The global trend towards smaller law firms continues. This interesting article from the American Bar Association News gives an American perspective to what we have seen in Australia in the past year.
The global trend towards smaller law firms continues. This interesting article from the American Bar Association News gives an American perspective to what we have seen in Australia in the past year.
If attracting new clients is important to you, then the answer is yes!
Word of mouth is the traditional way small law firms gain new clients.
The problem is that word of mouth is changing. In the past, a word of mouth referral may have led to a potential client checking the yellow pages for the firm and picking up the phone.
Now, however, the way people look for services has changed. People are no longer satisfied with a yellow pages listing, be it the online version or looking up the book. We now have far higher expectations of what we should be able to learn about a company, and its staff, before we even pick up the phone.
A friend recently received a referral from a colleague to a particular lawyer at a small law firm. After searching for the firm on Google, and only being able to find a one line directory listing about the firm with its telephone number and address, she quickly disregarded the referral.
What did she do?
She searched for “Family Lawyer Parramatta” in Google and perused a few of the websites that came up first. She found a website where the firm’s profile, and the photo and description of the family lawyer mentioned, appealed to her. She picked up the phone and called that firm.
We have a busier and more mobile population than ever before. This means that the chances of a potential client seeing your firm on the main street of your suburb and remembering you when they need a lawyer have greatly diminished. By the time they need a lawyer they may have already moved to another suburb anyway!
The web is also allowing potential clients to be more discerning. They are no longer satisfied with visiting the local solicitor, they want to find a lawyer who they perceive to be a specialist in the area of law they are concerned with.
A website is an essential tool for small law firms. When set up properly, a website will allow clients who live in your area to find your firm when they search on Google. It will allow you to set up profiles of your staff which establish them as experts in their area of law. Further, it will allow your potential clients to get to know your firm and its staff, and realise that your firm is the kind of firm they need, before they even pick up the phone.
If you don’t have a website, get one now! A link to get you started: www.leapwebsite.com.au.
Coming soon: We don’t have the time or money to set up a website, what do we do?
This blog is for the principals of small law firms and for those planning on starting their own small law firms.
The blog will concern itself primarily with legal software or legal practice management software, and with what is called “content” – the legal forms, legal precedents and research tools and guides needed for a small law firm to be successful.
Legal technology is not really about hardware anymore. It is far more about the business systems that good legal software imposes, the knowledge contained in the system.
At LEAP Legal Software (www.leap.com.au) , we think about and talk about these issues every day. It is true to say that we are obsessed with creating the very best software that we can. This Blog will enable us to share some of our thoughts with the small firm community at large. It will hopefully also provide us with a source of good ideas that we can consider for development in the future.
Small law firms have unique technology requirements. Without the time and resources of large firms established small firms as well as start up firms want solutions that can help them get up and going as quickly as possible.
What is a legal practice management system? In the past, in Australia, the term really only described a legal accounting system like Locus or Open Practice. If you are reading an American article, a legal practice management system contains only front office tools, and no accounting at all!
At LEAP we think that it means a lot more than either of these narrow definitions. LEAP Office, our flagship legal practice management system includes forms, precedents, document management , critical date management, workflow control, time recording, billing, legal accounting and trust accounting as well! A much more extensive range of functions. So if you currently use one of the older systems like Locus or Open Practice, don’t let your thinking be limited by what you have – take a look instead at how extensive a modern PMS can be – it will streamlline your practice in all areas and allow you to do more work with fewer people.
We hope to provide useful insight into how great legal software can be used to:-
Improve the bottom line;
Make the practice of law more satisfying;
Help you to meet your clients needs quickly and accurately.
The views expressed here will be based on our experiences with providing software to thousands of small law firms. We look forward to our assumptions being challenged and to lively debate over some of our views.
So please feel at liberty to comment on any of the Blog topics.
After the GFC, the word growth is on everyones lips. After a short period of despondency, there is a lot of confidence in the future. Small firms are growing and more lawyers are decising to set up their own small firms.
So our main Blog topic is timely – Growth.