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 Getting back to basics…
by David Bilinsky
Whenever you’re in trouble won’t you stand by me
Oh, now, now, stand by me…
Words and music by Ben E. King, performed by J. Lennon.
Law firms are facing un-precedented challenges. Across the world businesses are failing – law firms among them. By all forecasts, this recession will be deep and long. What could lawyers and law firms do – now – to improve their financial outlook, for both the short and long term? When times get tough, it is important to come back to business fundamentals to ensure that your foundation is solid and that you have a good base on which to build your future. Here is a selection of tips put forward in this regard:
Build a Budget
Now more than ever before, you need to know the financial road map that you must follow. Place everything under a microscope – and ask if you are receiving a satisfactory ROI on each category on which you spend money. If you are not sure – you need to think about how to measure the results of your expenditures. For example, ask every new client how he or she came to your firm. If no one replies: “I saw your ad in the Yellow Pages,” divert those funds to more successful marketing campaigns.
Define Success
It sounds odd, but how do you know if you are successful unless you define what success is for you? Income and financial terms are only part of the equation. Studies have shown that personal satisfaction derives from other criteria – doing the kind of work that you want to do; having time for personal interests and family, meeting health and travel goals, playing in a band and the like. Don’t forget “giving back,” since a large part of our self-worth is dependent on feeling like you are helping build a better community. By focusing on your targets you ensure that you are not spending time on matters of lesser importance.
Have a Plan
Working until you drop is not a great plan. The CBA has published a good booklet on planning for your retirement. If you define your retirement goals, you can start working toward those golden years – and implement strategies to transition your practice over to younger lawyers in a way that benefits both you and them.
Focus on your Key Clients
No people will be more important to your continued success than your key client base. We know from numerous studies that high client loyalty and ensured repeat business is highly dependent on not just meeting but wildly exceeding their expectations. Accordingly, seek out opportunities to meet with your key clients and ask the hard questions that you need answered to ensure that you are not just meeting their needs. But be prepared – once you ask what you can do to improve your service, you need to follow through as these same clients will be watching you to see if you are going to walk your talk.
Protect your Key Assets
Every firm has certain key people whose loss would disproportionately affect the entire firm. Engage these individuals and take steps to reassure you and them that the relationship will continue for the foreseeable future.
While all of us are facing the same economic troubles, it is comforting to know that you have your goals, a good plan, good clients and good staff to stand by you.
David J. Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor for the Law Society of British Columbia. E-mail: info@thoughtfullaw.com Blog: www.thoughtfullaw.com
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Technology Tip from Dave Bilinsky’s Award-Winning Blog (www.thoughtfullaw.com)
I am starting a new thread on my blog – the technology-oriented “Cheap is Good but Free is Better!” thread. This thread will concentrate on how to do more with less. It is a response to today’s economic situation and is intended to be a collection of cost-effective tips for technology in a law office.
This first post is on how to create a PDF of something that is displayed on your desktop. It could be an image, it could be instructions that are on the screen (but you don’t want to print the whole web page) or it could be video playing in a browser.
If you are on a PC you can use “print screen” (by pressing both shift and “PrtScr” on your keyboard) in Windows to capture an image of your desktop. Then go to “Paint” (click on “Start” then “All Programs” then “Accessories” then “Paint”) and then paste the screen capture image into Paint (click on “Edit” then “Paste” in Paint). From there, if you only want to use a part of the image, select a portion of the image with your mouse and right click in the middle of the box to cut out that section and save it to your clipboard.You can save the final cropped selection as a bitmap, a JPEG, a GIF, TIFF or PNG.
If you want to make it into a PDF, you can use one of the free PDF converters such as Primo PDF (http://tinyurl.com/3ygjr9). Note that there are no licence restrictions on Primo PDF, which is probably why it is #1 most popular Business & Productivity software download on CNET’s Download.com.Of course, on my Mac – I just use “Grab” (”Finder” then “Utilities” then “Grab”), which comes with OS X. From there, you can choose between a Selection, a Window, a Screen or a Timed Screen and save your image as a *.TIFF or print it as a *.PDF (which saves it as a PDF file).
Back to the Windows world for a moment, if you want to get fancier than what MS Paint will do, admittedly at increasing levels of cost, you will have to go to something like:
Of course you can try the low-cost solutions first – you may find that they are perfectly adequate – without breaking the bank.
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This article originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.
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