The internet offers unprecedented ways for us to communicate and connect with clients and potential clients. But it can also be a treacherous place, offering a veil of anonymity that can let dissatisfied clients post negative comments and reviews they’d hesitate to tell us in person.

So, short of filing a lawsuit, how can law firm owners minimize the impact of negative reviews and manage their online reputations? Here are five practical suggestions:

1. Do a Good Job. Practicing law competently, keeping your word, and generally providing great client service go a long way toward producing happy clients. And with happy clients comes a good reputation, both in the physical world and online.
2. Be Aware. Speaking of your reputation, you can’t manage it if you don’t know what it is. If you haven’t done so already, take a deep breath and Google yourself. Better yet, set up search alerts for your law firm name and your personal name. This way, you’ll get an email every time you’re mentioned online. Google now lets you do this from the Google dashboard using its “Me on the Web” tool.
3. Be Quick to Address the Negative. You can’t please everyone, and sooner or later you’ll have to deal with an unhappy client. If a complaint happens to surface in the form of a negative online comment, don’t ignore it. Instead, investigate and see if it’s legitimate. If there’s anything you can do to fix the problem, do so right away. Not only is this the right thing to do, it can transform a public complaint into a glowing positive review. What about illegitimate complaints? Use your discretion, but if you decide to respond online, remember to remain courteous and professional – preserving your reputation and proving yourself right aren’t always the same thing.
4. Solicit Positive Reviews. Most of your clients are happy, right? Happy clients are often much quieter than unhappy clients, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Don’t hesitate to ask clients for positive reviews.
5. Be Proactive. When it comes to your online reputation, you have more power than you might realize. The more active you are in updating your website, posting new blog entries, and connecting via social media, the more positive buzz there is about your firm. And if a negative review or comment does appear, it’s quickly replaced in search results by all the positive information you’re communicating about who you are and what you have to offer.

Has your firm ever encountered negative internet feedback? How did you deal with it?

Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Is your revenue per attorney at least $500,000 for 2011?

I’m just beginning the annual review of Academy financials in preparation for our big Spring Summit closed-door meeting. All Members who submit their financials have a closed door meeting and look at all the other estate planning law firm financials and have a valuable discussion. About 5 law firm owners are on a panel and specifically discuss their numbers from last year.

One easy benchmark to look at on your own financials is the Revenue per Attorney number. You need to total your number of attorneys in the law firm. If you have 3, plus a 20 hour / week attorney, plus 1 owner – your total is 4.5 attorneys. If that is the case, you have enough attorneys in your firm to expect to be able to handle around $2,250,000 to $3,750,000 in gross revenue.

That doesn’t mean that each attorney must go generate $500,000-$750,000 in revenue. Some attorneys are rain makers, some are more drafters of documents and behind the scenes talent. We’re just addressing the average revenue per attorney that seems to make the most sense.

If the number is LOWER than $500,000 per attorney, the factors to look at usually center around:

1. Are the attorneys actually busy?
2. If they are, how much of their work or time spent is non-attorney work?
3. Are there enough staff people on the payroll to pick up all the non-attorney work the attorneys are doing?
4. Is the revenue too low to really generate $500K per attorney?
5. Is the marketing off? Or is the attorney effectiveness in consultations off?

Are you able to quickly come to some conclusions about how healthy this benchmark is in your firm?

Jennifer Price
Director, Member Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Too often, attorneys work on the wrong tasks day in and day out. Particularly law firm owners. With so many important issues competing for our attention, the tendency is to be in the trenches, working on the low value items while neglecting the high value opportunities.

If you suspect you might be falling into this trap, here’s a simple exercise you can try:

For the next ten business days, keep an accurate time log. From the time you step into your office each morning, write down everything you do all workday long. After ten days, go through your log and categorize each activity according to this system:

• U:        Unique Ability
• C:        Competent
• I:          Not Competent, But Doing

Unique ability is something you’re great at and enjoy doing. It’s one of those things you get engrossed in, and time seems to fly by without you realizing it. The other categories are self-explanatory.

