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Seminars on General Management

Buying or Selling a Law Firm (1-2 hours)
This session explores the complicated issues involved in buying or selling a law firm. Issues covered during this seminar include valuation of the business, analysis of the practice, ethical considerations including client confidentiality and conflicts, items to consider from both the buyer’s and seller’s perspective.

The Challenges of 2013 and Beyond (1 hour)
This fast-paced course will look at trends in the legal industry, and what changes and challenges your firm will face.  Issues included will impact technology, profitability, information leverage and management, strategic and succession planning, and more.

Changing Firms: Ethical Guidance for Law Firms and Attorneys (2-3 hours)
In recent years, lawyers have become far more mobile. What was once an occasional occurrence — a lawyer’s departure from one firm to join another — has become an every day event. The increased mobility has generated numerous legal and ethical issues and disputes. Compounding the situation, no neat framework exists to address the interests of the departing lawyer, the lawyer’s old firm, the lawyer’s new firm, and most importantly, the client.

This program will outline the ethical, legal and practical issues these situations raise, and provide advice on how attorneys can address such matters while fully complying with their ethical obligations to the firms and their clients.

Conquer Catastrophe: Technology Tools You Can Use to Keep Practicing in the Event of a Disability (1 hour)
Chances are that you or someone you know will have need for resources to assist in practicing while disabled at some point during a professional career. A lawyer struck with an injury, illness, or traumatic event must develop a personal approach to maintain a position or practice. This session is designed to educate as to the resources and tools available for every type of disability. If you don’t need this information right now, you or a colleague or loved one probably will in the future.

Efficiently and Effectively Administering Your Practice (1.5-2 hours)
a/k/a Proper Practice Management Procedures
This fast-paced session covers the three essential areas of administering a practice: people, technology, and procedure management. People represent a law firm’s greatest asset. The seminar will discuss strategies for successful recruitment, retention and training. Technology enables a firm to achieve today’s leverage, as well as improve practice efficiencies and avoid mal-practice exposure. This seminar will discuss the minimum technology platform a law firm should utilize; and discuss additional possibilities for those ready to take the next step. Properly estab-lishing procedures to handle such issues as client intake, trust accounting and fraud prevention, end of engagement, conflict checking, records management and so forth will ensure that work flows smoothly through the office and that the firm does not commit ethical blunders or commit more serious mistakes in its day-to-day opera-tions. This session will explore methodologies to keep your firm on track in these areas and more.

Checklist for Opening a New Law Office (1 hour)
Hanging out a shingle nowadays is complex and requires lots of thought and planning. This course will start with entity selection and type of environment. Considerations regarding financial arrangements, business planning, branding and identity launch, technology, office systems and procedures, and more, plus the ethical requirements and pitfalls in each area, are all included.

Closing Your Practice (1 hour)
It takes time and careful planning to properly sunset your practice. There are ethical and financial considerations, and lots of practical decisions and notifications to be made. This course will walk you through the many steps to take into consideration.

Disaster Prevention & Preparedness (1 hour)
Disaster comes in many forms, including natural disasters and sudden illness or death of key partners. Is the firm adequately prepared? This course discusses the steps to take to protect the firm and its clients.

Essential Management Concepts (2 hours)
This fast-paced course covers techniques for effective and efficient Time & Project Management; Security Management; Quality Management and Personal Stress Management.

The Law Firm Life Cycle: From Inception Through Sale or Closing (2 - 3 hours)
Developing a successful legal practice requires both skill and business acumen. This fast-paced course will provide valuable information on starting a law firm, growing and managing the practice, and planning for return of equity upon retirement.

Law Office 101: The Basics of the Business of Practicing Law (1.5 hours)
a/k/a Law Office 101: A Guide for the Newly Minted Attorney
The addition to providing sound legal advice to its clients, every successful private law practice must utilize effective business practices to manage its own internal affairs. Many new lawyers are unprepared for how significantly this economic reality affects all lawyers in the firm, including those in the early years of practice. This session will cover the business side of the practice of law including technology, human resources, financial management, risk management and compensation schemes, and will focus on how these issues affect new associates.

Records Management and Retention (1 hour)
Ethical requirements and what to do with old client files; development of a records management policy – how and why. In the wake of Zubulake I thru VI, it is important to have an understanding of how to manage both electronic and paper documents.

Self-Auditing Your Law Firm (1 hour)
Parts of your law office (or possibly your entire firm!) need an overdue "health" check and update. If you want to discover simple ways to conduct firm-wide or focused checkups (i.e. self-audits) without calling in a third-party assessment team, this session is for you.

Strategic Planning (1 hour)
Developing a successful methodology for analyzing and implementing change at the firm.

Suddenly Solo (2 hours)
Whether you are a newly-minted lawyer who is unable to secure a position with a firm, or an experienced associate or partner who has been cast adrift by a downsizing, you may find yourself needing to set up a solo practice for the first time. This course is packed with practical how-to information covering the gamut from space considerations to ethics, from financial management to technology. Handouts include practical checklists and articles.

Survival 101: Emergency Planning for Your Law Firm (1.5 - 2 hours)
a/k/a Practicing Dead or Alive
Disasters come in all forms, from natural to man-made to technological. This course will identify the potential risks your firm faces. You will learn the three steps your firm must take to formulate a plan to help you prevent disasters, or recover your ability to service your clients quickly following one. The course focuses in detail on how to continue to run your office while you are sick, injured or disabled, or how to run your practice as part of the administration of your estate. This course provides practical information and forms which can be put to immediate use at your firm.

Welcome to Reality (1-2 hours)
a/k/a Welcome to the Real World!
This course is designed to acquaint new attorneys with the many challenges they will face when establishing their practice or joining a law firm. Topics covered include: capturing the billable hour; financial basics; learning how to market; the role of technology; working with staff; and opening your own practice.

You Can’t Always Be Superwoman (1 - 2 hours - No CLE credit)
The confluence of pressures from home and work can derail even the most dedicated and zealous among us.  For some women, the stress of continually trying to balance roles at work and home becomes too great — sometimes difficult choices must be made to sacrifice one role to benefit the other.  This course will discuss the coping and management strategies which can make the difference between experiencing emotional nuclear meltdown, or achieving the superwoman status of one who manages the conflicts and demands of home and office and “has it all.”

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