So what is a professional? Wikipedia explains the term this way:

"A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns their living from a specified activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare Future of the Professionsmembers of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform the role of that profession. In addition, most professionals are subject to strict codes of conduct enshrining rigorous ethical and moral obligations. Professional standards of practice and ethics for a particular field are typically agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations."

In their new book, The Future of the Professions, Richard and Daniel Susskind discuss how ever more powerful technology tools impact the future of most professionals, not just lawyers. As many of you know, Professor Richard Susskind has done extensive research and has written several books relating to the future of the legal profession. The father-son duo were guests on our Digital Edge podcast The Future of the Professions: An Interview with Richard and Daniel Susskind.

They discuss the concept of "the grand bargain" where professionals were granted exclusivity in certain fields generally through a licensing process in order to serve the public interest. The professionals regulated their own professions and provided professional standards. They enforced these standards through various ways including dismissing from the profession those who could not or would not comply. Even though the members of the profession may have benefited from this self-regulation and exclusivity in many ways, including financially, the main goal was to serve the public. There is really no realistic way that those without training and expertise could set the standards for architects. Even if a legislative body attempted to do so, it would have to rely on the expertise of members of the profession.

Enter the machines–the information technology machines. At first they serve as tools to assist the professionals, as when architects work more quickly and effectively using computer-assisted design (CAD) software. But clearly we are moving away from what the authors call our  "printed-based industrial society" to a digital information-based society. We are seeing a lot of realignment. And we will be seeing more, just as the printing press eliminated the the need for scribes who made copies of documents by hand and making flight reservations online severely reduced the number of travel agents.

In education for example, more people have already signed up for Harvard's online offerings than have enrolled at Harvard in the history of the university.

We professionals are proud of our expertise, skill and training. Some of the concepts in this impressive book are challenging. You may disagree with some of the authors' conclusions. But none of us can deny many changes are occuring. Some patients now spend more time with a nurse practitioner or physician's assistant associated with a doctor than the actual doctor. That change has more to do with cost control than technology. Every lawyer is aware of the online legal document assembly services. I hope many of you will read their book, but you can list to this outstanding podcast right now. It is a bit long than our typical podcast because the conversation was so fascinating.

Daniel gave us an example of the card game Solitaire. According to the rules you must play a red card on a black card and vice versa. When one plays with physical cards, you can play a red card on a red card and no one stops you. When you play Solitaire on a computer, however, you cannot make that play as the computer will not allow it. You can extrapolate that concept to technology-assisted administration of medication where the "machine" would not allow one to administer an overdose or to pick the wrong bottle of medicine.

Sharon and I hope you enjoy our Digital Edge podcast The Future of the Professions: An Interview with Richard and Daniel Susskind. 

Have you heard of the new mind reading app? It lets you know the thoughts and emotions of others, especially those from your past that you have not seen in a long time. You can use it to find evidence about everything from people are lying about why they really missed work to why they are angry with their spouse. It is the stuff of science fiction. It is called Facebook.

Now that we have experienced several years of everyone being able to publish their thoughts instantly to a world-wide audience at essentially no cost, we have all learned it is a mixed blessing. Most of us have seen social media missteps and mishaps. Some lawyers have already used them as evidence. Some of these are really funny. Like when the CEO of Frito Lay tweeted out a long series of items he meant to type into the Google search bar, ending with these two tweets “who is tweeting my google searches?” and “who’s watching me?” The answers were “you are” and “as word spreads, millions using social media are.” Social media balls

In my column for the Oklahoma Bar Journal “Thoughts on Social Media: Risks, Rewards and Uncertainties,” I cover several aspects of social media including lawyer marketing via social media and online reviews. This article was a bit stressful to finish as I had done my research weeks earlier and Facebook made a lot of changes as I was finalizing it, including killing the Facebook for Business help pages i was intending to reference. Online reviews are potentially problematic for lawyers. A satisfied client wanting to give you a great review may inadvertently say things that violate the Rules of Professional Conduct and the losing opposing party in litigation may decide to post terrible reviews pretending to be an angry former client.

