Thanks to technology, we have habits no previous generation has ever had. You probably wake up in the morning and pick up your cell phone first thing. You check your emails before you brush your teeth. You sit down at your desk in the office and check your emails before you check your to-do list. You hear a chime and look at your phone and check your emails in the middle of a contract you’ve been drafting for the last hour. You think there’s got to be a better way. And there is. Now, I don’t yearn for the way …

2019 is here and rather than lament about funds you already spent in 2018, now is the time to get back on track and set savings goals.  Statistics say the average millionaire saves at least 20 percent of what they earn.  Are you on track to create real wealth for yourself in 2019? If you are an incorporated professional pay close attention to this tip:  There are still ways to save for retirement using your corporation even with the recent tax changes.  Consider the benefits of creating your very own personal pension plan.

 WHAT IS AN INDIVIDUAL PENSION PLAN ?…

The last thing any busy lawyer wants to add to their already overflowing plate is business development.

Scratch that.

The last thing any busy lawyer wants is the pressure to come up with a ‘winning’ new idea for business development and then to work on implementing that idea on an urgent basis.

Here’s the problem. While you may be too busy to think about marketing today, you may not be headed for quite the same level of activity in the foreseeable future.

So, avoid setting yourself up to have to figure it all out while you’ve got your hands …

In case you missed the big news, there’s a new addition to the Slaw family!

Slaw Jobs, a new Canadian legal job listings service, launched earlier this month with listings for positions across the country.  From lawyers to marketers to professors to content managers, there’s already a good variety of positions and employers on the site.

By using Slaw Jobs, you’ll be getting your listing in front of a large and targeted audience and at the same time, supporting the high quality, original legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Learn a bit about the genesis of Slaw Jobs here, and …

These days, a lot of lawyers are wondering how to make the most of LinkedIn. Some are wondering if they even can. So, for this week’s tip, we’re sharing news about a new group which may prove to be an easy entry point to greater participation on the site.

‘Keeping it Social: Practice Development for Lawyers TORONTO’, a collaboration between Bekhor Management and Toronto Lawyers Association is the antithesis to all social media groups! Of the various LinkedIn groups targeting Canadian lawyers, it is the only one that’s actually social.

The group will meet in-person to learn practice development tips …

I would hazard a guess that one of the very first things you do when you sit down at the office is check emails. Of the 5, 10, 50, or 100 emails you are reviewing, are any of them urgent? I suspect you already know what absolutely must be done on any given day. And if something is absolutely urgent, there’s a good chance your client has called you about it already. My tip here is to set aside a time (or times) to check your emails – and that time doesn’t have to be first thing in the morning. …

Who?

Who could help me with this?

One of the biggest mistakes a lawyer can make is not asking for help.

Help can mean many things.

It can mean getting advice on a file. Many lawyers the mistake of going it alone, only to realize too late that turning to another lawyer for guidance would be the best course of action.

Help can be about forming a relationship with a senior lawyer in your practice area for support and guidance. I recently connected a junior lawyer seeking to develop a new practice area with a senior lawyer from a small …

As a lawyer, you identify with being a professional. Strongly and consistently. Perhaps, not as much with being a business person (even if you play a leadership role at your firm)?

Most of the time, that’s just fine. Some of the time, it’s not.

If you don’t see yourself as a business person, not meeting practice goals can become frustrating:

• We used to get a steady stream of referrals. Where have they gone?
• We have a good reputation among our network. Why aren’t we receiving more resumes from talented recruits?
• We hired good people. Why isn’t morale higher?…

You may …

So I belong to this listserv of mostly attorneys and everyone is talking about how they use Google for this and Google for that and all I can think is … is it just me?!  Why would anyone wish Google to be scanning and indexing their business records and documents – let alone a bunch of attorneys?

*start of rant*

Of course, you KNOW – any time your data touches a Google server it is being scanned and indexed. Right?

Seriously – you are giving every keystroke/word <-as best as speech recognition can figure out the words I …

You’ve had an up and down year, and suddenly when it rains, it pours. Clients are coming in by the bucket, tasks are piling up, and you have got to delegate your work. Your articling student ambles up to your office with a gentle knock, asking, “Hi – just wondering if you have any tasks I can help out with?” You make a mental note that this is a keen student, maybe a keeper. You hand her over a file, spend a few seconds explaining the task, and off she goes. That should do it, right?

But the articling student …