2008 August

Do You Need Another You?

August 29, 2008 By LaurieMapp

There are lots of tools and gadgets that a home office lawyer can use to great advantage. But even the biggest technophiles can only save so much time with gadgets. Recently I read a post from someone who said she wished she could “clone” herself so she could get more done in a day.

Cloning might be a rather expensive solution though, and frankly I’m not sure when all is said and done if it would be worth the hassle. If you need another set of hands and some true human intelligence to go with it, you may want to consider the much easier option of hiring a virtual paralegal or virtual legal assistant. And you won’t even need to feed her like you would the clone (an occasional Starbucks card isn’t a bad idea though….just kidding!)

The list of tasks you can get a virtual legal assistant to help you with is impressive. You can have her do a rough draft of affidavits or agreements; proofread and format documents; conduct legal research and provide a summary; liaise with clients; transcribe from audio or digital files; or any number of administrative tasks. You can also get assistance with your online profile, blog research, blog comment moderation, monitoring of Google alerts or email management.

Another great way to utilize your virtual legal assistant is as backup when you take time off for vacations, maternity or sick leave, or to attend conferences. Your virtual legal assistant can monitor your email and voice messages for you and contact you only in truly urgent circumstances. It gives clients a point of referral when they feel the need to speak to a real person in your absence, instead of just getting an “out of office” message.

So next time you find yourself wishing for a clone, or just a whole lot of help, consider a virtual legal assistant. I think you’ll find it to be a wonderful tool for your practice!

Laurie Mapp is a Virtual Legal Assistant and owner of Halo Secretarial Services. She posts regularly at Halo Secretarial’s Blog.

Filed Under: Outsourcing Tagged With: Halo secretarial, virtual legal assistant

Why Your Blog Needs Breadcrumbs – And How To Make It Happen

August 26, 2008 By Jay Fleischman

Breadcrumbs are delicious, wonderful when coating chicken for dinner. They are also a critical part of your website or blog navigation. In the world of web development, breadcrumbs are

a navigation technique used in user interfaces. Its purpose is to give users a way to keep track of their location within programs or documents. The term is taken from the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the popular fairytale.

So why does your blog or website need breadcrumbs? Well, as I said – they’re delicious. In the context of your website, that means they make it easier to navigate from one place to another. Users can navigate from one part of your site to another, and search engines can more easily determine the structure of your site when they spider through it.

Unfortunately, many sites do not have breadcrumbs. As of this writing, none of my sites have them. But thanks to a terrific WordPress plug-in from Yoast, I will remedy that soon enough.

Get your hands on the plug-in if you use WordPress. And if not, talk to your web designer and ask that breadcrumbs be put onto your site immediately.

You’ll thank me for it. Really. But save me some chicken for dinner, ok?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Why Your Email Address Stinks

August 25, 2008 By Jay Fleischman

Ever receive an email from another lawyer – opposing counsel, someone looking for a referral, or merely a stranger who is reaching out to you with a question – and see their address is from AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, or another freebie service? I’m not talking about listserv emails, just the ones that they are using for “real” business.

What’s your impression of that lawyer?

Do they seem serious, professional, trustworthy? Or does their message fall a little flatter than might otherwise be the case?

It’s so inexpensive to get a domain name, and so simple to set up your own email address for that domain, that it’s nearly criminal to tout yourself as a professional while walking around with an email address that scream, “I’m too cheap – or too poor – to shell out the meager $10 a year for a domain of my one!”

Don’t care about what other people think of your AOL account? Well, what happens if AOL’s servers go all screwy and you lose your email?

Think it can’t happen? Guess again.

Don’t believe me? Check out this post on Technotheory about why you absolutely need your own email address.

Filed Under: Office Technology

Current Law Students Eligible for Lifetime Scholarships at SPU

August 25, 2008 By Grant Griffiths

Law students, you need to jump on this ASAP. This is your opportunity to be involved in one of the best things to come along for those looking at a legal profession.

On August 20th we broadcast a special message to subscribers of our Solo Practice University™ E-zine who identified themselves as ’students’:

Perks of Being A Law Student (And Subscribed To This E-zine)

There are some perks to being a law student!

When you subscribed to this e-zine, you identified your status as that of a ’student’. And I am all about helping law students.

If you have been following our progress at Solo Practice University™ then you know we are building a revolutionary new web-based educational and professional networking community for lawyers and law students.

Here comes the perk. We need you to help us private beta test the site. And as a thank you for helping us to private beta test the site, you will be able to enroll at Solo Practice University™ tuition-free….for as long as you remain a practicing lawyer.

We haven’t announced to the general public yet that Solo Practice University™ will be an extremely high value, low tuition membership site, but we’re pretty confident most readers have already figured this out

But that won’t be an issue for those who help us private beta test because they will be on ‘full’ scholarship for being the earliest adopters.

So, if you have a genuine interest in going solo, please send me a confidential e-mail at susan (at) solopracticeuniversity.com confirming:

your law school status;

your law school;

whether you remain sincerely interested in going solo;

why going solo is your chosen route for practicing your profession;

how you think Solo Practice University™ can help you achieve your goals;

your personal e-mail address AND your school e-mail address (both required).

We will make available 100 scholarships to current law students.
his means you will be starting your 1L, 2L or 3L (or 4L if you are part time) year at law school in September 2008.

If you know of others who may want to participate, please let them know this opportunity exists and to send me an e-mail at susan (at) solopracticeuniversity.com with the requested information.

We have 37 scholarships left.

If you a current law student, or someone you know is, and are sincerely interested in going solo and would benefit from a lifetime scholarship to Solo Practice University™, please send me an e-mail answering all the questions asked in the e-zine and listed above…. as soon as possible. We are limiting our lifetime scholarships to 100. The next round of private beta testing will begin shortly.

Yours truly,
Susan

Source for Post Solo Practice University.

Filed Under: Law Office Management

MILO Chat Weekly – Episode 6 – I'm All Air All The Time

August 6, 2008 By Grant Griffiths

MILO Chat Weekly – Episode 6a – ‘I’m All Air All The Time’

Regular crew: Ben Steven, Finis Price, Grant Griffiths, Victor Medina

Comments?’ Send them to milochat@macsinthelawoffice.com

Subscribe to this podcast using iTunes!’

Embedded player here:

Download the podcast directly by right-clicking and saving this link

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office

Juggling Multiple Sites and Duplicate Content

August 6, 2008 By Jay Fleischman

If you are running multiple websites for your law office you need to be careful to avoid repeating content among them. In addition, it’s important to refrain from duplicating content on your site that may be on someone else’s site. This may occur if you decide to (ahem) borrow someone else’s content, or when another lawyer gives you permission to use their content.

Many bankruptcy lawyers, for instance, have bankruptcy myths or the biblical underpinnings of bankruptcy on their site. It’s a good read, and I imagine that clients like to see that sort of stuff.

The problem is that such duplicate content may be harming your site’s ranking on the major search engines.

Search engines reward original, relevant content that is information-rich. If a search engine sees your site as being nothing more than a poseur in terms of content, it gives a little yawn and moves on – leaving you in the dust.

I recently ran across an excellent interview with a search engine optimization professional, and wanted to share it with you – check it out here.

The site you save will be your own.

Filed Under: Legal Marketing Tagged With: duplicate content, SEO, web marketing