Here is some back story. Facebook is taking on Yelp with a new local business finder feature that was announced in December. The announcement caused a dip in the price of Yelp stock. Review sites are very popular, but no review site would be worth much if a business could cause any negative reviews to be deleted. (You would end up with the review site equivalent of the Lake Wobegon effect where everyone was above average.) So Facebook only will delete a review on a Facebook business page (to use lawyer language) for good cause. I have concerns about this for lawyers and so have included in my article a workaround to disable reviews entirely, which is more difficult than you might think. Of course, it is Facebook, so that could all change tomorrow.

But I do believe that many lawyers, particularly small firm lawyers, should explore using paid social media campaigns and with Facebook you need some sort of business page to do that.

Enjoy the article, but I will say in advance that there are still changes ahead on  how we use social media, including social media marketing.

 

MeditatingToward a Less Stressful Workplace is my column in the January/February 2015 issue of Law Practice Magazine. Law offices often deal with very high stakes matters under strict time deadlines. It is not news to those in the legal profession that there is a lot of stress associated with being a lawyer. So there may be nothing earth-shattering for you in these tips. But it is the beginning of a new year and aiming for less stress in your life and the lives of your coworkers has to be a good thing. So read and feel free to share.

And the "more clients" part? Well this issue is the marketing issue of Law Practice magazine. Marketing is about getting more clients and better clients. The first feature is a three part discussion on branded legal networks. So if you are not sure what those are or how they relate to you, this may be a great magazine for you to read − virtual cover to virtual cover. Note: If you are an ABA Member, you can join the ABA Law Practice Division to receive the physical magazine or if you are not in the ABA, you can always subscribe to the magazine.

We have just posted one of our best Digital Edge podcasts of the year. So don't miss it.

The Internet’s Role in Client Development is the topic and we feature Gyi Tsakalakis, who is a non-practicing lawyer and the founder of AttorneySync, an online legal marketing agency. Gyi says it is still true today that people often seek recommendations for products or services from people they know. like and trust. But the difference today is that they are often communicating with those people via social media.

Gyi's advice is not limited to social media. He covers much more, including why the traditional law firm website is still important.

And on the podcast site, Gyi has provided us with many links to great resources. I strongly encourage you to listen to this podcast.

Client Development podcast

Today's announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration that most drones must be registered with the FAA by February 19 may not impact you personally. But you should take some time to become familiar with the details. This will be good for a lot of conversation over the holiday season and, as a lawyer, you should be prepared to have an informed discussion over the topic. Drone

After all, some parents are going to be quite concerned when they hear they are going to be required to register Junior's Christmas present with the federal government. That by itself would provoke some interesting holiday party conversations. You don't have to do a lot of research to be up to speed on this hot topic. Just read the online coverage and commentary from today's announcement so you can have all the details handy. The fact you can get your $5 fee refunded if you apply within the first 30 days will be a detail of interest to some. You are probably already aware of the near-misses with aircraft and small drone crashes into public events that have created the perceived need for registration.

If you did not know that there were lawyers practicing drone law today, just do some online searches for "drone law" or "drone lawyer" to see some interesting results. And for bonus points at the holiday party you might want to read a bit on some the the drone law sites to learn what a Section 333 Grant of Exemption entails.

The main point here is that drone law is a new and developing area of the law. There will be an opportunities for lawyers with an interest in this area to serve clients on a topic we wouldn't have even understood just a few years ago. This will be one of many emerging areas of the law in the near future. But the secondary point is that it is good for a lawyer to be both entertaining and authoritative in social setting. Being armed with a fun topic will be better than answering those same old questions that people often ask lawyers when they first meet them.

Tech toys 2015
Every year about this time, Sharon Nelson and I do our fun annual tech toys podcast. This year's edition is  ‘Tis the Season: Tech Toys for the Holidays 2015.

Some of these tech toys are related to the legal profession, but most are just for fun. For example, many backyard grillers might like the Steakchamp Thermometer and the Bosch eBike sounds like fun for anyone. (Links to all of the tech toys are located on the podcast site.) With all of the anticipation about the new Star Wars movie coming out in December, even the big kids might like a Darth Vader or R2D2 handheld shower head or perhaps a Star Wars Speros BB8 drone rolling around their homes.

We enjoy doing all of our podcasts, but this one is special and we hope our listeners think so too.

Our friend Reid Trautz also posted his 2015 Holiday Gift Guide for Lawyers this week. He includes some tech toys as well.

