The Virtual Lawyer: Practice Management

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The Virtual Lawyer

About building the law firm of the future, enabling lawyers to meet in person or in cyberspace, accessing resources and information over the Internet, and leveraging systems and tools.
By Roger P. Glovsky

Post Frequency: 0.3/day

Last Entry: June 07, 2009 at 09:37:00

Working out of your pocket!

Posted on June 07, 2009
Okay, I admit it. I fell in love with another PDA/cell phone. My last love was a Motorola MPx200, which I bought from AT&T wireless back in 2005. It had everything I wanted: email, calendar and contacts that sync with outlook, voice recorder, MP3 player, high quality display screen, and a small clam shell design...

Guest Blog: Cost Effective Ways to Resolve Legal Matters

Posted on October 26, 2008
Although I have been noticeably absent from the blogging world this year, I did manage to write an article as a guest blogger for the LemonJustice Blog. When disputes are not cost effective for lawyers to handle, there often DIY alternatives. For years, clients have heard me refer to this as waging the "fax/email campaign...

Using Technology to Boost a Law Practice

Posted on October 08, 2008
Attorney Sergei Lemberg, who specializes in consumer lemon law [link: http://www.lemonjustice.com/blog], is sitting in the guest blogger's chair today.After I graduated from law school, I went the typical route and spent five years working for a series of major law firms...

Leveraging Your Time - Part 2

Posted on January 31, 2008
Leveraging your time requires a different mindset. It is a change in the way you think about the practice of law. It is not just delegating your work to someone else or learning to use a Blackberry. It is not something you do just once. Leveraging your time requires continuous dedication...

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The case for collaboration among lawyers

Posted on December 31, 2007
I started writing this blog in December, but only got around to finishing it today (Feb 23)...It?s seems obvious to me that big firms are getting bigger, and that the only way to sustain their growth is through increased efficiency. Efficiency is achieved by improving productivity for the same or less costs...

Business Development: Turning Art into Science

Posted on November 30, 2007
Jim Hassett was kind enough to send me a preview copy of his brand new LegalBizDev Success Kit, a business development training package, complete with audio CDs, a step-by-step guide, a reference book, practice materials, and even a "quick start" card...

How can lawyers leverage their time?

Posted on October 31, 2007
Most lawyers earn a living by setting their hourly rate and then charging for the number of hours (or fractions thereof) that they work. The biggest challenge for lawyers, particularly solo practitioners, is how to leverage their time. No matter how much a lawyer increases his or her hourly rate, the lawyer can never earn more than the amount of time he or she puts in...

Why you should buy a new PC every year!

Posted on October 04, 2007
[REPUBLISHED FORM 9/29/07 TO ALLOW COMMENTS]The first time I used a computer was in highschool in 1972; it was a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe. It used simple BASIC programming language. I learned to write a simple program that would count from 1 to 10 or generate random numbers, but it was not very useful by today?s standards...

Why you should buy a new PC every year!

Posted on September 29, 2007
The first time I used a computer was in highschool in 1972; it was a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe. It used simple BASIC programming language. I learned to write a simple program that would count from 1 to 10 or generate random numbers, but it was not very useful by today?s standards...

Don?t Take Technology for Granted!

Posted on August 31, 2007
As a virtual lawyer, I pride myself on being able to integrate technology into my law practice and to leverage technology in ways that improve the efficiency and quality of legal services. I understand that most lawyers are not as focused on technology as I am...

Growing the law practice: doing vs. saying

Posted on July 22, 2007
What has the Virtual Lawyer been doing? I have been so busy "doing", there has been no time for "saying" what I have been doing.I know that I haven?t been keeping up with my blogging. Far from my initial goal of writing once a day, I have struggled to write once a month...

Virtual Lawyer Test #2 ? It keeps getting better!

Posted on May 31, 2007
I just returned from two days in NYC. My experience as a "virtual lawyer" keeps getting better. All I brought with me was a cell phone (Motorola RAZR), a laptop (Compaq v2000), and an iPod mini. Despite two days on the road, I felt almost as comfortable working out of the office as I do working in the office...

What do clients want, really?

Posted on April 07, 2007
So often in business you hear ?listen to your customers?, ?be customer-driven,? ?focus on the customer?s needs?. Companies spend a lot of money on customer surveys, focus groups and market analysis to really understand their customers. If it applies to every other business, why not the legal profession?Well?it does! But, it is harder to do with legal and other professional services, where you are providing more intangible than tangible work product...

Would you marry your business partner?

Posted on March 28, 2007
No, I don?t mean literally. Most people spend years looking for the right person to marry. But, when it comes to business, they spend very little time by comparison looking for the right person. Especially lawyers.In order to build Law Firm 2.0 (the law firm of the future), I need to add lawyers to the firm...

Power of the Internet

Posted on March 27, 2007
The Internet is the world?s first expanding resource. Think about it. Water, air, oil, land, food are all limited despite their being ubiquitous. The pioneers who first came to the US in the 1600?s probably thought those resources were unlimited. However, the more people there are on the planet, the scarcer and more expense those resources become...

