Want to make your firm stand out from the crowd? Work to differentiate your services and your image from everyone else.

Lawyers may not view the iPad as a viable laptop substitute today, but that may change with the development of new apps.

The legal profession is feeling the effects of the economic downturn, but there are steps you can take to lessen the impact. From renegotiating what you pay for office supplies to reevaluating compensation, here are the top 10 tips for survival, including a checklist for your firm.

After a meeting with his or her lawyer, a client often leaves thinking that somehow, they are not on the same wavelength. The lawyer seems to have the ins and outs of the case down pat, but there remains a lingering doubt in the client's mind.

In 2007, first-year associate salaries in the U.S. topped $160,000 in 2007, as big-city firms tried to out-bid each other for the brightest law school graduates, while also trying to keep their best lawyers on staff with healthy pay raises and attractive bonuses. What a difference a year makes: today’s talk of recession has dampened speculation about the next big pay raise, and associates are under the microscope to justify such big salaries.

he 2.0 idea can be applied to virtually anything in the lawyer’s life and practice, and that includes the most basic element of all – the relationship with the client. Without clients there is no reason to be a lawyer. Lawyers don’t just practice law, they serve clients.

Lawyers, like most business people, often have difficulties in having their accounts paid. In theory, lawyers should have a big advantage in that the ability to hold funds in trust should ensure a 100% recovery of fees and disbursements. The reality is that we often cannot get sufficient retainers in advance and alternatives must be explored.

An interview with Ari Kaplan, author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011)

How effective is your law firm at welcoming clients? Is your office more likely to make them feel at home or scare them away? We look at several ways you can make your office friendlier and more comfortable for the most important people at your firm — your clients.

When Meldon Ellis returned to Vancouver to practise law in 2003 after running an online gaming company in Antigua for a few years, he was unsure about where to take his career. “I was stuck,” he says. “I needed to brainstorm about how to resume my career in law.” He set up his own firm at the beginning of 2004 with a single file, but his biggest challenge was staying motivated.