Congratulations! All your hard work has paid off. You’re now a fully-fledged lawyer embarking on the first job of your career!
Now it’s time to start planning for the end of it.
That’s right: Although these are early days, the best way to achieve your career and financial dreams is to start planning and working towards them today. Fortunately, there are software tools available that can help you get on the right road.
Start off on the right foot
You do not want to be spending any more potentially billable time than necessary managing your case load. At the same time, the last thing a newbie lawyer should ever do is to cut corners.
This is where Clio (www.goclio.com) comes in. Clio is a cloud-based online case management system. For a monthly rate of $49 – the first month is free – Clio provides secure document organization, storage and access on computers, smartphones or tablets; automates frequently used documents to speed up processing and minimize human intervention; and integrates your calendar, schedules and task lists.
Clio also tracks and invoices billable time, works with Outlook and Google Docs, and even keeps you out of trust-account trouble. “Our system can keep an electronic eye on your trust accounts, to ensure that they never go into the red,” says Joshua Lenon, Clio’s Director of Communications. “This helps you avoid ethical and legal issues down the road that can seriously hurt your career.”
Stay in touch – always!
This is the 21st century – yet it is still common to hear people make lame excuses about not answering their email such as, ‘I was out of the office’ or ‘I was on the road.’ Face it: Nobody believes these excuses anymore, even if they are true. Hence, the smart startup lawyer will always be reachable by email.
The good news: The free website www.mail2web.com – accessible on any web-connected PC, tablet or smartphone anywhere that you can log on worldwide – provides immediate access to personal and business email, 24/7. All you have to do is enter in your email address and password: Mail2Web.com will find the mail server that is storing your mail and give you direct access to it for reading, responding, deleting or forwarding.
At the same time, using Mail2Web.com will not move your email, so that you can download as usual when you return to your office. As for security, this author has used Mail2Web.com for the last decade, with no apparent security breaches.
Follow the money!
No matter what kind of law a new lawyer decides to practise – from pro bono to corporate law for Fortune 500 companies – accurate money management is an absolute must. This is more than just sending out invoices and receiving cheques; it encompasses every aspect of a lawyer’s career, including the clients they decide to work for, the kind of law they practise, and the costs they incur in doing so.
Palo Alto Software's LivePlan business planning and tracking software (www.liveplan.com) makes this level of planning possible. It is a cloud-based online business planning tool that lets new lawyers (among others) outline their professional and financial goals, set milestones to track their progress, and provide solid information that can be used when seeking money from banks or investors.
“We recommend using LivePlan to map out five-year strategies; any longer than that is usually too hard to forecast,” says Sabrina Parsons, Palo Alto Software's CEO. “Even in this time period, there is a lot that a starting lawyer can do with our software. This is because succeeding as a solo practitioner or building a law firm with 20 lawyers plus support staff requires different priorities and tactics. LivePlan helps you figure out the milestones you’ll need to hit to achieve your long-term plans, whatever they are, and the Scoreboard feature aids you in staying on the path to success.”
Connect into social media
We live in the age of social media; a time where Facebook and Twitter have penetrated deeply into people’s daily lives. In this world, it is critically important for new lawyers to establish their “brand” in social media, says Monica Goyal. She is a Toronto-based solo practitioner and owner/developer of My Legal Briefcase, a consumer-targeted legal website that Goyal describes as “Turbo Tax for Legal Documents.”
“It is vital to get your footprint in the social media universe, by establishing your presence on Facebook and Twitter,” Monica Goyal says. “This presence is your brand: anything you post should reflect the values and image that you want people to associate with your legal practice.”
Conversely, mock rockstar “selfies,” off-colour remarks composed after a long night’s revelry or other potential career-busting moves must never, ever be posted either on a lawyer’s professional OR personal pages. In cyberspace, nothing ever goes away for good!
Back to social media: Goyal also recommends using professional networking sites such as LinkedIn to build long-term relationships with useful contacts. “Whenever you meet someone who might be even remotely helpful either next week or ten years from now, get them to connect to your LinkedIn network and vice versa,” she says. “You never know when that person might be someone that can make a difference to your career down the road.”
Review your plans regularly
During your first lunch hour on the first day of your first job, take 15 minutes to write down where you want to be in five, 10 and 25 years. Then come back to these ideas to guide your long-term planning via LivePlan and similar software tools, on a regular basis.
Revise when experience and live changes tell you to, but never drift: The key to long-term success is planning for it, as completely as in reasonably possible, from Day One. After all, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
James Careless is a freelance journalist.