How’s your Twitter feed? When did you post last? What about your business Facebook account? Are you getting automated reminders that your followers haven’t heard from you in a while? When was the last time you updated your website? Does it still ask guests to sign the guestbook at the bottom? What about updating to the latest Office 365 upgrades and Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud version to take advantage of the latest OneNote features and signature technology? What about your last cybersecurity audit? Are you running an old version of Windows server software in your in-house server that you haven’t upgraded in a long time, or have you researched cloud options and moved to the cloud?
I try to give a lot of practical advice in my weekly columns, but the problem is that I am giving advice to practicing attorneys who are running law practices and on top of all the things I mentioned above, have clients and deadlines and motions and depositions to deal with, so I know it can be difficult to run the ultimate tech extravaganza practice, so I wanted to talk today about steps on how to make it work.
1. Build Your Foundation First
Of all the things I have discussed in the last 130 or so columns on Above the Law, the most important is securing your files both from drive failure and from hacking threats. If you are storing your files in a server or network attached storage that is over five years old, have someone evaluate whether you need to upgrade. Server parts get hot and cool down over and over, just like parts in your car. You take your car in for service to replace things on it like belts periodically because of this. The only difference is that if you need to take your client files in for service, you cannot get courtesy client files to work on while your client files are being worked on, and you might not be able to get your files back if the damage is severe enough. You should look to upgrading to the cloud if you have not already. Choose a secure cloud provider. Migrate your files over. Sync your current case files to your computers. Enable two-factor authentication on your cloud storage access. This will protect your files from failure and from hackers.
This is a onetime investment of your time that should take a couple of hours.
2. Get Efficient
Once you have secured your files, it’s time to start finding the most efficient ways to work. You should work towards going paperless. Get a desktop scanner and scan things as they come in. I have mine set to scan to a folder in my OneDrive for Business folder, so all of my scanned documents sync to the cloud and I can access them from anywhere. I have never met anyone who has regretted going paperless. When I co-counsel on cases and I work with paperless offices and paper offices, it’s a huge difference as far as being able to find things when you need them, not duplicating work, being organized, and spending more time focused on doing work that moves your cases forward as opposed to wasting time trying to find things.
Going paperless is a process, but for every hour you put into it, you’ll get double back in productivity boosts.
You should also look into upgrading to the latest versions of software. Office 365 Business Premium is $12.50 a month and includes email hosting and five installs of the full Microsoft Office suite, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook, along with other programs. Adobe offers a similar program with an always up-to-date version of Adobe Acrobat Professional that has legal specific tools such as Bates Stamping and redactions, and also other functions like electronic signature management, and indexing and searching of scanned files for $15 a month.
Upgrading your software takes about 30 minutes.
3. Expand
Once you have established the foundation and made it easier to expand, focus on marketing. Facebook and Twitter are great places to brand yourself and branch out to new potential clients. I’ve previously written here on how to run ads on Facebook through a business Facebook account to reach out to people that are not in your network, but in your community.
Placing a Facebook ad and posting to social media takes about 30 minutes a week to find articles to repost or to create original posts.
Conclusion
For most of us, it’s not a matter of not having time, it’s a matter of time management. Once you get on board and learn more efficient ways to practice, you’ll realize that it was time well spent.
Jeff Bennion is a solo practitioner at the Law Office of Jeff Bennion. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of San Diego’s plaintiffs’ trial lawyers association, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. He is also the Education Chair and Executive Committee member of the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technology section. He is a member of the Advisory Council and instructor at UCSD’s Litigation Technology Management program. His opinions are his own. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at jeff@trial.technology.
