Today, I read a great post by Seth Godin on how businesses should sell their services and products. His tip also works well for attorneys who are trying to close the deal when they market to prospective clients.

When most law firms market meet with prospects, they often market their services without explaining why consumers need those services. Legal clients come to attorneys because they want solutions to their problems, but consumers may not even know that they need an attorney until it is obvious that they have a problem or a need.

Noticing the problem that needs a solution may come easy to consumers who are facing a lawsuit or criminal charges, but what about consumers who need copyright assistance, employment contracts for their small business or other transactional work? Clients who are not facing imminent or serious threats to their financial situation or lifestyle may find it difficult to see why they need the services you offer.

That means that you should discuss both the services you offer and why that service is a key component in your client’s next business move, future purchase, estate planning or other transaction. You may be persistent, charming and intelligent with your marketing efforts, but in today’s market, potential clients are not likely to spend money on something they do not perceive to be a need.

So, what are a few ways you can point out the problem or the reason consumers need your services when you meet with potential clients for the first time? Share your thoughts in the comments section, and I will discuss this question in my next post.

I’m closing in on my 1 year anniversary as CTO of Total Attorneys. It’s been a fantastic first year of learning performance marketing, the online legal space, and the general machinations of a company bursting at the seams with progress. Most of my energy has been focused inward, tightening up technology and getting ahead of the growth curve. We’re in a fantastic place right now so I’m letting my lieutenants run their respective groups (as they breathe a sigh of relief) while I take a broader look outward and on a longer horizon. Which gets me to blogging.

In future posts I’ll be commenting on Software-as-a-Service, scalable systems, process, and how all that impacts the online legal space. But for today, just a simple introduction.

So back to the question at hand - who’s Dave? Or David as my wife calls me. I’ve done quite a bit of traveling, but I’m a Midwest guy born and bred. I started life as a Software Programmer with lots of Java, open-source, Linux and more recently leading teams heavily Microsoft, SQLSever, .Net focused. A handful of the early years were consulting with Andersen Consulting then a boutique consulting firm called Neoglyphics. More recently, I spent 4 years helping launch, then scale,  the online travel company Orbitz, then moved on to help launch the online document management company SpringCM. Early on I began gravitating toward the business side of technology and VP’ing or CTO’ing multidisciplinary teams spanning development, IT/operations, product management, and quality assurance.

Personally I live in the Humbolt Park / Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago with a cat and a dog we rescued from Paws Chicago. My off-hours are spent traveling, brewing beer, and nursing an 8500 BTU smoker through all assortment of meats. Ask me about craft beer sometime – not only do I brew but I’m also a certified beer judge. No joke.

To wrap this up… keep an eye on this space for my take on SaaS, technology, process, online Legal, and some random comments on beer, food and life.

The purchase of VLOTech, LLC last October was an exciting event for Total Attorneys and VLOTech founders Ben Norman and Stephanie Kimbro. The two companies united in a commitment to Virtual Law Practice and the use of technology to expand access to legal services and ease the burdens on small firm and solo attorneys. In addition to the opportunity to expand and develop the virtual law office software, the VLOTech platform became an important building block for the next generation of Total Attorneys products.

For many years, Total Attorneys has been moving in the direction of an integrated platform for its law office solutions. At the same time, Ben and Stephanie developed a solution to meet their personal needs: they wanted to start a family, and allow Stephanie to work from home practicing law securely. So Ben built her a solution, and it worked!

Stephanie began sharing her experiences with the legal community, and people listened, including the ABA. Other legal SaaS providers joined in. Stephanie and Ben’s application was now a powerful tool, sought out by legal innovators and attorneys who were looking for a better way to practice law.

When Total Attorneys Founder/CEO Ed Scanlan and President Kevin Chern met with Ben and Stephanie last year, everyone involved felt that their marriage would be the next step in both the evolution of both company’s products.

Since that time, Ben, Stephanie, and the Total Attorneys team have reworked the current version of VLO, releasing its new look and feel last week. The more intuitive navigation and updated user experience provide a dramatically improved experience, making the system friendlier and easier to learn.

Here are a few comments we’ve received from clients who have viewed the new system:

Tamika Rice: “I love this!!!”

Judy Young: “I saw the new version. Looks great.”

Rania Combs: “I'm on this morning. Thanks so much. Everything looks wonderful and is so intuitive! I also love the help section and am interested in finding out about the high performance marketing and what that entails.”