Building Law Firm 2.0

Posted on March 24, 2007
The current revolution of new applications and uses of the Internet has frequently been termed Web 2.0. In thinking about how this revolution will affect the practice of law, the term ?Law Firm 2.0? came to mind. Based on a quick google search, I see that I am not the first to use this term...

Testing my virtual strength

Posted on March 15, 2007
On Monday, I had my first real test of virtual strength. I didn?t plan it that way, it just happened.Every year, my son and I go away for a weekend in March to go skiing. There are two kinds of skiing. Winter skiing and Spring skiing. Winter skiing is a test of man against nature...

A virtual lawyer may need a physical office

Posted on March 06, 2007
I apologize for my absence last week. I had a greater than normal workload and spent most of the week fighting fires. I also closed the deal on my new office lease and needed to select vendors for all the normal office services.So, why does a virtual lawyer need an office?I started my own law practice five years ago, working out of my house...

Virtual Lawyer vs. Virtual Law Practice

Posted on March 03, 2007
Yesterday, I helped a lawyer in a mid-sized firm by sharing some information about how to perfect a security interest in a patent. She expressed her appreciation and asked how she could help me. I said, "read my blog called The Virtual Lawyer". Her response was "Oh, I have a friend who turned down a partnership at a big firm to start a virtual law practice with a few others and they have no office...

Definition of a "virtual lawyer"

Posted on February 27, 2007
Why did I pick "The Virtual Lawyer" as the title for this blog? It just seemed to fit my ideal notion of the future practice of law. I liked the idea of being able to work any where at any time by having access to people, information, and tools. Computers and the Internet make that possible...

Information Overload!

Posted on February 26, 2007
There is too much information available over the Internet. There are news sites, newsletters, search engines, blogs, message boards, podcasts, news readers, news feeds, and wikis. I am constantly finding and checking new sources of information like widgets for weather...

How can you attract the best clients?

Posted on February 25, 2007
The best clients may or may not be the biggest clients or the most profitable clients. For my corporate/business practice, the best clients are the ones that value my services and want to build a long term relationship. So how do you find clients that value legal services? How do you build long term relationships?When I first started practicing law, I had this image that business development meant putting on my sales and marketing hat, heading out to some networking event, and then rounding up a bunch of great new clients (all wearing suits and ties with $100 bills spilling out their pockets)...

How do you say "thanks" in the blogging world?

Posted on February 24, 2007
The way to say "thanks" in the blogging world is to post a thoughtful and responsive comment.I appreciate those of you who already gave me comments in person or sent emails about my blog. I am very interested in your feedback, but I'd prefer that you post your comments on this blog site...

Which are the best legal blogs?

Posted on February 23, 2007
The great power of the Internet is the facility with which information can be shared. As a result, we all learning from one another all over the world. So, who are the best thought leaders in the legal community and how do I find them?Now that I am officially in the blogging world or "blogosphere" as it is more popularly known, I feel compelled to find out who are the leaders of this universe of knowledge...

Will I really blog everyday?

Posted on February 23, 2007
Maybe. I'll write because I want to write, not because I have to write.Several people have said that they really enjoyed reading my new blog, but they think that I am putting too much pressure on myself by having to write everyday. First of all, I did not say that I would write everyday...

How many lawyers does a firm need?

Posted on February 22, 2007
The largest U.S. law firm, Baker & McKenzie, now has over 3500 lawyers according to The NLJ 250 posted on Law.com. As a solo practitioner, I think about adding one or two lawyers, maybe growing to five or ten in few years (or maybe staying solo). I can't imagine growing into a firm with hundreds of lawyers, let alone thousands of lawyers...

Thinking about sharing documents over the web?

Posted on February 21, 2007
In the spirit of collaboration, I have been looking at various technologies that would allow lawyers to share information over the web. How should lawyers share documents in cyberspace?I am familiar with Wikipedia, but I don't know how to set up my own wikipedia page (and I'm not sure I want to collaborate with the whole world, just yet)...

Power tools for lawyers?

Posted on February 20, 2007
Some guys want to own a Hummer. Other guys want twin 500HP boat engines. Others want to own superfast computers. The truth is men (and women) like power tools. The tools I dream about (yes, this may sound strange) are power tools for lawyers. I enjoy being able to handle complex business transactions and being able to crank out piles of documents quickly and efficiently...

How should lawyers charge for services?

Posted on February 19, 2007
There are three ways to charge for legal services: hourly, fixed fee or contingency. I typically charge for work on an hourly basis. Even when I offer clients a "fixed fee", I have to estimate the amount of time it would take and base the estimate on some equivalent amount of time...

Will Knowledge Management drive law firms in the future?

Posted on February 18, 2007
There is no doubt in my mind that Knowledge Management ("KM") will drive law firms in the future. In the past, law firms were driven by recruiting the best and the brightest lawyers and developing a reputation for good work. Hiring talented lawyers will be important in the future, but not as important as developing the best KM systems...