If your time log is filled with activities in the “C” and “I” categories, you are not alone. However, it’s probably time to take a fresh look at how you’re doing things.

Why not structure your law firm so that you can focus on your unique abilities, and hire people whose unique abilities complement yours? Chances are, some of your employees have valuable strengths and talents you are not even aware of.

This approach sets you up so that you can delegate your “C” and “I” tasks to people in your firm who are much better suited to performing those functions. Ultimately, you and everyone on your staff will have the potential for much greater job satisfaction, and your firm will get the chance to thrive in a whole new way.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

What would you do if an anonymous commenter left your firm a less-than-flattering online review? The Lenahan Law Firm, a personal injury firm near Dallas, Texas is garnering national attention for its response to this very situation.

The story, covered in Texas Lawyer and picked up by the ABA Journal, centers around a negative Google Review of the firm posted by a commenter identifying himself only as “Ben.” The review reads, “Bad experience with this firm. Don’t trust the fake reviews here.”

In response, the Lenahan Law Firm filed a defamation lawsuit against “Ben Doe” in state district court. In addition to seeking $50,000 in damages from Ben, the firm’s stated goals in filing suit are to subpoena Google to discover Ben’s identity and to secure the removal of the negative review.

Putting aside a discussion of the merits of the lawsuit itself, there are a few practical reasons why I would not advise lawyers to fight bad online reviews with litigation.

First, a lawsuit won’t make the review go away. Even if the Lenahan Law Firm succeeds in forcing Google to permanently remove “Ben’s” negative review, the act of filing suit has simply created a permanent digital and legal memorial of exactly the situation the firm wants everyone to forget.

Second, the firm may be doing more to sabotage its own reputation than Ben ever dreamed of. Consider this from the viewpoint of an internet-savvy potential client…after all, Lenahan partner Wes Black told Texas Lawyer that a driving force behind filing suit is the fact that the firm gets a majority of its business from online searches.

So, before the lawsuit, a prospective client who Googled “Lenahan Law Firm” or “Lenahan Law Firm reviews” might have read Ben’s review. If they’d seen it, they likely would have evaluated it for what it is – a vague, two-sentence review by an anonymous person…maybe it’s legitimate, or maybe this guy has a chip on his shoulder. But they would also have seen several longer, positive reviews. And they would have seen the firm’s very well designed website.

After the lawsuit, the same search brings up a number of hits highlighting the firm’s response to Ben’s review. Which leaves a prospective client to wonder: why the over-the-top reaction to a pretty run-of-the mill review? How reliable is this firm’s judgment? And if this is how they treat clients who disagree with them, how will they treat me if I hire them and there’s a legitimate problem?

So, what is a law firm to do? There’s no doubt that negative online reviews can have a huge impact on your reputation in the community, not to mention your bottom line.

There are a number of practical steps you can take – short of filing a lawsuit – to protect your online reputation and combat negative reviews and comments. In my next post, I’ll outline five of them.

Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

What would more likely get your clients to make pre-need funeral plans: a real life tragedy or a light romantic comedy? Consider these two approaches.

The family of Josh Powell, the man who killed his two sons in an explosive house fire in Washington state, recently said he will not be buried in the same cemetery as the children.

Powell’s mother, wracked by grief, realized no one else was planning the disposition of Josh Powell’s remains. All the attention was focused on his two murdered children. She visited a funeral home and a few cemeteries and picked a gravesite.

It turns out the grave she selected was just up the hill from where the boys were buried. They were laid to rest on February 11 at Woodbine Cemetery, the municipal cemetery in Puyallup.

The idea that the murder suspect would be buried near his victims sparked outrage in the community. His family retreated and started looking for another cemetery in which to bury Powell. (read the MSNBC.com story)

Shopping around for a burial plot after a tragic murder is the last thing any family member wants to do. In this case, the mother’s clueless selection added insult to injury. Yet, it does raise some points for discussion.

Few people younger than retirement age buy burial plots. It’s something embraced by those who plan ahead. With so many people choosing cremation, why doesn’t this family look at that option and decide what to do with the remains later?

