Tips from the CPM ICYMI Newsletter (October 2021 – January 2022)
Every week subscribers receive the ICYMI enewsletter from the NCBA Center for Practice Management. The newsletter highlights tips, tools, trends, and techniques to help your law practice. Following are a few popular links from the past issues of the newsletter.
Judge Disparaged Lawyer, Apparently Unaware of Livestream: ‘Can You Imagine Waking Up Next to Her Every Day?’ (January 21, 2022)
We have all heard of the speaker going to the bathroom with the lavalier microphone still on – embarrassing! However, in our virtual world it can be much worse as meetings and court proceedings are live streamed to the internet for anyone to watch. In this case, unaware of the open microphone, a judge in Cook County made some very unfortunate remarks and has now been taken off the bench. A cautionary tale.
Things You Should Never Say to Someone Struggling with Depression (January 14, 2022)
Many lawyers (and a lot of other people) are dealing with depression. Telling someone that things will get better, look on the bright side, or other bits of wisdom may seem like the right thing to say but for those with depression platitudes are not very helpful. This article points out what to say instead.
Life and Death of Technology: 2022 (January 7, 2022)
What changed in big tech and what are we likely to see in 2022? From better drones to the unintended consequences of Apple’s AirTags, Ted Claypoole in the HeyDataData blog from Womble Bond Dickinson provides an overview of 2021 and forecasts 2022. Why is this important? From productivity to privacy, these changes affect your business and change the law.
Showing Value in Billing Descriptions (December 17, 2021)
Have you ever had a client write down a bill? Or question an amount? Your bill is one of your most important client communications. Find ways to show the value of the work you do for clients, follow best practices for billing and send invoices that clients pay without question. You can also develop standardized descriptions for your whole firm to use if you do not already use billing codes with your clients. See also Clio’s breakdown of time tracking tools.
“Smishing”: The Newest and Most Popular Scam for Cyber Thieves (December 10, 2021)
As more people switch from a landline to a mobile phone as their primary phone number and give it out as part of their contact information, the more that information is available to hackers and scammers. Whereas you are probably on guard regarding email, you will need to be increasingly wary of SMS (text) messages as an attack vector.
Lawyer Is Suspended for Texting Witness During Phone Deposition; How Did Opposing Counsel Find Out? (December 3, 2021)
Like email, it is far too easy to send a text message to the wrong person. That is exactly what happened in this case. There are certainly ethical considerations for lawyers using text with clients, but there are a lot of tools that reduce the risk, like using business text messaging or messaging within a practice management application.
The Best Tech Products of 2021 (November 19, 2021)
The season of gift giving approaches and just in time PC Magazine has issued a list of the best tech products of 2021. Whether shopping for gifts, for your firm, or for yourself, this list includes their “best of” picks for laptops, tablets, mobile devices, health and fitness, smart home devices, televisions and home theater, audio, cameras and more! Each product is thoroughly reviewed and offers pros and cons, pricing and purchase links
How to Keep an Upsetting Text from Ruining Your Day, according to a Neuroscientist (November 12, 2021)
Have you ever gotten a text, email, or voice message that derailed your day? You cannot focus on the task at hand because you are distracted with reviewing the message over and over in your mind? This article provides a few pointers on how to re-direct your attention with mindfulness.
‘Nobody Asked Me, But …’ My Thoughts on Legal Ethics, Practice Management (November 05, 2021)
Dan Siegel writing for the Legal Intelligencer outlines some ways to avoid ethical issues in everyday practice. For instance, he illustrates how the simple “reply all” can get you in hot water, jurisdictional issues and remote work, and the new ABA opinion on language access in client-lawyer relationships.
One Word in A Purchase Agreement Leads To $310M Malpractice Suit Against 2 Biglaw Firms (October 29, 2021)
Just in time for Halloween, this is a very scary story. If you can get multiple people to review a document do so. If you can’t then try to give yourself time to put it away and come back with fresh eyes. Printing a document for proofing may help you catch errors you wouldn’t see on the screen and take advantage of proofing tools in your software, like having the document read aloud to you
6 Ways Lawyers Should Be Using Microsoft Word (October 22, 2021)
Mark Palmer writes about tools in Microsoft Word you may know about but forget to use. For instance, features like Compare Documents, removing metadata via document inspection, and setting up templates can speed up your work and help you avoid embarrassing (or worse) errors.
Best Advanced Zoom Tips: Custom Backgrounds, Emoji, And More (October 15, 2021)
Even though you have likely become a Zoom expert, there is always something new to learn. This article from Fast Company has a few tips, like hiding non-video participants (especially useful if you have a whole lot of people and you want to see faces, not boxes), exploring Zoom apps, and how to give better presentations on Zoom with an iPad Pro.
How To Find and Replace Text in Microsoft Word (October 8, 2021)
Find and replace in MS Word is a very powerful tool and can do more than just find text – you can fix formatting issues and other issues (ever copied the text from a PDF into Word to find a gazillion line breaks?). This tutorial shows you some advanced techniques to take advantage of this feature.
Each week the ICYMI newsletter from the Center for Practice Management provides the latest practice management news in a digestible format. We do the curating, so you don’t have to!