This presentation was originally given as part of the Maryland State Bar Association's Hanging Out a Shingle series, designed for lawyers opening their own law practice.
It's author is Baltimore workers' compensation attorney Byron B. Warnken, Esq. Warnken is the owner and manager of the six lawyer firm, Warnken, LLC. (http://www.warnkenlaw.com)
2. Why am I Qualified to Tell You
I own and manage a 6-lawyer law firm
I gave the firm a nearly complete makeover in 2013, designed to
make the firm more efficient, able to handle more work without
more people
Good or bad, I’ve made a lot of decisions that solos and small firms
need to make with regard to their technology
I won the Fastcase 50 award in 2014: “Highlights entrepreneurs,
innovators, and trailblazers – people who have charted a new
course for the delivery of legal services.”
More importantly, because Pat Yevics told you so
www.warnkenlaw.com
3. Please Don’t Wait Until The End
• You might forget your question
• You might have something valuable to add
• You might have the same question half the
room does
• Also, don’t worry about taking notes – you’ve
got the materials and you can contact me
anytime
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6. Our Systems are Unique to Us
• What is the lifecycle of a file?
• When do I communicate?
• What do my clients expect?
• What do I want from my practice?
• What do I do first?
• What can I delegate?
• What can technology do for me?
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7. The Decisions I Made for Myself
• I want to build a growing personal injury
practice
• I seek client results, firm profitability and then
lifestyle.
• I only want to handle a few select cases myself
• I want to provide the attorneys who work for
me a general system & technology framework
that they can customize to serve their clients
• Technology and efficiency are vital
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9. Law Firm Technology:
from before intake until after the file is closed
• Your technology considerations on a given
case start before you are hired
• Your technology considerations exist at every
stage of a case or matter
• Your technology considerations for that case
or matter live for the lifetime of your firm
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10. The Website
• Your client knows about you before you know about them
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11. Takeaways: Websites
• You need one
• You need to own and control the domain name
and the content
• You want to rank in search engines for, if nothing
else, your name and the name of your law firm
• Bonus tip: try to control all ten search results on
the first page for your name and firm name. Use
AVVO, LinkedIn, Facebook, a blog, award sites
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12. The Initial Phone call
• What happens when a potential client picks
up the phone to call you? What happens from
their perspective? From yours?
• I use a Comcast VOIP system w/ auto
attendant.
• I don’t need a receptionist; I can control the
call flow around my office; can forward to a
cell phone; I can get my voicemails via an app
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13. Potential New Client Presses 1
• If not currently represented, press 1
• Forwards the call to an intake center in TN
• Intake center is trained on the questions to
ask for each kind of case my office handles
• Certain criteria – direct to a cell phone,
otherwise an email
• Potential new clients can also press other
numbers to speak directly to the attorney if
they’ve been referred to a specific individual
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14. Once a client
• The client gets direct dial numbers to speak
directly to a paralegal or very quickly to their
attorney
• Select clients – our Maryland Troopers
Association clients – get a cell phone number
and can speak to an attorney immediately
24/7/365
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15. Takeaways… Initial Client Contact, and,
Related, Your Phone Systems
• You need to think about how you are going to
get hired
• How does technology facilitate you getting
hired?
• How do your phone systems work?
• The mobile phone – how does it relate to your
work? How do you use it without it owning
you?
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16. Low Tech: The Initial Consultation
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18. Technology Back in Action:
The Case Management System
• We all have one. Automation and Integration
are two major differentiators
• What Can the Case Management System Do…
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19. Case Management System-
Features to Consider
Calendaring
Task Assignment
Time Tracking & Bill Production
Escrow Account Tracking
Expense Tracking
Document Creation
SOL Tickler
Rolodex/Contact Management
Automated Backup
Conflicts Checking
Hierarchical Relationship Management
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20. Questions to consider when choosing
a case management system
• Cloud or Local?
• Accounting Integration?
• Any Document Automation?
• Billing/Case Conclusion?
• Most Basic Question: Is it Suited to You and
Your Practice
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23. Takeaways: Case Management Systems
• You should probably have a formal,
technology, computer based system
• It should handle calendaring, file/matter
management, contact management, task
management
• It should be auto backed up
• It should handle SOL tracking
• Should handle/help with conflict checking
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24. Remember…
• Perfect is the enemy of good. Pick a system.
Go with it. No solution is a perfect solution.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have
one.
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25. In the thick of it…
• Conflicts checked. File opened. Contacts
added and cross referenced. Documents
auto-created
• Email. Email. Email.
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26. What Email Should You Use
• One that works.
• I’d much rather have a branded domain (ie
@warnkenlaw.com) than a generic, but more
important is that you can use it easily
• Email foldering, for me, is vital.
• I know what I have to do and what I’m waiting
on.