Heavy stuff. Perhaps a light romantic comedy would be more palatable. The film Elizabethtown (2005 – PG-13) offers an opening to discuss burial versus cremation.

In the film, Drew Baylor’s father unexpectedly dies of a heart attack while visiting his family in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. His mother sends Drew with dad’s favorite blue suit to have the body cremated and brought home to Oregon.

Drew is shown the Baylor family plot in Kentucky, which dates back 272 years. They don’t cotton well to the idea of cremation. His mom insists, and dad is cremated.

Drew’s mother is not well regarded by the Baylors. This being a comedy, she comes to the memorial service, where their old grudges are resolved. In reality, family funerals often extend or intensify disputes rather than bury them.

Then there’s The Blue Suit Compromise. Since the Kentucky Baylors wanted a burial, dad’s blue suit and other items were buried in the family plot. Drew takes his dad’s ashes on a road trip, stopping for scattering at significant spots along the way.

What should a family do about a final resting place? Is one even needed? Would they want burial or cremation? Are finances a factor in what the family wants done?

It’s better to raise these questions before there’s a death. It can reduce an enormous amount of stress at a time of grief. Are you the right person to help start that conversation?

Gail Rubin, “The Doyenne of Death,” is author of the award-winning book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. She speaks to groups using clips from funny films to illustrate funeral planning issues and help start serious conversations. Her website is http://AGoodGoodbye.com.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

In his last blog, Robert Armstrong talked a little bit about the haphazard way most legal practices approach their marketing activities. This is a shame, since marketing truly is the lifeblood of any business, and law firms are no exception.

What if your marketing system needs an overhaul? The following five-step system can make an immediate difference in your firm’s marketing efforts:

1. Write down specific, measurable, time-bound goals. These are the only kinds of goals that are truly valuable because they are the only kinds of goals that are actionable.
2. Start with the end in mind.
• Find out where your firm’s revenues are now.
• Identify your revenue goal for 2012.
• Break down the categories of work you did this year, identify how much revenue you generated for each category, and determine the number of clients each category represented for your firm.
• List your 2012 revenue goal for each category.
• Divide that number by 12 to get a monthly revenue goal.
• Identify how many clients you’ll need per month to meet the revenue goal for each specific category. 
3. Play the body count game – how many people do you have to be in front of to reach the numbers you wrote down for Rule 2? The more people who attend one of your seminars, read your marketing materials, or otherwise come into contact with you as part of your marketing strategy, the more clients you’ll ultimately have by the end of the year. It all boils down to numbers.
4. Maximize your marketing channels. You need multiple channels – forget buying a Yellow Pages ad and waiting for the clients to pour through your door. The key is to come up with a system that implements multiple marketing activities that suit your personality, your staff, and your marketing budget. A few ideas:
• Arrange seminars for prospective clients.
• Appear as a CLE speaker.
• Endorse private seminars for a local insurance agent or financial planner.
• Publish radio or television ads.
• Send out monthly e-Alerts to your centers of influence.
• Send a three-year amendment letter to your existing estate planning clients.
• Have a family seminar to educate the children of your existing clients about estate planning.
5. Schedule next year’s marketing activities now. The schedule should be on a huge plastic wall calendar where everyone in the firm can see the plan and be part of it. Then, set deadlines, delegate responsibilities to your staff, and hold everyone accountable by having weekly marketing meetings.

It sounds like a lot of work, and if you have not implemented a focused marketing strategy before now, it will take some getting used to. However, before long, you’ll begin to reap the rewards of planning your marketing and taking steps to stay on track. Trust me, the rewards are extraordinary!

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

You’re probably familiar with Groupon. It’s a daily deal website where businesses offer discounted gift certificates to customers. If enough customers opt in, the day’s featured deal becomes available to everyone; if a predetermined quota is not sold, no one gets the gift certificate that day. Groupon makes money by taking its cut from the sales price of the certificates.

