  Criticized for everything from arrogant billing practices to an unhealthy obsession with profits per partner to an unsustainable pyramid-scheme business model, now  corporate counsel Casey Flaherty is beating up on big firms for their lack of techno–aptitude, reports Monica Bay at American Lawyer. But are Flaherty’s criticisms of big law’s tech failings fair? No — and here’s why.

First, a little background.  Flaherty, corporate counsel at Kia Motors America has been making headlines lately with an audit he’s developed to test tech skills of outside counsel.  As an attorney in big law, Flaherty was frustrated by his peers inefficiencies that slowed work flow and added unnecessary costs to client bills. When he went in house, Flaherty realized that as a GC, he was “in a position to do more than just complain” about inefficiencies, but could take steps to eliminate them.

Thus was born the Flaherty’s Outside Counsel Technology Audit. Though I’ve not seen the audit in its entirety, from what I could glean from Monica Bay’s report, the audit tests lawyers on technology skills such as PDF generation and bate-stamping, Excel spreadsheets and creation of Word templates and use of Word style tools (presumably, the audit tests other skills as well – but I couldn’t find any more information). Apparently, all nine of Kia’s outside counsel flunked Flaherty’s audit.

Before I launch into a critique, let me emphasize that Flaherty’s intentions, if not his implementation, are admirable. As a nimble micro-lawyer bound to tight budgets, I chafe at court rules that require filing of multiple hardcopies of hundred page briefs and thousand page appendices at the courts, notwithstanding the advent of e-filing. Until the agencies where I practice required parties to file searchable copies of documents, I fumed as I read through non-OCR’d scanned copies.  Brother, I feel your pain.

But – and this is where I take issue with Flaherty, is it really, truly more efficient for lawyers to handle their own admin?  Moreover, is it really cost efficient in today’s fluid technology environment for lawyers to wed themselves to a single suite of technologies?  And (to follow up on a conversation with @ronfriedmann,) what – if any – are the core technology skills that today’s lawyers should have? Discussion follows.

I came across this interesting article in the Washington City Paper  criticizing the D.C. Jail’s replacement  for face-to-face visits with video conferencing.  What’s the problem, you might wonder. After all, isn’t visitation a hardship for many families?  At least video allows for continued contact without the muss and fuss of in person contact.

Not entirely. Because most D.C. prisoners eventually serve out their terms in far away jails, allowing in person visitation while they’re close to home “strains family relationships…that have been shown to promote rehabilitation and reduce recidivism.”  There’s a personal component missing as well; as the mom of one young inmates poignantly stated, “Being in the same room “is something you can’t replace.”  Even the D.C. Bar has joined other groups to push for the restoration of in person visitation.

The article comes at a time where video services for lawyers and clients like Law Zam and LawCams.com (recently covered by Bob Ambrogi are launching left and right – often billed as the same thing as having a lawyer in the same room. Except they’re not, really.  Just as video cameras put a distance between inmates and their families, so too, video and email and other online modes of communication put distance between lawyers and clients.

I read with interest, a pair of posts by Philadelphia law blogger Jordan Rushie  and Scott Greenfield about the importance of in-person networking.  I don’t disagree with them. For better or for worse, Scott’s and Jordan’s way is how business still gets done in most of the legal profession. By starting at the low end of the totem pole in an organization, cheerfully taking on meaningless grunt work.  By sitting through boring meetings where people spend more time deciding whether a motion is required to pursue a particular action than to discuss the action itself.  By accepting as gospel the response to every suggestion, “but that’s how it’s always been done…”

Still, even though the world as described by Scott and Jordan and their adoring commenters is how things are today, I’m troubled.  Partly because I’m impatient and opinionated and don’t play well with others – and partly because as a parent, specifically a mom my time is limited. The former issue is curable (must be if Scott and Jordan and Brian Tannebaum have succeeded through personal networking – no offense, guys!) but the latter, not so much – especially for moms.

When I joined committees as a young lawyer, I found that because I’m a hard worker, I could circumvent the wall of conformity or leapfrog over several layers of bureaucracy by just taking charge of a project and completing it (since most folks never followed through – must be how it’s always been done). That worked fine, and I found myself advancing up the ranks. 

By way of the  awesome Tim Baran (have you ever heard anyone say something negative about this guy?), Community Manager of our sponsor Rocket Matter, came this wonderful story  about the transformative power of social media by Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York.

Stanton writes that after losing his finance job in Chicago, he hopped a bus to New York, a city where he’d never been, to become a photographer, an avocation where he’d had almost no experience.  But Stanton loved his craft and was determined to succeed; he took a thousand photos every day (perhaps in pursuit of that 10,000-hour mastery threshold ) and posted his favorites on Facebook. Soon Stanton’s few hundred likes grew to 700,000, his page raised $500k for charities and Stanton published a photography book that reached the #2 spot on Amazon. Here’s how Stanton summarizes his experience:
[My story] could not have happened 10 years ago. Without social media, I’d probably just be a quirky, amateur photographer with a hard drive full of photos. I’d be cold calling respected publications, begging for a feature. I may have even quit by now. Instead, I’ve discovered a daily audience of nearly a million people. Or should I say they discovered me. On Facebook
In many ways, insta-social media fame seems like a lottery ticket – pure chance and certainly not to be relied on as a stand-alone business model. And while surely Stanton’s story involved luck, it also took hard work and perseverance as he shot 1000 photos a day, then culled the best and posted them on Facebook by night. Every day, without fail for two years. When you show up like that, luck can happen with social media as a catalyst that can make luck happen even faster.

Avid readers may recall that two years ago, MyShingle and I received an “invite” to the defendants’ table  in Rakofsky v. the Internet. Roughly two years later, a decision is finally in.  Defendants prevailed; you can read others’ legal analysis here ,here and here.  Having spent two years reading through reams of pleadings, I see no reason to spill any more ink on the legal question of whether my blog posts were defamatory. They weren’t. The case is over, my side won – and that’s enough. Or is it?

No – it’s not. Because what I’ve learned in my time as a defendant on the other side of the pleading  is that it’s not just enough for lawyers to handle a case competently enough for the win.  If that’s all that my lawyers, Marc Randazza  and Eric Turkewitz had done for me (and my co-defendants) in this case, I’d feel underwhelmed. Yes, I’d think to myself – my lawyers won the case but so what? Couldn’t dozens of other lawyers have done the same thing? Soon, I’d start second-guessing their work (couldn’t they have done more to make it go away sooner?) and ultimately, what they charged would overshadow the result they delivered.

To be clear, that’s not what happened. Not only did Marc and Eric win the case, they served us well, with exceptional briefs, procedural finesse (a skill not to be underestimated) and near-instantaneous responsiveness. Even so, this is the level of performance that clients should expect of their lawyers. That Marc and Eric delivered so well was appreciated of course (particularly because it couldn’t have been a picnic for them to represent 15 opinionated and strong-willed attorneys). But their performance didn’t surprise me because that’s the reason I hired them.

What did surprise me however was that as a client I might feel proud of my lawyers — not just because of how they handled themselves within my case, but also, their reputation outside of it. Throughout case, whenever I saw Marc on T.V. defending Rush Limbaugh’s First Amendment rights (even though he detests the guy) or standing up for the Steubenville blogger, I’d think – “Wow – that’s my lawyer.” When I saw Eric’s picture on the side of a New York bus, I bragged to all of my New York attorney friends – “Hey did you see the New York marathon ads on the buses? That guy in the ad is my lawyer – and a damn good one too!”