This July I will be one of thousands of people sitting in the Pasadena Convention Center, hunched over a laptop and sweating over the California Bar Exam.  The difference between me and many of the other test-takers, however, is that I have already been actively practicing law in New York for more than 16 years.

An Already Busy Life

It’s not as if I’ve got a ton of extra time on my hands, after all.  Not only do I manage an active bankruptcy law firm in New York City, but I also provide comprehensive law firm marketing services to bankruptcy and consumer protection lawyers.  As if that weren’t enough, I’m also partnered up with Cathy Moran in her quest to teach lawyers how to practice bankruptcy.

I’m putting the finishing touches on a book about being an untethered lawyer.  I’ve got another book and video program in the pipeline on email marketing for lawyers.

I give monthly educational seminars to a closed-door group of lawyers in the Legal Practice Pro Community.  My newsletter about content marketing for lawyers goes out once a week.

I’ve just been elected as President of the best damned bankruptcy law portal online.  And I’ve been trying my hand at personal finance blogging.

On the home front, I’ve got a family I enjoy spending time with.  They’re fun to be around, and I’ve structured my life to maximize my time with them.

Lots of irons in the fire.

Rising To The Challenge

Some months ago I was talking with Cathy Moran about the fact that so many of the lawyers who were looking to me for help were practicing in California.  Much of what I offer as a marketing consultant is wrapped up in the fact that I’m a practicing lawyer, and I got to joking about taking the California bar exam.  You know, as additional “street cred.”

Cathy called my bluff and told me that I should take the test.  At first I laughed, but then I took it to be a challenge of sorts.  Did I still have it in me to study for a bar exam, 16 years after sitting for New York?  Could I focus for hours at a time on topics I hadn’t seen since the first time around?

Never one to admit my own limitations, I signed up for the bar.  I planned on telling only my closest friends and family members, figuring that if I failed then the world would be none the wiser.

Why I’m Telling You

This past weekend I was in Memphis to talk at the Fair Credit Reporting Act conference held by the National Association of Consumer Advocates – once on marketing, once on the intersection of the Bankruptcy Code and the FCRA.  The first night I was sitting with my friends Brad Botes and Carole Friend, just having a drink and catching up with some fine folks.

Then Brad dropped a bomb on me.  It seems that he sat for the Mississippi bar exam a full 18 years after his admission.  He was already running a successful bankruptcy law firm of his own when he was studying.  I casually asked him about the studying process, and his answer was telling.

It was the worst test I ever took, he said.  But I had to pass – my entire staff knew I was taking the test so I couldn’t fail.

My mind kept going back to that line on the flight back from Memphis, and I decided that if I came clean with you then I’d have a greater incentive to pass the California bar exam.

You Deserve To Know

Lots of my customers are in California.  Though I’m doing this to better understand your needs, I thought it would seem deceptive and underhanded if I wasn’t the one to tell you about my plans.

I’m not currently planning to open a practice in California.  And though some of the folks I’ve told have offered me jobs as Director of Marketing for their law firms, I’m going to politely decline.

Thanks for showing that level of confidence in me, but I’m just fine right here.

What About Us?

By necessity, my life will become far more complex over the next two months.  I’ve committed to spending a ton of time with my nose buried in study, and I’ve already mentioned the other projects going on in my world.  Something’s got to give.

The posting here on Legal Practice Pro may be less frequent than I’d like, and I may dial back on the number of law firm clients I personally handle.  As to the rest of it, I expect things to continue chugging along smoothly.

The trick is that I apply my time management and untethered lifestyle to every aspect of my professional life.  My team of virtual assistants, associates and skilled professionals supports me and helps keep things running smoothly.  At home, my family supports me wholeheartedly.  My partners, both in my law firm and in my other ventures, are smart and the best at what they do.

Relive The Magic

From time to time I’ll be talking about the challenge of studying for the bar as an experienced lawyer, so you’ll have the thrill of experiencing the horror of bar study all over again.  I hope it doesn’t give you flashbacks, and I’ll try to be kind.

One more thing, just so we’re clear – I’m scared shitless right now.  I’ve taken up a challenge, am doing something I swore I’d never do again, and putting myself out in front of you with the information.  What if I fail?  What if something goes wrong?  What if?