The Evolution Begins

The new look and feel of VLO only scratches the surface of what the busy Total Attorneys’ team has in the pipeline. Fueled by Ben and Stephanie’s vision of the future of online and in person legal representation, Total Attorneys has begun development of the (Total Law Office Platform/TotalAttorneys.com.), the first version of which will release in Quarter one of 2011. This new version of the Virtual Law Office Technology application will be merged with people-powered services like Total Attorneys’ High Performance Marketing product, Virtual Receptionist services and Bankruptcy Case Support/Petition Preparation, all of which are currently delivered through separate applications. And that’s only the beginning.

The advantages for existing Total Attorneys customers are obvious: the ability to combine services into one management platform, ease of access and more efficient use of their precious practice management time.

For legal professionals unfamiliar with Total Attorneys, welcome to a whole new way of starting, marketing, and managing a law practice! What will it mean to your practice to have a complete solution delivering all day-to-day management functions, time, billing, invoicing, document storage, calendaring and case management seamlessly integrated with people powered services?

One Site, One Log In, One Seamlessly Managed Practice

You arrive at your desk in the morning, you log in to see records of all calls answered, tied to client accounts, tied to billing records. All you have to do is practice.

Your clients can access their files, have a discussion with you, schedule a call or check a calendar of their upcoming appointments, upload documents, and pay their legal fees online by credit card or check, 24/7, from anywhere. There is no need for phone tag anymore-- just log in and see for yourself.

Request a demo: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Speak to a Virtual Law Office Enabler: 877-246-8071

A few weeks ago, here in Chicago, we had what you might call “a torrential downpour. Where I live, we received 9 inches of rain in a 45 minute period. Water filled the streets, cars with flooded tailpipes got left behind mid-way through intersections, and in my own front yard the water flowed over the curb and half way up the front lawn. This might not have been a problem for my house in particular, except for the fact that the power went out for 14 hours. No power, no sump pump pumping everything back out to the street. So it filled up the basement. Rain and sewage water soaked the carpet, the furniture, the kids’ toys and irreplaceable memorabilia.

In High Performance Marketing, we run nationwide marketing across multiple websites and deliver consumers to lawyers. That means “downpours” are inevitable sometimes. This can come in the form of traffic fluctuations on the internet, outages across websites, surges and traffic spikes, and even partnership changes amongst the search engines that cause huge variations in expensive traffic being sent our way. When it rains, preparation is everything. If we don’t have a system in place, we could end up paying for advertising that gets sent to a website that is “down”, wasting money and creating a negative impression on those visitors. That’s why we employ multiple methods and back-up plans to ensure that things keep running smoothly, and that we can react quickly when they don’t. For example, we have call center agents available 24/7/365, and automated email alerts to key personnel. Other reports are sent at 6 am every morning, and analytics people monitor traffic by the hour, with team members responding to fluctuations that look awry. Many of these solutions have arisen out of calamities along the way. We’re fond of saying around here, “let’s find out what caused this, and put a process in place to make sure it never happens again.”

As a small firm attorney, or even a solo practictioner, you may be asking “what can I do to safeguard my law firm against a business downpour or a drought?”

Or, put another way, “what am I doing now to protect my marketing investment, in the event that I’m not available for incoming prospect calls?”

That’s your downpour: prospective clients are calling and falling off the table because you’re in court, traveling, at home with your family or just meeting with a client. Just as we’d lose money and good will if our ads were driving traffic to a site that was “down”, your law firm is losing money and potential relationships when no one is available to pick up the phone. You’ve put in the time and money to create the ads, find the outlets and place the ads, and that’s time and money spent whether you pick up the phone and close the deal with that prospective client or not.

The flipside is a drought: you’re busy with your current clients or something outside the office and you don’t have time to market your practice or think about keeping your pipeline full. You may still see some impact from your past efforts for a while, but in time the stream becomes a trickle and then the trickle runs dry.

That’s why in High Performance Marketing, we keep things running even when you’re busy with the practice of law. Our online marketing staff keeps our websites fresh, our ad content current and optimized, and works to stay at the top of the search engines for terms key to your business. And that’s not all. We don’t just fill the pipeline with prospects; our call center follows up on inquiries for you so that you’re not losing prospective clients while you’re busy doing your job. And, if you want to take it one step further, our Virtual Receptionist can schedule appointments for you while you’re away.

