|
I understand that I’m not the only attorney out there who writes blogs from time to time. Blogging can be a very useful tool to inform your audience about your services and build credibility. Most importantly, it allows your readers to become comfortable with you and view you as a resource and less of a stranger.
But, remember that you cannot simply say anything you want on your blog. The rules of your jurisdiction apply to you, even when you are blogging. What does this mean? Tort rules apply to you even in cyberspace. So, if you say things that are not true, you could be sued for libel. Also, you cannot write in violation of your state’s rules of professional responsibility. For example, you cannot write something misleading or fraudulent.
A recent disciplinary case by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission highlights that this is not merely a hypothetical concern. Here is a link to the National Law Journal’s story about the case. The NLJ article provides a further link to the blog which is at issue in the case against the Illinois attorney. In their complaint, the ARDC alleges that the attorney’s blog violates several of Illinois’ rules of professional responsibility because of negative remarks in the blog. The attorney responds with First Amendment arguments.
Attracting a bar inquiry is not productive for your reputation or your business. Even if you win, you lose. You lose because you would have spent a great deal of uncompensated time in defending your case. Of course, if you lose you could lose even more, including your license to practice law.
Blogs and social media can be a great way to increase your visibility in the community and increase the volume of your practice. Just be careful you do not vent like you might to your law partner in the privacy of your own office. When you are writing a blog or a social media post, even though you are typing in the privacy of your own office, it is a very public and permanent expression.
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
Sanford Fisch recently blogged about finding your primary aim: creating a detailed picture of the lifestyle you want, encompassing your work and personal life as well as your involvement in the community. Once you’ve painted this vivid portrait of your ideal life, how do you bring it into being?
The next step is finding your firm’s strategic objective; in other words, creating a picture of the business you want to have that will generate the net revenue to support your ideal life. Not a daydream or a pipe dream – a detailed picture complete with milestones for accomplishing clearly defined goals. Where to begin?
Decide on your practice area. Will you focus on estate planning? What types of estate planning – basic, intermediate, or advanced? Will you include elder law, asset protection planning, pet planning, or lgbt planning? What about the myriad other areas of focus now in demand by estate planning clients?
Assign a number to the amount of revenue you want to generate. Think about what geographic area you’ll cover. Will you have one office? Will you have a satellite office? What will your offices look like, inside and out? How many employees will you have?
How will clients find out about your practice? How will they feel when they walk into your office? When they interact with you and your employees? What will your law firm’s relationship be with the people and other businesses in your community?
Take time to think in detailed terms about what your firm will look and feel like. By the time you’re finished, you should have a rich and detailed portrait of the law firm you want to bring to life. Then, you’ll be ready for the next step – mapping out an organizational strategy for your business. We’ll cover that in a future blog!
Robert Armstrong
President and 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
Are you guilty of this deadly mistake? Like many of your colleagues, do you assume that because you know how to do estate planning work, you automatically also know how to run a successful estate planning firm?
The truth is, running a successful law firm requires its own skill set, separate from and in addition to the skills needed to be an exceptional attorney. Skills they don’t teach you in law school.
Find Your Why
The first step in nailing down this skill set is figuring out your primary aim for your law firm. Your primary aim is at the very foundation of your firm – it’s why you do what you do.
You need to figure this out so that as your business grows, you stay in control of your life and your practice supports the lifestyle you intend to build. Without a clear picture of why you’re doing what you do, the very real risk is that things will get turned upside down. Instead of your practice supporting your lifestyle, your life will begin to serve your practice. Maybe that’s where you are now. It’s how many attorneys live, and it isn’t pleasant.
Picture Your Lifestyle
So, how do you figure out your primary aim? You think in detail about the lifestyle you want to have. Set aside some time to think carefully about your ideal life…what does your workweek and your workday look like? What about your family life? In what ways are you involved in your community?
These are just a few questions to get you started. The key is to examine what’s important to you at the core level, then build upward and outward.
Put it in Writing
Here’s an exercise to help you clarify your primary aim: visualize your perfect day and write it down. In detail. From the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep. You can do this for a workday as well as for a non-workday. Writing it down solidifies it for you so that you know what your target is. Then, as you go about your life, you can compare your actual days to the perfect days you’ve committed to writing, and see how close you actually get.
