Rethinking the roles of your support staff

Hacked: What to do if your office computers are breached

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: May 20, 2013
Tags: Law Office Management, Technology

While stories of foreign hackers and data breaches may seem unlikely in the commonwealth, “it can happen to anyone,” warned John Simek, vice president of Sensei Enterprises, a digital forensics and information security company in Fairfax. Take the example of criminal defense firm Puckett & Faraj in Alexandria. Last year, the firm was one of [...]

Virtual practice: Lawyers hanging a shingle in cyberspace

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: April 29, 2013
Tags: Ethics, Law Office Management, Rules of Professional Conduct, Technology, Virginia State Bar

In Melissa Howell’s employment law practice, she rarely meets with her clients in her Norfolk office space. Instead, her clients prefer to work with her via phone and email or have her come to them, where she can access employment records and interview witnesses. Matthew Kaplan, who practices law out of his home in Arlington, [...]

How to go paperless and address ethical concerns

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: March 7, 2013
Tags: Law Office Management, Technology

Lawyers chasing the goal of running a paperless office are finding that both practical and ethical concerns can cause bumps in the road. Are there some documents that must remain in their original – i.e., paper – form? How many years must lawyers keep files before they can be destroyed? Can a law practice ever [...]

Making an elder law practice more efficient

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: February 19, 2013
Tags: Elder Law, Law Office Management

The first and most important step in promoting efficiency is to know your practice areas well. A close second is to aggressively provide training for everyone in your office. Successful firms understand that they must invest in their people, their training, and their technology. When people have the right skills and understand the work process, [...]

Thought for the New Year: ‘Not your father’s legal marketplace’

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: January 7, 2013
Tags: Law Office Management

“This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” You may recall that famous advertising slogan from the 1980s. One could use a similar phrase when describing today’s legal marketplace. Changes in billing methods, improvements in technology, a turbulent economy and the globalization of the legal practice have left us with a landscape far different from the one [...]

How to protect your practice from difficult clients

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: September 10, 2012
Tags: Law Office Management

Keeping control of clients who become difficult to manage and making sure you filter out the not-so-good clients in the first place are essential to maintaining a successful law practice and holding on to your sanity. This can be especially important in family law matters, where emotions tend to run high. But I’ve found that [...]

Accept the plastic, but forget the fee

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: August 30, 2012
Tags: Law Office Management, Legal Ethics Opinion

In the wake of a proposed settlement between credit card-issuers Visa and MasterCard and merchants that would allow vendors to pass along “swipe fees” to their customers, lawyers who accept “plastic” are grappling with the issue of whether such up-charges are a good practice. Previously, merchants were unable to recoup the fees — typically 1 [...]

Employers face risk if rules on work use of personal devices aren’t clear

By Kimberly Atkins
Published: August 8, 2012
Tags: Employment, Law Office Management, Technology

Employers are increasingly allowing their employees to use their own laptops, tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices for work purposes – and that is creating a plethora of potential legal issues. Employment defense lawyers say that every business should have a clear, written policy covering all aspects of the use of personal electronic devices, regardless [...]

Could your practice be a virtual success?

By Edward Poll
Published: June 7, 2012
Tags: Law Office Management, Technology

The Internet has created a revolution in the way lawyers and clients interact, but the “virtual” lawyer must not lose sight of the “actual” client. The most familiar form of the online revolution’s impact on small and solo law firms is the use of the Internet for everything from websites and blogs to client updates [...]