When an unexpected drought or downpour strikes, recovery can be time-consuming and expensive.

Even now, 5 weeks later, we’re still dealing with ‘fun’ projects such as having cracks filled, sealing potential future leaks in the floor concrete, replacing the carpeting and furniture, getting a battery back-up sump pump in place and trying to get back to where we were before the flood. Don’t let that happen to your business. Put the systems in place to protect you from both downpours and droughts and keep the water at a reasonable level in good times and bad.

If you read any reviews from the ABA Annual Conference, you may have noticed that social media is prevalent among legal professionals as a way to network with other attorneys, market their practices and share ideas in the legal community. As Donna Seyle recently wrote on her Legal Practice Strategy blog, “…technology, economics, social media and the legal marketplace has rolled over professional traditional like a tsunami over beach tents.” She also pointed out that many attorneys today use technology and social media to align their professional selves with their authentic selves.

While social media does allow attorneys to share their personal side online, whereas a simple website might not, social media was also created so that professionals can build relationships that extend beyond the confines of the Internet. While many of your professional relationships are suited well for strictly web-only relationships, there may be times when you want to take those relationships offline to create partnerships or solidify good relationships. Here are a few ways to move your social media relationships from the virtual world to the physical world.

1. Engage in real dialogue online. If you want to meet your online friend in the real world, you need to give that person a reason to take the time to meet you face-to-face. You could be Facebook or LinkedIN friends, but if you are one out of thousand, your online “friend” may not even notice you if all you do is "like" or "retweet" their comments and follow their status updates.
2. Once you have established some common ground online, send your online friend a message to give that person your contact information and to request his or her contact info.
3. Try to find more than just common ground with your online contact. Is there something that this person does well that you would like to learn more about? Do you do something that correlates to your online contact’s current projects? In other words, give your contact a reason to talk to you.
4. Take the next step by making a connection. Give your online contact a call to chat (about the idea I mentioned in step 3) or shoot them an email to set up an appointment to talk over coffee or lunch
5. Follow up with your new friend. In addition to keeping up your relationship the way it began, through social media, add your new contact to your holiday card mailing list, invite him or her to networking events, shoot them an email when you see an article that may interest that person.

While social networking can boost your presence online, attract new clients and generate referrals, it can also become a valuable tool for creating and strengthening your professional relationships offline.

In today’s legal industry, we are surrounded by new technology and new ways to communicate with our clients. We market law firms online, communicate with clients via secure online portals, network through social media, create our websites for easy viewing on mobile devices, and even file court documents online. On the other hand, most attorneys are still entering into agreements on paper with the majority of their contracts. Attorneys utilize a printer, ink pen, scanner and email for most contracts, while they still meet in person to exchange and sign more important agreements. In most situations, however, is all of this printing, signing, copying, and scanning necessary?

The answer is likely “no” since the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) was passed over a decade ago and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) has been adopted by 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These acts facilitate electronic commerce and the use of electronic records and signatures by ensuring the validity and legal effect of contracts entered into electronically.

With these laws in place, which lay out the signature and identification requirements necessary to validate a person’s signature, electronic signatures are in most cases recognized as being equally valid as handwritten signatures, as long as the agreements do not include terms that are unconscionable or against public policy. That means that click-wrap agreements and signatures could become as prevalent as traditional handwritten signatures and paper documents for many agreements created by attorneys and businesses. Not only do changes in law lean in favor of electronically signed contracts, electronic signatures combined with software and internet services offer a few benefits that are not available during traditional contract signing procedures:

• Electronic signatures and click-wrap agreements save paper since there is no need to print the agreement, and web-based platforms allow all parties and their attorneys to view the same agreement as it is saved in your virtual law office or online document storage website.
• Contracts can be accessed anywhere the internet is available, and there is no need to find a printer, scanner or fax machine. That means contracts can be accessed virtually anywhere, in the office, at home, from a laptop on vacation, and other places where printers, scanners and fax machines may not be readily available.
• Because parties do not have to take the added steps of printing, signing, scanning and faxing, electronic signatures and click-wrap agreements speed up the contracting process.
• With the advancement of security in SaaS (Software as a Service) products, electronic signatures and click-wrap agreements can help parties protect privacy. Instead of leaving a private agreement out on a table where wandering eyes may find it, web-based contracts can be stored on password protected sites that are accessible only to parties with the correct passwords and credentials.