Your attention is directed to Choosing a Document Automation System by Marc Lauritsen via AttorneyatWork. I've know Marc for many years and he is a recognized expert in this field. So it is very significant that he has shared his goal-setting checklist with us. Document Automation

Lawyers are often chided as a group for not responding to technological innovations quickly enough. And while there is undoubtedly some truth to that, it is also important to remember that lawyers are often in the risk mitigation business, especially when preparing legal documents. Complain as you wish, but that is why legal documents are often overly long. Every time a new potential risk is identified, some new standard verbiage gets added into legal documents. That is also the reason why lawyers do not rush into things without careful thought.

Lawyers were early adopters of computers (and dedicated word processors) in the workplace precisely because as soon as these tools were available, it made no business sense to pay a secretary to retype an entire document to include a few edits. Many law firms quickly excelled at using forms, copy and paste, templates and other word processing tools to streamline the creation of documents.

As a lawyer plans for her future career or her law firm's future, it is now as simple as this:

A document automation system allows a law firm to create documents more quickly at a lower cost to clients while reducing the opportunity for errors.

Isn't that really all you need to know to begin the process?

Law firm finance is the focus of the focus of the November/December 2015 issue of Law Practice Magazine. The cover story is the Seven Deadly Sins of Succession Planning by Peter A. Giuliani. Succession planning is a crucial topic for law firm administration. Law Practice Magazine Finance Issue

Financial Decisions: The Heart and Soul of Law Firms is the title of my Practice Management Advice column in this issue. Individual lawyers in the law firm often identify their firm as a certain type of firm. Sometimes this relates to practice focus or geographical location. Other times lawyers referred to their firm as “family-friendly” or “community-oriented.” The thrust of this article is that one can determine what the focus of a law firm is by looking at its financial focus. A community-oriented firm should actually be involved in its community, apart from paying a few sponsorship fees for local events. If you want your law firm to be focused in a certain direction, then looking at your budget may be the best way to determine your future direction.

There are lots of great articles on law firm finance in this issue of Law Practice magazine.

We all recognize change is inevitable. Technology advancements have increased the pace of change.

In my recent column How is Your Law Practice Going to Change? I share a few thoughts on how the delivery of legal services is changing in ways that most lawyers would have never anticipated just a few Cant stop changeyears ago. From apps that provide legal information and services to non-profit law firms to changing consumer expectations, there is a lot of change happening in our corner of the world.

Lawyers need to pay attention to change as change definitely impacts your work and your law practices. A recently published survey of lawyers yields the result that many lawyers believe law firms will have largely adopted paperless processes as soon as 2020. That’s another major change. But most lawyers probably wouldn’t want to go back to the days when legal research involved going through many shelves of dusty books or having to hire a courier if you needed an important document to be delivered today. Changes get us out of our comfort zone. But that is not always a bad thing.

“Let’s just go paperless. We can free up all that space in the file room and quit paying so much for outside file storage.”

“What a great idea! We’ve already got those big, expensive printer-scanner-document senders in the hallways on every floor. So, let’s send out a memo! Effective Monday, we’re going paperless. We’re going to scan everything. Tell the mail room people to start scanning all the mail instead of delivering it to everyone.”

Thus begins the perfect storm of a paperless law firm makeover absolutely destined to fail.

Paperless signpostWhy is it destined to fail?

For that explanation, you will need to read my column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal September 12, 2015 issue: ‘Paperless’ Office Doesn’t Really Mean Paperless.

But I have included more than just something to read in this column. There is something for you to use. Illinois lawyer Bryan Sims and I have collaborated on a couple of paperless office procedures CLE programs and this paper includes sample procedures for handling incoming mail in a paperless office. These are yours for you to copy and paste and use! (You can even use them as a handout within your firm or at a CLE program as long you as you give Bryan and me a little credit.)

Bryan and I don’t agree on every standard procedure, so we provide some alternative paragraphs that allow you to choose an option. We believe that going through the exercise of drafting procedures for one small, but crucial, part of the process (mail opening and scanning) with our suggested language will demonstrate how a law firm has to have internal discussions and the lawyers have to make compromises on how matters will be done.

Going “paperless” is not a “one process fits all” proposition. Policy decisions must be made, a written procedures manual must be developed and then training must be accomplished. The rewards will be significant. Bryan and I have provided you your first step in the process.