Total Attorneys

Join Total Attorneys this Friday at 12:00pm Central on Total Expert Radio for an informative interview with Alan Klevan on ways to manage your law firm when you are out of the office.

Klevan is a principal at Klevan & Klevan, LLP, and he is the creator of Law Practice Strategies, a legal consulting firm dedicated to assisting attorneys move towards building a more efficient and profitable law practice. In August of 2009, the American Bar Association’s General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division awarded him the “Solo and Small Firm Trainer of the Year Award.”

During this free broadcast, callers will have the opportunity to speak to Klevan live on-air and get answers to their questions. Call in by dialing (347) 857-1419 or visit the show online here. For more information on this show and others visit the Total Expert Radio page.

Last week I handed the reins over to Chelsey Lambert to host an episode of Total Expert Radio. While I didn’t get to listen in live, I did get a chance to enjoy the archived recording. This episode was on Holiday Law Practice Strategies, and it featured Donna Seyle, an expert in freelance lawyering, virtual practice and law practice management. This was a great episode for Chelsey to host since she is Total Attorney’s Virtual Law Office Enabler, and she and Donna were able to give our listeners many tips on how to balance the practice of law with other obligations during the holiday season.

Holidays provide one of the rare times of the year when attorneys in traditional practices get to leave their offices, but they need the tools to allow them to walk out of the office without feeling business will collapse while they are enjoying a child’s holiday pageant or visiting friends at a party.

According to Donna Seyle, attorneys can practice law anywhere they have access to a secure internet connection. At Total Attorneys, we agree and often help attorneys create virtual office solutions for their entire practice, but brick-and-mortar attorneys can also benefit from virtual solutions during the holidays.

Here are some of the other tools and tips suggested during the show:

• Use a virtual receptionist to manage calls and messages while the office is empty.
• Set up auto-responses to notify clients when you will be responding to emails and phone calls.
• Manage your time in short increments to get both work and holiday tasks. Chelsey suggested using the Pomodoro technique.
• Use your down time during the holidays to research ways to make your business more efficient. Generally there is a technology out there that can help you streamline your business.
• Give your clients reasonable expectations during the holidays by sending them a proactive email that explains how and when you will be working during the holidays.
• Avoid scheduling court dates and meetings on days when you have holiday plans with friends and family.
• Take advantage of opportunities to grow your practice by networking and making connections at parties. You just might find a new referral standing under the mistletoe in that Santa hat.

For more great tips, listen to the full show here, and join us this Monday and Tuesday for a Power Chat on Security in the Cloud, featuring Total Attorneys’ David Dahl and Clio’s Jack Newton.

When talking to attorneys who are just starting their own law firm or solo practice, I often suggest ways to define their niche markets and focus their practice areas to develop areas of expertise. While this is often good advice, it does not mean that attorneys should narrow every aspect of their life to fit one law firm model or practice area mold.

Instead, it is also important to pursue a few interests that may be seemingly unrelated to your niche practice or specific goals for your law firm. Instead of sticking to a rigid step-by-step plan to build your practice, make room for diversions, impulses and offbeat experiences. By broadening your horizons and taking advantage of a diverse range of opportunities, you can take on your work with a fresh and creative perspective.

In a recent interview with @22twts, self-proclaimed “mumpreneur” Melanie Hatton referred to a quote attributed to Steve Jobs: You can’t join the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future.”

You can take a look at her recap of the interview here. What interests do you maintain out of work and how have they helped you connect the dots?

By now, you have probably heard the news about Chicago’s “Mayor for Life” and his announcement that he will not be running for a seventh term in office. You may love Mayor Richard M. Daley, hate him or have no opinion of him, but we can all learn something from the statements he made yesterday: “I’ve always believed that every person, especially public officials, must understand when it’s time to move on. For me, that time is now.”