Does your virtual law office or traditional law firm create electronic contracts? If so, what types of contracts do you think work best with e-signatures or click-wrap agreements?

We know that missing phone calls costs your business money.  Helping a potential client to feel like he's in good hands and has taken a positive step toward solving his legal problems typically ends his search for representation, whereas if he'd been dumped into your voicemail, he might well have gone on to call the next attorney in the yellow pages or resumed his Google search.

Every business is different, and it's up to you to determine the best way to get your calls answered and secure those prospective clients.  One important factor in making that determination is the relative cost of each of your various options. Making an accurate assessment of those costs means thinking beyond the obvious.

The real cost of that receptionist in your office is much higher than the number on her paycheck. For example, an in-house employee requires that you pay for:

• Benefits
• Payroll Taxes
• Office Space
• Office Equipment

Those expenses typically add about 30% to the cost of an employee, so if you pay your receptionist $500/week, your actual cost is approximately $650.  But don't think that $650 is buying you a 40 hour work week.  The Department of Labor estimates that the average employee is productive about 70% of the time, meaning that you're actually getting about 28 good hours for your $650 investment, and the hourly cost of your receptionist is about $23.21.

And that's not even taking into account the time you and your existing staff invest in hiring, training and covering for sick days and vacations.

When you outsource, someone else is responsible not only for benefits, payroll taxes, office space and equipment, but also for:

• Hiring
• Training and Supervision
• Covering Absences and Emergencies

In short, you don't have to think about the administrative details at all. You're outsourcing not only the task of picking up your telephone and taking a message, but also those of preparing payroll, paying taxes, purchasing equipment, placing job ads, interviewing prospective employees, training employees and providing feedback.

Wouldn't that time be better spent serving your clients or generating new business?

In law school, students are often taught all of the reasons why they need to protect client money and set up a client trust account, but rarely do law schools teach students and new attorneys how to set up and manage their IOLTA account. Last week on Total Expert Radio, I talked to attorney coach and self-proclaimed "law practice management nerd,” Rjon Robins, about IOLTA management and his new program that teaches attorneys how to set up and manage their client trust accounts.

If you missed the show, you can stream it online or download the mp3 by visiting the Total Expert Radio page on Blog Talk Radio. Here are a few highlights from the show:

• If the client has a legal right to get the money or the property back, it belongs in an IOLTA/client property trust account. If the client does not have a legal right to get the money or property back, it does not belong in the trust account.
• When the client no longer has a legal right to the money or the property, it is time to take it out of the trust account.
• Understand that trust accounting rules apply to more than just client money.
• There is more than one type of trust account. Lawyers may choose to set up an IOLTA or a separate interest-bearing trust account for an individual client.
• Most attorneys will opt for IOLTA since they provide a simple way to hold client or third-party funds for a short period of time.
• If an attorney wants to create a separate interest-bearing trust account, the following factors should be considered: the rate of interest that will be applied to the funds, the amount of time the funds will be held, and the cost of administering the separate account.
• Most of the time, attorneys will not want to deal with the accounting necessary to use a non-IOLTA account since administration and accounting could take up too much time and create added expenses.
• Attorneys do not need a trust account in some circumstances (e.g. when the attorney offers flat rate billing or takes all fees in advance, earned upon receipt). Attorneys should be aware of the pains of accounts receivable and the risks of non-payment when they do work before sending a bill or collecting a retainer.
• Don’t delegate things that you do not know how to do yourselves. Learn the basics in trust accounting and management before you delegate tasks to employees or automate trust account management with software.

For more information on how to set up and manage your client property trust account, check out Rjon’s video series. In addition, the ABA Commission on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts provides a State-by-State Directory of IOLTA Programs and some local bar associations have created comprehensive guides on trust accounting.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to offer your clients access to their own files and appointments? How much time it would save in administrative calls and emails?

Total Attorneys just made it even easier!

We have changed the system to offer more intuitive navigation tabs, and language for both you and your clients.

Ready to learn more? Watch the video below or join one of our free demos!

This is part three of a 3-part guest post by Fantasy Job Camper, Kerri Olsen, about her day at Total Attorneys. To see part one of this series click here; to see part two click here.