It’s common to see gift certificates for businesses like restaurants and spas offered on Groupon. But not too long ago, an attorney in Missouri ran a Groupon deal for simple estate planning services. Before taking this innovative step, he made sure he was in compliance with Missouri’s ethics rules.

Since then, state disciplinary bodies have begun to weigh in on the issue of Groupon for lawyers. In 2011, the North Carolina State Bar Council issued Formal Ethics Opinion 10, permitting a lawyer to advertise on a daily discount website, provided certain disclosures are made and certain conditions are met. The South Carolina Bar issued a similar opinion, Ethics Advisory Opinion 11-05.

And most recently, the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics has issued an opinion setting forth guidelines for lawyers to follow when marketing services on “deal of the day” or “group coupon” websites.

The North Carolina, South Carolina, and New York opinions seem to agree that daily deal website ads do not violate rules prohibiting fee splitting because the arrangement does not give the website the opportunity to influence an attorney’s professional independence of judgment. However, they point out that this type of advertising raises other potential ethics concerns that need to be addressed before an ad would be permissible, such as uncertainty concerning the scope of an attorney’s representation and the handling of unearned fees.

Is Groupon an effective marketing move for your law firm? That’s a business question only you can answer.

The real lesson here is twofold… first, don’t be afraid to be innovative when it comes to marketing your firm’s services. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But second, remember that ethics rules — particularly those regarding advertising — vary significantly from state to state. What is allowed in Manhattan might not be allowed in Manhattan, KS. Don’t be afraid to be innovative… but be sure to comply with your state’s rules or run your idea by your state’s attorney ethics enforcement officials.

Speaking of keeping up with ethics rules… check with your bar association, there may be an app for that!

Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

A few weeks ago, the ABA Center for Law and Aging held a webinar: “Effective Advance Care Planning: Are Your Advance Directives Worth The Paper They Are Written On?” The purpose was to enhance attorneys’ client counseling skills on this topic and their drafting of more effective advance directives. Today I’ll share some state-of-the-art thinking from these leading advance care planning experts on one of the topics discussed: appointing the health care agent.

Choosing a Health Care Agent
Attorneys can add important value to the advance directive drafting process and to the clients’ thinking about advance directives. With the Health Care Power of Attorney, you have the opportunity to help clients be thoughtful about their choice of health care proxy. The guiding responsibility: to think about the best way for the clients’ wishes to be honored.

A.    Share with clients the skills and qualities of the ideal healthcare proxy

The agent should be someone who can:

• advocate for the patient with doctors, hospitals, and the medical community generally;

• manage conflict within the family

And while there is no such thing as a perfect agent, there is always the “best-possible agent” from among the client’s options.

B.     Counsel clients not to assume that their spouse is the best choice

While it is understandable that most clients do choose their spouse or significant other as their agent, sometimes spouses are simply not the best equipped to fulfill this role. A spouse may not be able to handle conflict, for example. If you recognize this, you should advise the client to select another party. But even beyond the obvious cases where the spouse is the wrong choice, you should broach this concept with clients in ways that will make the topic comfortable and safe for them to consider and discuss:

• Introduce the idea in the third person (e.g. “some of my clients find that their spouse actually isn’t the best person to make these decisions…)

• Use specific client examples – real or fictional stories war stories of clients who inappropriately chose the spouse

C.    Do not appoint co-agents

While attorneys have differing opinions on this and states also vary, the experts who spoke to this point strongly recommended naming only one agent. Clients who want to appoint co-agents usually have multiple adult children whom they want to be involved.

Solutions for this include:

• Having an understanding that there is a single decision-maker but shared information between the agent and the other siblings

• Even including language in the HCPOA that the agent must reasonably consult with the other adult children – for instance before making an important decision

D.    Help clients make the family comfortable with their choice of agent

As counsel, the attorney’s role is also to help clients think about how the family moves forward after the death of the client. It’s important that the adult children or the spouse who is not chosen as the agent feels OK about this decision. Counsel your clients to talk about their choice of agent with the loved ones(s) whom they didn’t name – and to explain their thinking. Often this can be done in very compassionate terms, e.g. “I knew it would be too hard for you to make these decisions…”

Randi J. Siegel, MBA, is the President of DocuBank, the largest advance directives registry in the U.S., which ensures that the healthcare directives of its 190,000 enrollees are immediately available 24/7/365. Working with estate planning professionals since 1997, Randi frequently speaks at national estate planning conferences and has appeared on radio and television as an authority on registries. She is active in health policy pertaining to advance directives and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Jefferson School of Population Health in Philadelphia. Randi is an ongoing contributor to the Academy blog.