For many attorneys and other professionals, we become accustomed to the status quo in our jobs and we often identify ourselves and our lives with what we’ve “always done” or what has become familiar to us. It is hard to think of someone more identified with his job and a particular role than Daley, but longtime political figures are not the only people who need to assess their lives, jobs and priorities on a regular basis. When we have done something for a long time, it can become easy to just continue and feel like we need to make it work, but sometimes we need to renovate our lives, practices, staff or whatever could be holding us back from other priorities. It is important to determine whether we are being healthy, doing what we really want to do, looking out for what’s best for our families and ourselves, and acting positively for our communities and the world.

For some attorneys, this could mean letting go of a troublesome client, delegating some of your work, retiring or setting up a part-time VLO to have more time with family, giving up the big firm 80-hour job for solo practice or a smaller, slower-paced firm, or making other career and lifestyle changes.

Can you think of something that you have “always done” that you could do without? What are some of those things and how can you change your life and improve your law practice for the best?

 

Today, I read an interesting Op-Ed on the history of the work/life balance movement that charted how Americans have approached work over time: from family-oriented jobs such as farms and small shops; to isolated jobs in factories and offices; to remote-based jobs and small-business entrepreneurship.

In the first period, people had jobs that defined their lives, and they had very little time or energy to think of anything outside of those jobs. Outside of work, family activities and personal interests were limited by “the call of nature and the needs of the community.”

With the introduction of mass-production and specialization, factories and large offices allowed owners to ensure efficiency and focus by isolating employees from their homes to work together in centralized locations. The writer suggested that the concept of work/life balance developed during the boom of factory and corporate jobs to encourage mandatory time to fit in family and personal life.

Now, instead of a job that defines our lives or a job separate from life, many people are finding ways to use their life, passions and hobbies to define their jobs. This third segment of people includes many of the attorneys who read this blog and use our services. At Total Attorneys, it is our goal to help attorneys build successful law practices that adapt to the kind of life you want to live, and that goal was inspired by people like you: the solo practitioners with entrepreneurial spirits; the virtual lawyers with desires to make work fit into life, not the other way around; and the small firm attorneys who decided to leave big law to pursue niche markets that coincided with personal passions and values.

What are some of the ways you have used your own passions and interests to shape your career? What are some of the tools you use to make life and work co-exist?

 

 

 

This month we'll be participating in the Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile run for companies located in the Chicago Loop. We had about 40 runners last year and many more who came out to cheer their co-workers on and hang out. This event is also cool because it gives us a chance to interact with other Chicago businesses and show them how we like to have fun! Below is the never-before-seen, unique design for our team T-shirt this year, designed by one of our employees.

 

Company outings can either be planned in great detail or be as simple and spontaneous as grabbing people to head out to the park for a picnic. Later in the summer we have our annual softball tournament to look forward to. The whole company is invited to enjoy softball, food, and friends in Grant Park.

Promoting socialization among employees also has work-related benefits, too. People get to know each other better, so they work together better. They are also more energized because events such as the ones described here provide them with an outlet to relax. Productivity increases as the result of having fun. Caring about the holistic development of employees will yield results in productivity for your organization. Having an annual golf outing helps our employees take a day to not worry about work and just enjoy each others' friendship.

 

If you work at TA, what is your favorite company event? If you work somewhere else, what kinds of events does your company have, and what is your favorite?

Work hard, play hard this summer!

Join Total Attorneys on Blog Talk Radio this Tuesday, April 20 for the next installment of our series hosted by Kevin Chern and featuring Kevin Houchin.  Listen or call in while they discuss work-life balance for attorneys and "Becoming the Lawyer that You Want to Be (Both in the Office and Out)".  The show starts at 12:30 PM central standard time, and you can get answers to your questions by listening in here, or calling in at (347)-857-1419 during the show.  If you can’t listen in during the show, be sure to check out the Total Attorneys Blog Talk Radio page for more information about upcoming shows and recorded archives and mp3 downloads of our past shows.

Aside from being the host of the ABA Tech Show, Chicago is a great city for culture, sightseeing, and nightlife!  We are home to lots of museums, a great skyline, and rich cultural events.