Guest post by Kerri Olsen

After our discussion, we continued to tour the office and meet more incredible people. Our first stop was at the General Counsel’s office (fitting). I met Pam Gracyalny and the first question I blurted out was, “How did you get out!?” We all had a laugh and she explained she also was “into technology” so it was a somewhat natural progression for her to join a technologically-based legal services startup. Next we interrupted a group of three men solving all the problems of the world. Standing up. In the middle of the office. In t-shirts. They were having one of those collaborative “brain-storming” sessions which I read about while stalking researching Total Attorneys. I got the feeling that they were working and were also genuinely interested in why I was there. We explained how we were “Camping” and they were very interested in joining us to roast marshmallows later by the campfire.

Photo by Jennifer Healy for RedEye

Next I met Kevin Chern, President of Total Attorneys. I believe he walked up about the time we were discussing roasting marshmallows, which I’m assuming is not a frequent topic of conversation in the brainstorming sessions. I bored him with my legal experience but he didn’t seem to mind too much; after all, he brings over a decade of professional legal experience and an entrepreneurial mindset to the table. Can you imagine the first startup conversations between Ed and Kevin? I picture creative sparks flying all over the place and actual thought and dream clouds popping above their heads in mid-air.

As we continued our tour and looked for workers to interrupt, we met Lindsey Nelson. This is one of my favorite parts of the day because it reinforced everything I read about the corporate culture of Total Attorneys. Lindsey started working with Total Attorneys almost three years ago in their call center. Lindsey is a prime example of why Total Attorneys’ corporate culture works: she told Ed she wanted to get into Google analytics and use it to examine Total Attorneys success and how to improve and streamline their marketing efforts. Now, after nearly three years with the company, Lindsey manages their search engine marketing sites.

We went downstairs to the part of the office where someone with my paralegal experience comes into play: the legal meat and bones of it all, if you will. Happy paralegals talking to other happy paralegals? Did someone slip something into my coffee? It was refreshing to see other legal professionals able to excel in a position that wasn’t limiting their growth. As a paralegal, I am frequently asked, “Do you want to go to law school? Do you want to be an attorney?” Frankly, I have no desire to practice law because I don’t want to commit myself to one profession for the rest of my life. This looked like an environment where a successful paralegal could take his or her breadth of knowledge and do whatever they wanted with it, and not be stopped by a managing partner or shareholder. I got a hands-on demonstration of how Total Attorneys is revolutionizing the bankruptcy practice. I hope you never have to go through a bankruptcy proceeding, but if you do, Total Attorneys has every tool to make your matter (or your clients’ matter) proceed as efficiently and accessible as possible.

Photo by Jennifer Healy for RedEye

Last but not least I met Dennis Dwyer, Total Attorneys’ Director of Sales. We talked about my day at Camp and I think he might be interested in having me fill in for Ed for an undetermined amount of time in the future. I believe his exact words were, “Oh, great! You can fill in while Ed takes the month of August off to play golf. You’re okay with that, right?” Does Ed play golf? I don’t think we discussed that at Camp.

If I had to narrow my Camp experience down to a lesson from the day, it would be this:

Don't be afraid to take the giant leap into pursuing your passion and attaining personal happiness.  Happy employees = happy customers = happy companies.  People aren't born a Great Entrepreneur or a Great Lawyer - everyone receives different opportunities and it's what you do with those opportunities that make you just good or Totally Awesome.

Meeting with Ed and chatting with his successful team re-energized me.  I feel like I absorbed some of their energy. Ed was approachable and sincere.  He reiterated everything I read about his management style and the transparency at Total Attorneys (for both external and internal clients).  It was refreshing to observe a corporate culture where everyone looked genuinely happy to be at work.  I witnessed a lot of collaboration and work in action.  Meeting Ed and the Total Attorneys team reminded me that the leap of faith to following your dreams is scary, but if you dedicate yourself to your success, it can be hella worth it.

My next steps are to continue to follow up with the great people I met, join their newsletter, watch for opportunities, webinars and speaking engagements where Total Attorneys is presenting, and continue to soak up any news and think of people in the legal community that I can refer to Total Attorneys.  I was impressed with their cloud resourcing services for solo practitioners and small law firms.  When I'm excited about something I like to spread the word! So I'll be reaching out to former co-workers who have left the big law firm environment. I know they would greatly benefit from Total Attorneys' services, technology, corporate culture and successful management style.

Kerri Olsen lives and works in downtown Chicago and has recently launched her website after participating in Fantasy Job Camp.  You can read more about her professional background here.