I’ve noticed lawyers pop into LinkedIn or Twitter once in a blue moon and then completely disappear.

If that’s you and you’d like to figure out how to enjoy some of the benefit others have found on social media, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. You need a strategy. Define your target audience, point of different and purpose for your engagement, so you’re not scratching your head wondering what to do everytime you log in at LinkedIn.
2. Don’t waste your time on sites that aren’t aligned with your goals. The fastest way to get turned off social

♫ Their habits, I confess
None can guess with the couple…♫

Lyrics and music by Sammy Cahn and Neal Hefti.

Look at your desk and office. Whose office does yours resemble?  Oscar Madison’s or Felix Unger’s? Is your desk neat and tidy or more a hodgepodge of piles of paper, old coffee cups and files stacked everywhere with food wrappers interspersed? Of course The Odd Couple accented the extreme personal differences between Oscar, who is perhaps the world’s most famous slob and Felix, the extreme clean freak, as a way to create an underlying comedic friction as the backdrop …

Death, taxes and change.

Reputedly, these are among life’s inevitabilities. And while there is probably very little we can do about death and taxes, change is something we truly can manage.

A central theme of many of my Practice Tips posts has been the importance of planning for law firms and other professional practices. By occasionally stepping back from the demands of our day-to-day dealings and deadlines, we can gain the benefit of a longer view, think about objectives, and develop strategies and routines to meet our short and longer term goals.

There will be many changes along the way, …

When you go to a conference and network with a diverse group of lawyers it isn’t necessarily obvious what you should do to prepare. The typical advice is to get a primer on recent headlines within the industry, or at the very least with local happenings. While this is good advice to start up a conversation, the tip I want to give today is that it’s possible to network well and make a memorable mark by “knowing nothing”.

The trick is to take a deep interest in people you seek to make a connection with. What are their hobbies? What …

When I speak to lawyers about improving productivity, some of the best feedback I receive is how to stop distractions. Research has shown that every time a person is interrupted from a task, it takes some 20 minutes to return to it. Each interruption costs productivity and, if you bill by the hour, you lose the chance to docket “0.3”. Here are some common distractions and what you can do about it.

Turn off cell phone notifications

Every cell phone beep pulls you out of the task you’re working on. If you are in the office, chances are the notification …

1. Slow Down.The point is to use email to increase productivity, not be the fastest to respond.  Common courtesy is to respond within 24 hours.

2. Be Professional.Yes, that joke your buddy sent you last night was a hoot, but you should never forward such communications to business contacts.

3. Protect Your Friends. When sending a message to a group, do not disclose your recipient’s email addresses.  Use the “bcc” (blind carbon copy) field for multiple addresses and place your own email address in the “To” field.

4. Do Not Use “Forward to All” and “Reply to All” Functions.I

A law firm retreat is an opportunity to bring together those most invested in the future of the firm, to discuss just that… the future of the firm.

Yes, it’s true, some firms treat it as a perk, a mini-vacation if you will. But don’t let that cloud your assessment of the true potential of a retreat.

For law firms that take the time to do it right – pre-planning, professional facilitation and action planning – a retreat can be absolutely invaluable. The clarity and insight that comes out of that single meeting can drive the firm’s plan for the …

In 2008, I attended a talk by the late (great) Eddie Greenspan, Q.C. at the Law Courts Inn. His topic was digital security, in particular public CCTV, email, and smartphones, especially those with recording devices. He despised all three. Public CCTV, because of the invasion of privacy by the state (I can get behind that to a certain extent). Email, because it meant he received so much more communication that it took ages for his assistant to print and for him to scrawl shorthand replies for her to type. Smartphones were especially problematic in his view. He suggested that a …

Tsunami, blizzard, avalanche, flood, plague. There are many ways to describe the volume of emails that hit your Inbox every day. One aspect of the problem that is created by the flood is managing the clients’ expectations. Intellectually they might appreciate that you have more than one client and are busy but, intuitively, they expect a reply to their emails almost immediately. Here is one way to provide that reply and yet maintain the right to manage your own priorities in a meaningful way.

You know how to create a Signature in your email app – and it does not …

Last week, in ‘How to Ask for Referrals – Part I,’ we heard from lawyers and accountants. This week, we will hear from consultants.

FROM THE CONSULTANTS:

Mark Federman, Ph.D
Federman – Reengagement Realized

Asking for a referral is, by definition, all about me. It’s something I want to benefit my business. A more effective ask would be to turn this around, and offer a benefit to the potential referrer first. Using your great probing and listening skills, determine what interests the other person. What problems do they have for which you might be able to offer a …