Author Archives: David Bilinsky & Laura Calloway
Good Communications = Satisfied Clients
As Richard Ferguson, a lawyer friend of ours says on his email message:
“People may forget what you said….
People may forget what you did….
but people will never forget …
Top 10 Financial Errors: #10 Rely on the Lottery for Your Partnership Retirement Plan
“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating” was said once by Oscar Wilde.
The final tip in this series is the capstone issue in our …
Top 10 Financial Errors: #9 Avoid Having a Written Office-Sharing or Partnership Agreement
Max Amsterdam once said: “Business is the art of extracting money from another man’s pocket without resorting to violence.”
The purpose of having a written agreement between all …
Top 10 Financial Errors: #8 Always Assume More Risk Than Needed
You should assess whether you can accept the financial risks associated with taking the matter, just as clients will assess whether they can (and will) pay your fee. Spend time at the beginning of the relationship to learn if the client is able and willing to pay a reasonable fee for the legal work the client wants done.
Top 10 Financial Errors: #6 Think You Don’t Need a Fee Agreement With Each Client.
It is a huge financial mistake to not record in writing the very nature of the contractual relationship with each and every one of your clients.
Top 10 Financial Errors: #5 Don’t Track Your Time
By the time I have money to burn, my fire will have burnt out. ~Author Unknown
There is much talk today about lawyers moving to alternative billing. We happen to …
Top 10 Financial Errors: #4 Failing to Regularly Reconcile Your Trust Acccounts
A lawyer's trust account often poses a lawyer’s greatest risk for ethics trouble. Yet it seems that one of the tasks lawyers quickly delegate is that of properly maintaining client trust accounts.
Top 10 Financial Errors: #3 Using Accounting Software Without Financial Modeling and Reporting.
Although moving to a different accounting package may be a troublesome undertaking, remaining with one that doesn’t help you run your business will be more expensive and troublesome in the longer run.
Top 10 Financial Errors: #1 – Cash Flow
Failing to develop a cash flow projection (your budget) as against anticipated expenses is one of the surest ways to get into financial trouble and as such, it tops our list as our #1 financial error.
Kick Procrastination to the Curb!
Many lawyers deal daily with a subtle form of procrastination – working on “busywork” to avoid the important but intimidating jobs that they should be working on. This behavior creates a vicious cycle that causes stress which, often, leads to additional procrastination which, in turn, leads to more stress and, you guessed it, more procrastination.