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
E-mail, voicemail, social media, smartphones…we live in a time of unprecedented interconnectedness. If we choose, we can give people unlimited 24-hour access to us. And this can be a huge mistake.
Time is the most valuable resource we possess. We like to say that time is money. In reality, though, time is life. In order to be sure your time – and therefore your life – is being spent the way you want it to be spent, you need to be the one in charge of this precious resource.
Giving all people the same level of access to you is not a smart use of your time. Why not? Because not everyone is on the same page as you when it comes to how your time should be spent. Everyone has their own agenda, and people can waste your time.
Use your assistant or your receptionist as a gatekeeper. Don’t take unscheduled phone calls. Don’t allow just anyone – clients, salespeople, or even employees – to walk into your office unannounced and use your time on their terms. You know the phrase, “Have you got a minute? Perhaps, more importantly if, like many people, you’re guilty of obsessively checking your email from the moment you walk into the office –stop!
Instead, make your time available to clients, employees and others on your terms, in the way that best meets your needs and furthers your goals for your law firm. This means designating certain times of day for returning phone calls, checking and responding to e-mail, meeting with clients, and yes, even addressing employee needs and concerns. It also means prioritizing which people get what level of access to you.
Sound impossible? It may not be easy at first. However, when you start this process you’re training yourself and those around you to respect your time for the precious resource it is, and this is a necessary step toward gaining control of your business and your life.
Robert Armstrong
President & 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
Attorneys are really good at the daily grind. We spend a lot of our time working inour businesses, doing things like:
- meeting with clients and prospective clients
- drafting and reviewing documents
- answering questions no one else in the firm is qualified to answer
- staying on top of changes in the law
- keeping documents and forms updated
- putting out the myriad fires that always seem to crop up
Problem is, if you want your law firm to grow, you have to allocate time to step outside the daily grind and work on your business. This is where many attorneys go wrong – they spend all their time at the office working in the business and they become really good lawyers. Then they wonder why, despite their legal expertise, their firm is struggling.
Growing a successful law firm means wearing two hats. You’re a technician who uses your legal knowledge and training to provide valuable services to your clients. But you’re also an entrepreneur, and that means thinking strategically about where your business is now, where you want it to go, and how to get it there.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the simple act of pressing the hold button on your current to do list and taking a critical look at the current state of your practice can lead to some pretty significant results. Allocating regular time for real-world planning gives you the perspective you need to steer your law firm in the direction you want it to go, rather than reacting day-by-day or minute-by-minute to endless pressures and demands.
Scheduling time on your calendar every day for strategic planning – also known as working on your business – is a foundational step in transforming your practice into a successful law firm.
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
Here’s a quick question: right now, today, is your firm earning enough revenue and do you have the time you need to do the things you want – both in and out of the office? If the answer is “no,” indulge me for a few minutes. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and jot down the answers to these three questions:
- What amount of money would you like to see in your firm’s bank account – or even in your personal bank account – next Friday so that you’d know your law firm is working the way it should? This should be congruent with the dream you had on the day you welcomed your first client?
- How many days would you work in an ideal week?
- How many hours would you work in an ideal day?
When you’re answering questions two and three, keep in mind that ideal means ideal. Don’t be a wimp and go from seven 12-hour days to six 10-hour days. Dare to dream!
What is the point of this little exercise? You can make the answers to these three questions your reality. If you’re an Academy Member and you’re reading this, you already know what I mean. Many Academy Members make their financial goals and have four-day workweeks. One Member works a three-day week and earns as much today as he ever has in his long career.
If the numbers you’ve just written down aren’t yet your reality, keep watching the Academy blog. Sanford Fisch and I will have some practical strategies in the coming weeks to move you closer to your goals. We believe that having a successful law practice doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice balance in your life. The answer, as you’ll find out, is having a clear proven template to show you the way.
Robert Armstrong
President & 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
Many of you are familiar with that famous line, the first one to email us the name of the group who sang that famous line will win a free ticket to the Fall Summit social on Friday evening October 14th. Email it to the email address at the bottom of this message.
