Paralegal News: Work-Life Balance and Client Acquisition Costs
Every month, every week, even every day new content surfaces with helpful tips and tricks to support growth in your paralegal career. You’re busy taking care of the demanding tasks of organizing a case, chasing down transcripts, and scheduling important events to ensure the outcome your client deserves. Finding the time in your busy day to stay current on news and legal insights is daunting.
You honestly just don’t have time.
So, we’re here to help you. Every month, we’ll compile some of our favorite articles to help guide you to be a better, more informed paralegal.
Read on.
Brushing Your Teeth in the Shower: A Guide for Making It as a New Lawyer
Our profession and industry as a whole face challenges, and the path to success may look different than those of your predecessors. The following is an informal guide to some of the strategies that I have picked up along the way to assist young lawyers in multi-tasking, finding efficiencies, impressing their bosses, and generally distinguishing themselves in a profession replete with intelligent, hard-working and creative individuals. In reviewing the below list, please note that just like the fluid nature of our profession, distinguishing yourself from your peers and colleagues is much more of an art than a science—learn, adapt, and creatively challenge yourself in a manner than works for you.
5 Ways to Cut Legal Research Costs
Billable hours are a fine balancing act, and time spent researching can easily start to accumulate, even for an experienced attorney, when encountering a new issue. Avoid having to cut precious billable hours and save time while conducting online legal research with the 5 tips below.
How to Prepare for Oral Argument
Oral argument is one of the most exciting parts of litigation, and only a few lawyers are really good at it. But even if you aren’t a naturally-talented presenter, you can still improve. The important thing is to get away from your outline and use a more “modular” approach to oral argument. Many lawyers—especially those new to law practice—prepare for oral argument the same way, by creating an outline and rehearsing as they would for a speech. They may prepare for questions by talking through the issues with a colleague, but this does not usually result in effective oral argument. What it does result in is a stiff argument, awkward recovery after answering questions, and an ineffective presentation overall.
A Solo’s Tips on Balancing Client Calls and Personal Time
If you’re a solo practitioner or in a small law firm, you are likely a slave to your smartphone, making sure clients can always reach you. As managing partner at a small firm, I found it increasingly difficult to keep up with clients’ demands as my practice grew. Many weekends I spent more time on my phone talking and emailing with clients than I spent enjoying my “free” time. The constant need to return client calls and emails after hours was causing me great stress and affecting my personal relationships. If you’re struggling to find a balance between clients’ expectations with respect to after-hours communications and maintaining a healthy personal life, I have five tried and tested tips to help you.
How to Prepare Your Law Department For The Future: Evaluate Your Succession Planning Needs
It’s no secret that the population is getting older. Here in the United States, the baby boomer generation is starting to retire. As they do so, many businesses are finding themselves caught short with respect to succession management (i.e., failing to properly prepare for the leaving or retirement of a senior executive like their general counsel). In fact, a recent report from Thomson Reuters shared that only a quarter of legal departments are planning for the generational shift. This lack of planning can lead to big problems down the road.
How to Calculate Client Acquisition Cost
Measurements and metrics are important at every step of the firm workflow, even during client development. Other than the unique ethical advertising considerations applicable to lawyers, we can borrow from small business development practices and technology. In the second of this five-part series on key performance indicators (KPIs), we’ll examine the calculations for client acquisition cost (CAC) to answer the question of how much is spent before the client’s matter begins.