I have no idea if I’m going to pass the bar exam and be able to successfully juggle the rest of my world.  And if I fail then I’ll come to you and we’ll deconstruct it together.  After all, the pass rate fo lawyers who take the California bar exam is something like 37%.  I’m confident that I’m doing everything I can to fall on the right side of the pass rate, but one never knows.

For now, let’s enjoy the ride together.

How about you?  Did you study for the bar after practicing for a long time? Let me know what worked for you in the comments!

Image Credit:  limonada/Flickr

As an office productivity and efficiency matter, downloading PDF files to our computers only to find that they aren’t quite what we wanted is high on the list of time sucks. How many times have you seen something come up on a Google search and said to yourself, “That could be pretty handy!” only to find that it’s garbage?

Maybe it doesn’t take a TON of time but in a law office it all comes down to 1/10 of an hour billing. And if you’re charging a flat rate for your legal services, every minute wasted cuts into your profit margin in a big way.

Well, our friends at Google continue to roll out stuff that makes our lives easier – and our law practices more profitable. Google Quick View displays PDF search results right in your browser browser with all the PDF formating features intact. Although there was a way to view these PDFs before (you could click on “View as HTML”), the old way made you lose all the PDF formatting.

If you wanted to preserve the formatting you’d need to download the PDFs and open them with a desktop PDF viewer.

With Quick View, just click on the “Quick View” link and Google will open the PDF file right in the browser.

One more productivity boost from Google.

Lawyers use their office phones as outgoing vehicles only, and guard themselves from incoming calls like jealous hawks. Voicemail systems, receptionists, paralegals, and all manner of gatekeepers are typically employed with the goal of keeping people away from the lawyer.

Who are you, the great and powerful Oz?

Let’s take a look at the protection mechanism we employ in the name of productivity. First, the client calls. Has to spend time with the receptionist (1 minute). Gets panned off to the paralegal, who tries to coax the client into divulging the nature of the problem (2 minutes) and then tries to resolve the issue (5 minutes or so). Puts client on hold (client’s getting a little antsy by now) to get the lawyer’s take on the matter – and to beg the lawyer to take the call (2 minutes). Lawyer is pulled away from whatever he or she was doing, either takes call or declines (more minutes). Client and paralegal talk, ends up that client needs to talk to lawyer. Lawyer then needs to call client back, by which time the client is all sort of bent out of shape because a 2 minute question has involved 3 people and about 20 minutes of back-and-forth.

You’ve got two really good productivity choices when it comes to your office phone.

Answer Your Own Damn Phone! Come on, clients want to talk to you. You’re their lawyer. They’re paying for your expertise. Eliminate the middle-people, let them do their work uninterrupted, and just take the call. It cuts down the amount of time needed to help the client, and makes the client happier.  My friend Chuck Newton likes this approach, and it works for him.

Never Answer The Phone! Tim Ferriss uses this approach famously.  I use a modified version of it.

Wait, that’s a productivity tip? Oh sure, it’s good for you … but the client? Yes, gentle reader – it’s good for the client.  Let me explain before you mutiny and abandon this blog forever.

When the client calls, you’re probably working on something else.  You don’t have the file in front of you, don’t have your mental notes organized, and can’t possibly remember every nuance of the matter to be discussed.  So you sound like a half-idiot on the phone, have to go get the file, flip through it, and finally give out some semblance of cogent advice.

Meanwhile, back at the brain, you’ve had to shift out of, “what I was doing,” mode.  You’re now in, “where was I, again?” mode.  Takes some time to get back into the groove, remember your place, and be coherent.

The solution is to unplug the phone and let it all go to voice mail.  Let your clients know when you return phone calls each day, and tell them to leave a detailed message with their callback number for the next callback time.  You collect your messages, pull the information and return them all en masse.  Save time, give clients answers, do a happy dance.

Of course, the key is to prepare your clients for this shift in the way work is done.  Send a letter, an email and let them know when they sign on as clients.  Let people know that you concentrate 100% on each client’s file when it is in front of you, and you know they wouldn’t want you to be distracted by someone else when you’re working on their file.  The street goes both ways.

When I did this in my law practice I thought my clients would mutiny.  Guess what?  My satisfaction surveys came back better than ever.  Proof’s in the pudding.

Wait, wait, you say.  My clients have real emergencies and need to get through to me on a moment’s notice.  How do we fix this problem?

You don’t fix this problem – your client base is what it is.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the second system.  I have a special cell phone that is for client’s only.  Every client is given this number on a secondary business card with firm directions that it is for emergency use only.  If for any reason they use it for non-emergency use, I will never take a cell phone call from them again.  Period.