Academy Guest Blogger
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

More and more clients believe legal services in general, and estate planning services in particular, are just commodities.

They’re being told that it doesn’t matter where they get their bundle of paper. That whether the documents are from the Smith Firm or the Jones Firm or LegalZoom, the outcome will be the same.

And you really can’t blame them. They have no way of judging who’s good and who’s not so good any more than you or I can judge whether our heart surgeon is any better than his colleague in the next suite over.

But here’s what you and I do know. We know that you’re different from the Smith Firm and the Jones Firm. And we know that you’re vastly different from LegalZoom. If you want to avoid the commodity trap, you need to differentiate yourself and your services.

Here’s how:

Develop a process unique to your firm that takes care of clients from the moment they first retain you through the end of your relationship; ideally, the relationship will last a lifetime.

Communicate this multiple-step process in a client-friendly way. For example:

The Six Step Client Legacy Wealth Planning System

1. Family Legacy Consultation and Roadmap
2. Family Legacy Plan Design
3. Family Legacy Plan Development
4. Family Legacy Plan Execution and Delivery
5. Family Legacy Plan Asset Transfer and Funding
6. Family Legacy Lifetime Communication and Updates

This communicates clearly to the client: Wow! That’s a lot of work, and it means that you’re there with them from beginning to end. A prospective client has no way of comparing a generic, bare bones living trust to this six-step process you have to offer them – and quite honestly, that’s because there is no comparison.

This process also launches your relationship with a new client, which puts your firm head and shoulders above those competing on the basis of commodities. There’s no relationship you can establish with a transaction where you hand someone a paper with some ink on it and show them where to sign. Having a process is the way out of the commodity trap – for you and your clients.

Sanford M. Fisch
CEO & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Adoption of children is a relatively common occurrence in the United States. But, in most states, it is also possible to adopt an adult. The adult adoption tool has been used in planning for same-sex couples for decades. Now, it seems that its use may be spreading, in the right circumstances.

There are many reasons to adopt an adult, both legal and emotional:

• Establish a tighter bond between the parties
• Enable inheritance rights between the parties
• Enable the “child” to get health insurance on the “parent’s” plan

Let’s look at a situation to see how this might arise. John is the heir to a large sum of money. However, these assets are left in trust for him. At his death, the assets are to go to his children. The trust and state law do not exclude adult adoptees as potential children. If he has no children, the assets go to his cousins. If he had a limited power of appointment, he could send those assets elsewhere at his death. He does not. He wants the assets to go to his domestic partner, Mike. By adopting Mike, John can ensure that his assets go to Mike.

In a unique twist, adult adoption can give lifetime access to otherwise protected money. Floridian John Goodman had placed $1.5 million in an irrevocable trust for his children. He had two children at that time. The assets were invested and ballooned in value to several hundred million dollars. The transfer of assets into the trust was not a fraudulent transfer and Goodman had no interest in the trust. Thus, those assets were exempt when he became involved in litigation in which he was accused of drunk driving and killing a 23-year-old man and then leaving the scene.

Goodman, age 48, adopted his girlfriend, age 42. When she became one of his “children,” under the terms of the trust, she gained access to the funds in the trust. So, through the adult adoption, Goodman’s girlfriend (and, indirectly, Goodman himself) gained access to millions of dollars of money which has been deemed off limits to his creditors.

Here’s a link to the story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialandheirs/2012/02/06/can-florida-millionaire-justify-adopting-his-girlfriend/

Perhaps adult adoption may be increasingly relevant as an estate planning and asset protection tool.

Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com