• I use google enterprise apps.
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27. Personal Productivity
• I think of my personal productivity as distinct
from my business or my clients
• My personal productivity encompasses those
things, but it’s more
• I Have Trouble with Work-Life Boundaries.
Managing personal productivity helps.
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29. Back to our client…
• Medical Records Have Just Come In
• 4 inch high stack
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30. The all-in-one
• Purpose – move back and forth between
paper and digital
• Paperless office is not a reality
• Fax, copy, print
• Bells and whistles: staple, collate, two-sided,
color, emails, high-speed, folds, etc.
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31. Other Hardware in the Office…
• Desktop or Laptop for all employees. If
anyone has the secret of how to eliminate
this, please tell me.
• (we have to create and manipulate documents
with ease)
• A Postage Meter, depending on volume
• (we have to mail stuff)
• The Internal Network…
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37. What does this shift look like day to day…
• I filed the workers’ comp claim online (soon, everything will be e-
filed)
• I ordered medical records on a secure portal from a medical records
aggregator
• I cut the check for the medical records with quickbooks online
• I secure the off work note from another secure online portal where
my client is treating
• A complicated issue came up, I researched it on Fastcase and Lexis
Advance
• I wrote a letter in word and I did a mileage log in excel, using Office
365
• The case settled – I edited the PDF settlement agreement from
Adobe online
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39. Connection…
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Listservs!
• Message Boards / Forums
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40. Takeaways: Software and the Internet
There
Is
Only
One
Thing
It’s
Called
The
Internet
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41. The List of things that can be done via
software and the Internet…
• Dictation
• Document Creation
• Accounting
• Videoconferencing
• Client logs in divorce cases
• Taking credit card payments
• Booking a conference room in a nearby city
• Analyze a deposition transcript
• Book a massage
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42. The First Three Things You Need to Think About When
It Comes to Technology
(and maybe the only three)
• Your Client
• Your Staff
• Yourself
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43. The Gear
• Smartphone
• Email
• Internet Connection
• Computer
• All-in-One (fax/print/scan/copy)
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44. In Case You Just Came for the Apps…
• Omnifocus (productivity)
• Wolfram Lawyer Assist (multiple useful tools)
• Nuzzel (aggregates your social media feeds)
• iDashboard (tracks your web visitors)
• Fastcase (legal research)
• Scanner Pro (mobile scanner)
• SimpleMind (mind mapping; brainstorming)
• Square (take credit cards)
• Nest (manage your thermostat)
• Uber (get transportation)
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45. If It Can be Automated
• It will be!
• (if it hasn’t already)
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46. Thank You
• I welcome thoughts or questions…
– Byron B. Warnken, Esq.
– byron@warnkenlaw.com
– www.warnkenlaw.com
– 443-921-1100
www.warnkenlaw.com
Editor's Notes
Of course it’s about gadgets to some degree. But it’s much more than that
I want to be a solo to be my own boss, make my own decisions, take the clients I want. Of course I want to make money, who doesn’t it? But I don’t need to know how to run a legal factory. Just give me the gadgets, just tell me what to buy. The problem is – even the one who sits in this chair has systems, has a way of working. You have systems and ways of working and visions and goals. If you don’t do some hard thinking about it, you will wind up with the wrong technology around you. “Why?!?” Always has to come first.
I’m not here to talk about business development or web marketing, but in discussing law firm technology, I have to discuss the website. You’re using technology to convey a first impression. It’s quite an important piece of technology. Whether they’ve been referred to you by name, or you answered their initial question via your content, they’re on your website. It’s what we do these days. We look people up on the web. Without getting into all the specifics of a website, I will say this… you need one. AVVO is insufficient. I would use AVVO and engage with AVVO, but AVVO is insufficient.
Two people. Face to face.
One expressing problems, the other listening
People still want this for most problems
If people don’t want this in a given practice area, should you be going into this area?
Being the guiding light, the helping hand, the shepherd, is what most small and solos do. Of course there’s more to it, but there are two major pieces that technology cannot replace. 1.) The relationship. Never outsource the relationship. 2.) The high level thinking.
Tell the story of the guy who left dad’s firm to go solo
Lexis has one. Thomson has one.
In a workers’ compensation context: we’ve opened the file, filed the claim, been in contact with the insurance company, ordered medical records, gotten contesting issues, etc. Job issues, treatment issues. And a bunch of questions.
Scans the med records in a few minutes. Sends them right to your desktop or emails anywhere you want to go. I’ll talk about interoffice network in a minute
That’s it. The Internet does the rest. No server, no hosted stuff. Just a switch to get cables around my office.
Software Used to Look Like This
The software used to get installed on machines like this. The dreaded server in the dreaded server room. It would be distributed to each individual computer from this big box.