What does this do?  Well, it gives true emergency access to me without a filter – if someone needs me that bad, they get me without having to jump through hoops.  But more importantly, it forces the client to carefully assess whether they have an emergency or whether this can wait three hours until I call back.  Clients may end up answering their own questions, checking out my website or blog to see if they can get the answer there, or simply waiting for a short time.

Whatever you do to tame the telephone beast, your policy should be clear and broadcast to all clients and prospects.  Doing so provides predictability, reliability, and increases confidence.  When you say you’re going to do something, stick to it – clients will thank you.

Photo courtesy of Max Estes.

Here is a great list from Web Worker Daily of 10 more ways to achieve that work-life balance. While the list is aimed at ‘web-workers”, I really think it can be used by all of us. Especially in this “connected” world we have created.

1. Don’t always be connected. If you’ve got a Blackberry, a laptop or some other mobile device, you can’t ever get away from work. When you’re out of your office (or your home office), allow yourself to be disconnected. You don’t need to get email all the time, the instant it arrives. It can wait a few hours. When you’re away from your computer, you should allow yourself to live. Let this be your most firm boundary. Even better, unplug your Internet connection when a) you want to get some real work done or b) you are done working for the day.

2. Limit work. You need to set working hours. You can’t be working around the clock, from early morning hours to late at night, or you’ll have no life away from work. So set your hours — when you start and end, when you take lunch, even schedule other breaks. And set your limits to less than you work now. Sure, that’ll mean you’ll have less time to do your work, but that’ll force you to focus on the important tasks and eliminate the less important ones.

3. Make life a priority. What do you want to do besides work? And don’t say Twitter or Digg or YouTube. Something outside of the Internet. Exercise, reading, writing, spending time with family and friends, hobbies, sports, gardening. Whatever it is that you love to do, make it a priority. Schedule time to do it. Don’t allow work to push these priorities back.

4. Batch tasks. You have a dozen small tasks that you do throughout the day. Batch them together, like with like, and do them all at once. Email is a good example. Instead of doing email all day, have specific times when you process and respond to email. Same thing with IM: don’t be available all the time, but only once a day (for example). Same thing with phone calls, and other small tasks you do every day. It’ll save you time and stop your important tasks from being constantly interrupted.

5. Define what you want to do today. Web work is never finished. You could do 100 tasks today, and not be done. You won’t do 100 tasks. You might not even do 10. So no matter how much you do, you won’t be done. Instead of putting yourself on that never-ending treadmill, define a limited number of important things you really want to accomplish today. And focus on those.

6. Limit meetings & communication. Meetings, phone calls, IMs all waste your productive time. Which means that you have to work longer to get as much done. Instead, try to get out of every meeting possible. Most meetings can be accomplished through email. And ask people to email instead of call. Then limit email to twice a day (or once, if you’re brave). Or at most, once an hour, if you need to be connected that often.

7. Do the hard stuff first. Reward yourself after a good day’s work by putting the fun and easy tasks at the end. Start your day with the tasks you know you’ll want to put off, and get them out of the way. That way, you have good stuff at the end of the day, and the hard stuff doesn’t weigh you down all day.

8. Slow down. It may seem weird to read ‘slow down’ as a tip when you want to get your work done so you can do stuff outside of work. But in truth, trying to cram a lot of work into a small amount of time is too stressful. I advocate doing less, but focusing on the important stuff … and doing it slower. Pay attention, enjoy yourself, relax a little. This applies to when you’re not doing work … eating, driving, doing fun stuff, showering. Slow down and pay attention, and life won’t seem a huge rush of tasks, but will become more enjoyable.

9. Block schedule. Schedule your day in blocks, so that it’s compartmentalized and there’s time for everything. A block for the important tasks (Item #5), for the smaller tasks (Item #4), for routine tasks or errands or chores, and for the non-work stuff you really want to do (Item #3).

10. Be firm. Whether it’s with a boss or co-workers or clients, you need to have clear boundaries of your time, and be firm with those boundaries. Don’t be afraid to say no. Make your boundaries clear, and don’t allow them to be violated. This may mean telling people that you’re changing how you do email, or your hours, so that they know what to expect. You may get negative reactions. But be firm, and stick to your guns.

Source for Post: Web Worker Daily.