Law Practice Management

The Tennessee Bar Association has a variety of resources and practical information on law office management issues available to help members better serve clients and practice more efficiently and effectively.

Below you will find the Practice Management Advisor Pipes Feed, brought to you by the Law Office Technology & Management Section of the Tennessee Bar Association. "PMA Pipes" is an RSS newsfeed that was designed by the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center. It combines posts from the blogs of Practice Management Advisors from across the United States, as well as the ABA's Site-tation blog, into one convenient location. The blogs brought to you by this feed include: Law Practice Matters, Reid My Blog, Law Practice Tips, Law Practice Advisor, The Last Word, Thoughtful Legal Management, and Compujurist, among others.

Practice Management Advisor Pipes Feed

[Just Oregon Lawyers Blog] Battling Dragons as You Start Your Solo Practice

I see more lawyers these days who are launching their solo practice. Some line up office-sharing arrangements while others decide to go slow by initially working from home. An article I wrote for the Oregon Bar Bulletin, “Home Alone: Where to Hang Your Shingle” may give some ideas for lawyers thinking about this option. An over-riding concern of lawyers starting up their solo practice is making sure that they don’t spend too much money all at once. For some, starting up on...

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http://justoregonlawyers.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/battling-dragons-as-you-start-your-solo-practice/

[Just Oregon Lawyers Blog] Nothing Lasts Forever: The Importance of Planning Ahead

When launching a new law practice, take time to plan ahead for when your law practice will end. You may have every intention of running your firm until you are in your 70s or 80s. But what happens to your law firm if you are suddenly gravely ill and in the hospital? What happens if you don’t survive your hospital stay or worse yet, don’t survive to make it to the hospital? These are sad facts that many lawyers know happened to Someone Else. Today, I want you to consider that Someone...

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http://justoregonlawyers.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/nothing-lasts-forever-the-importance-of-planning-ahead/

[Just Oregon Lawyers Blog] Managing Your Client’s Expectations

For many clients, the decision to get a lawyer is a scary one. How much will it cost me? When do I have to pay? Will the lawyer be able to help me? What will the lawyer do to fix my problem? How long will this take? All questions that run through your client’s mind but may not be asked for a combination of reasons you might find surprising including, because your client is not thinking clearly, is nervous to be in your office, or is afraid you won’t want to help if you are asked...

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http://justoregonlawyers.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/managing-your-clients-expectations/

[SC Small Firm] Law firm Websites

I find that many small law firms have reserved a domain name and have set up their email to use that name, but they have no Web page yet. I think that it’s really important to have some kind of Web presence if you are giving out your email address and it ends in something like @Doelawfirm.com. I imagine the prospective client seeing that domain name and trying to look it up on the Internet. What do they think when nothing is there? When it happens to me, I think that maybe the firm isn’t...

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http://www.scsmallfirm.com/wordpress/2010/07/286/

[SC Small Firm] Old hard drives

A few years back, a professor at a well-known law school told me how his university dealt with old computer hard drives. “We used to pay students to smash them with sledge hammers,” he recalled, “until someone got a piece of metal in his eye. Then we stopped.” Around the same time I heard this tale, I discovered an experiment by MIT researchers. The students at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (I’m sure you have a visual of what they might have looked like) purchased used hard...

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http://www.scsmallfirm.com/wordpress/2010/07/old-hard-drives/

[Law Practice Matters] Gear Review: Tom Bihn Empire Builder

I'm a bit of a bag geek. I really like briefcases, luggage, messenger bags, backpacks, man purses, and all manner of vaguely embarrassing ways to cart my junk around. I even know where to find cool bags on Etsy, which I am pretty sure could get me kicked out of my fantasy football league. I have lots of bags, and I admit it is kind of a problem. Particularly when I end up rocking a bag that makes me look like this: One briefcase that I've been using for better than a year now,...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LawPracticeMatters/~3/lq7-aofdmZY/gear-review-tom-bihn-empire-builder.html

[Law Practice Matters] What Will Be Your Legacy?

I've been interested in the idea of legacy for a long time, probably since I first read Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The topic became a lot more concrete and real to me a few months ago when my dad passed away. As I have dealt with my own grief over his loss and tried to help my mom do the same, I have also been afforded a different view of my father. I got to see the parts of his life that didn't belong to me, my brother, or my mother, but that he shared with the...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LawPracticeMatters/~3/d5-XvmmkAH0/what-will-be-your-legacy.html

[SC Small Firm] Are you Ergo?

Ergonomic, that is. I don’t need statistics to convince you that anyone who works in a law office spends a huge portion of her (and his) time sitting at a desk. I do, and I’m guessing you do too. Studies have found that ergonomic disorders are practically a pandemic problem in the U.S. What you are sitting on is every bit as important as your keyboard, monitor(s) and desk. Recently, I decided to purchase a new chair to use at work. Checking out my co-workers’ offices, there seemed...

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http://www.scsmallfirm.com/wordpress/2010/06/are-you-ergo/

Guide to Setting Up a New Practice

TnBar Management Services provides a detailed guide for setting up a new practice.

Disaster Recovery Guide

The Tennessee Bar Association offers a detailed outline of steps to take in recovering from a disaster.