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Most of my blog posts are not Oklahoma-specfic, but this one does mention some OBA resources. It also contain links to much useful free content for anyone opening a new law practice anywhere.

Each year we have a free program for lawyers who are opening a new law practice. The next programs are scheduled September 16, 2019 in Tulsa at the Tulsa County Bar Association and September 18 in Oklahoma City at the Oklahoma Bar Center. We will be sharing registration information with our bar members soon. We also have an Opening Your Law Practice page with links and some downloadable articles for anyone that many will find useful. Your attention is particularly directed to the two papers at the top-listed links.

I did a “takeaways” column after one of these programs called Ten Tips From the OBA Opening Your Law Practice Program. I  wanted to share this because it contains some great tips mixed in with OBA member resources. So if you know someone who is about to embark on setting up a law practice, whether they are a 3L or a partner who is leaving their firm, share the link to this blog post with them and also suggest they might subscribe to get my future blog posts via email or RSS feed. If you are interested in the topics covered at the upcoming Opening Your Law Practice program, here’s the schedule of what we think is important to know. We have updated a lot for this program.

Another major new resource for Oklahoma lawyers is Oklahoma Bar Intellidrafts. One of the challenges for new lawyers is locating forms and other guides for document drafting. The lawyer will add their own touches and customizations to legal forms, but it is much easier not to begin drafting with a blank Word document. For many years, the Oklahoma Bar Association, like many bar associations, sold an OBA form book. But to better serve our members, we have now released Oklahoma Bar Intellidrafts, legal form templates powered by automated document assembly tools. We have even included an automated Oklahoma child support computation form. This service includes my two biggest requirements: 1) The output is in a Word document so the lawyer can easily make any customizations and edits that they wish, and 2) the lawyer can save the data so if there are subsequent documents on a client matter you can only enter new data and you don’t have to re-enter the previously-entered information. This will be very useful on multistage pleading matters like probate proceedings. Lawyers saving time with document drafting should result in lower fees for their clients. Read my column on Oklahoma Bar Intellidrafts from the Oklahoma Bar Journal and, if you are an Oklahoma Bar member you can subscribe to the service at the Oklahoma Bar Intellidrafts site. If you cancel your subscription within the first 30 days, your credit card will not be charged, so yes, there is a free trial.

This week I am taking a look back at a few things I should have blogged about in 2018, but didn’t. More details on the reasons why later.

One of the challenges in building or maintaining a law practice is the need to continually develop new clients and/or engagements. Direct face-to-face solicitation of individual clients is still a prohibited activity for most lawyers. Law firm marketing is now often handled in part by a professional at larger law firms, but associates soon learn that they had better develop their own book of business if they want to make partner. And for the medium-sized to small law firms, this often gets added to the list of tasks of a lawyer who already has too much on his or her plate. It is still an amazing and silly thing to me that some jurisdictions expressly prohibit granting MCLE credit for presentations on marketing and client development. One of the greatest challenges to any business, but especially a professional services firm, is presenting themselves to the public. So if there are concerns about how advertising and marketing is done appropriately and professionally, one would think good training in that area would be essential.

But one thing lawyers have told me consistently over the years and one thing I share in my client development presentations is that your very best clients—those who trust you, are easy to work with and pay their bills on time—are those who come to your firm via referrals. If someone they know and trust shares your name and says you can be trusted, that is a huge positive first step in building a great attorney-client relationship. Building a professional network is its own challenge and so I wrote a column on Building and Maintaining Your Professional Network. Having a network of people who know you and take an interest in referring clients to you is a valuable resource. But developing one is not easy. i hear stories from lawyers all the time of attending “networking” events and finding themselves only talking to a few people in attendance that they already knew. There are different ways of networking and you have to find one that meets your needs.

I reached out to Mike Whelan, author and host of the Lawyer Forward conferences, after seeing some of his Twitter discussions about building your tribe and he shared some valuable insights, including the fact that your tribe likely cannot be as large as you might think it should be. I also covered what to do if a formerly good referral source “drys up” and how to avoid that happening. Spoiler Alert: “Nothing” is not the correct answer. I hope you enjoy Building and Maintaining Your Professional Network.

This week I am taking a look back at a few things I should have blogged about in 2018, but didn’t. More details on the reasons why later.

One of our best Digital Edge podcasts of 2018 was The Cloudy Ethics of Cloud Computing with Lucian I. Pera. Lucian is a partner with Adams and Reese, LLP and writes the Ethics column for ABA’s Law Practice Magazine. He was named the youngest member of the ABA Ethics 2000 Commission, was ABA Treasurer for 2011-2014 and served on the ABA Board of Governors. We have co-presented on the intersection of legal ethics and technology together before and he is a most engaging and knowledgeable presenter.

My most frequent discussion topic with lawyers is cloud computing and their top two concerns are security and the legal ethics implications. If you have an interest or concern in that area, you will enjoy this podcast.

And if you do not like listening to podcasts (Sharon and I will try not to take offense), there is a transcript of the podcast at the podcast link.

This week I am taking a look back at a few things I should have blogged about in 2018, but didn’t. More details on the reasons why later.