We were sitting at lunch the other day and talking about a comment made to us by someone we did not know while we were in a common area of the office building where the Academy is located. Someone said, “It is a beautiful day and here we are stuck in an office.” Funny thing is we do not feel stuck and, hopefully, none of you feel stuck either. We are not just talking about feeling stuck in the office but more importantly stuck in any way at all.
By “stuck” we mean not moving forward, lack of progress and or frustration with not getting things done and implemented. Not a day goes by where we do not encounter hearing or reading from someone that a task is on my “To Do” List. We all encounter this either personally or with colleagues, staff and maybe even at home! The tools for success are there but some things never get started or they get started but never get finished.
There are many complex reasons why this occurs but let’s look at we think are the top three. One is no ability to see the result or goal, another is not knowing all the steps needed to accomplish that goal and the third reason we get stuck is our failure to control our TIME. Of course, failure to control time is the same as the fact that we all get “distracted” or more accurately we allow ourselves to be distracted.
Distraction control: Let’s start here because this is something we have total control over – our time and limiting distractions. Distractions come in many forms. We distract ourselves by getting involved in trivia. We are looking for something specific on the internet and we wind up Googling something else, then watch a video on it and then go to a website. Before long 15 minutes is gone and we barely remember where we started. So here it is, we let ourselves get distracted. Discipline is in order to control this all too common form of time robbery.
Another favorite is the infamous interruption. How do we stop that from occurring? We need to control our environment where we work so we can focus. Interruptions come in the form of people and electronic interruptions. We need to train all around us to not interrupt and provide a set method and set time to address important issues. On the electronic front, you need to make some decisions. Email and cell phones are the biggest concern. Compulsive checking of phone messages has given way to compulsively checking email and for some checking text messages or checking the latest new communications tools. All of this destroys the ability to focus and accomplish and implement.
Action: Immediately identify the top three distractions in your daily work environment. Phone, email, employees, you make the list and determine how to eliminate (control) them. Set a deadline and communicate the new system to those involved. For example, can anyone reach you by phone or do they have to go through a gatekeeper? Can you limit access to you by a DND button on your phone? Whatever it is it can be controlled as long as you decide to control it.
Your time will be controlled based upon what your agenda happens to be. You will use your time according to your agenda, someone else’s agenda or randomly because you have no agenda! Use your calendar and plan for the year, the month, the week, the day, the hour. Schedule everything. When to start and when to stop.
A small amount of time allocated to addressing this issue can result in a significant ability to get work done and get programs implemented.
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
info@aaepa.com
UPDATE: ‘Jacquelyn Leuener’, from Brad Anderson’s office wins for submitting the first right answer! ROLLING STONES
Attorneys routinely get themselves in trouble by dabbling in practice areas about which they know little. Estate Planning and Elder Law are complicated areas with much to stay on top of. 2010 is a great example of that. The rules have changed completely and there is much uncertainty. There is no estate tax. But, the basis “step-up,” long a mainstay of Estate Planning, has been replaced, temporarily, by a carryover basis regime. It’s enough to make even dedicated estate planners heads’ spin!
Let’s look at a couple with $2 million in zero basis assets, all owned by the wife. She is on her death bed and will die in 2010. What would you advise them to do? A “dabbler” might either tell her to 1) put all her assets in a bypass trust (because there is no estate tax in 2010), or 2) send all the assets to her husband. The first strategy could be problematic from an income tax basis perspective. The wife’s executor could only allocate $1.3 million of basis increase to the bypass trust. Thus, the bypass trust would have $2 million in assets and a $1.3 million income tax basis. The second strategy could be problematic from an estate tax perspective. Assuming the surviving husband will live into 2011, the current estate tax law provides for only a $1 million applicable exclusion. Thus, at the survivor’s later death, their heirs would face a tax of $435,000 on the balance of the $2 million inheritance.
Perhaps the best result would be a third option. Leave $1.3 million of assets to the bypass trust to which the executor could allocate $1.3 million of basis increase. Leave the remaining $700,000 to the surviving spouse. The surviving spouse qualifies for an additional basis increase of up to $3 million. So, with this third option, the surviving spouse ends up with $700,000 with a fair market value basis and does not have a taxable estate.
What would you do?
Stephen C. Hartnett, J.D., LL.M.
Associate Director of Education
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys
(858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com
|