Want to fit a little of what Chicago has to offer into your time here? Here are some recommendations from :

• Admission to the Art Institute of Chicago is free every Thursday evening from 5-9. If you are a fan of Impressionist paintings, then it is a must visit.  The Modern Wing, which opened just last year is an architectural marvel and houses the work of famous artists such as Picasso, as well as more contemporary living artists.

• Is your family traveling to Chicago with you for the Tech Show?  The Adler Planetarium has great astronomy exhibits for kids, including a new one opening tomorrow called "Planet Explorers."  The Shedd Aqurium is also right next door to the Adler and is always a family pleaser.

• Chicago is getting warmer but the weather isn't that nice yet.  A great indoor alternative is to take advantage of the city's theater scene.  Shows currently playing include Billy Elliot and Beauty and the Beast.

• Interested in sophisticated cocktails and a magnificent view of the city?  Check out this great deal for Rebar at the Trump Tower: $25 for $50 worth of food and beverage.  The best part is that 10% will go to the charity of your choice.  Excellent venue and an excellent cause!

• Want to see a great local Chicago band play in one of my favorite Chicago bars?  Check out Spare Parts at AliveOne on Thursday.

If you have some tips post 'em up!

Enjoy Chicago!

March is finally here in Chicago; the snow is melting, the temperatures are rising, and the Cubs' season is about to start!  Spring is great because it brings both a feeling of accomplishment (we've weathered the storm!) and of excitement for the months to come (summer is almost here!).  Together, this makes spring a really enthusiastic and productive time!  People start to do their spring cleaning, making plans for the summer, and just enjoying themselves outside. 

Spring is always an energizing time at work, too.  You aren't quite in the planning phase of the new year anymore.  Spring is the beginning of the executing phase.  Momentum builds as projects get rolling and people are excited about the work ahead of them.  Recently, I cleaned out my slightly cluttered office, and I feel so much better about it now.  There's something to be said for working in an organized space.  I don't know much about feng shui, but I do know that a clean, organized law office makes me more relaxed at work.

Spring cleaning--in the literal and symbolic senses--can be a healthy exercise in prioritizing and de-stressing.  What kinds of spring cleaning are you going to do this year?  How is it going to de-clutter your life?

Do you remember the movie Groundhog Day that came out in 1993?  It featured Bill Murray as a burned-out weatherman named Phil Connors who had to cover the annual events in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  In the movie, this was the one job that Connors hated to do most, but when he finished the job and went to sleep on February 2, he woke up then next day only to find himself repeating the same dreaded February 2 day over and over again in a seemingly endless loop.

After numerous suicide attempts and hedonistic indulgences, Connors begins to reexamine his life and priorities in an effort to break the chain.  He stops focusing on the monotony of his job and depression, pulls himself away from his autopilot approach to life and uses his vast experience of a single day to help people in his community, strengthen personal relationships and learn how to do a number of new things.  After Connors learns to focus more on the things that really matter most—getting involved in his community, spending time with loved ones and working on his personal growth—he is able to wake up the next morning to find that the time loop is broken.

Almost twenty years later, the plot of this movie rings true for many people working in the legal industry.  As an attorney, do you see yourself going into the office, dreading the day, and working on autopilot, only to find yourself stuck on a loop that has you missing out on the things that matter most to you in life?  If so, I urge you to do take a tip from Bill Murray’s character and find ways to break the loop by making more time for yourself and those around you.

Instead of heading to the office at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning, have your virtual receptionist forward your calls to your email while you spend the morning volunteering for a cause that inspires you.  Are you sick of looking at your office walls during client meetings?  Just upload contracts and forms to your virtual law office and let your client sign and fill out these documents from home.  Do you find yourself getting stuck late at the office filling out forms and doing paperwork? Why not take off from work early and send non-billable tasks to a reliable case support staff who can get the job done while you have dinner with your spouse or enjoy a card game with friends?

At the end of the day, take a look at your job and find out which parts of it you can streamline or delegate.  This will give you more time to do the things that matter most to you.  And if you are doing more of the things you love, you will be able to do your work with more energy and optimism rather than feeling the pains of a monotonous loop like the one Bill Murray’s character suffered in Groundhog Day.