Carolyn Elefant’s The Future of Law and Solo and Small Firm Practice
By: Rahul Sheth, 2L
Students and faculty packed Mercer Law’s Courtroom to view Carolyn Elefant’s presentation on the evolution of the practice of law. As I was sitting there, I noticed many students attempting to quickly take note of the numerous resources and tips in her presentation. Here is a compiled list of Ms. Elefant’s suggestions.
With the overwhelming trend of law firms becoming mobile, the concept of “cloud based computing systems” has become a popular commodity. There are many resources that provide free services for starting your solo office, however, be sure to do your due diligence. Always review the terms of service and user agreement with every website. There is usually a trade-off for the “free” service; your job is to ensure that trade-off is not security or confidentiality. Always make sure the service is reliable and able to sustain the volume of your practice. Some free sites only offer a limited account that is free, which can prove to be a huge inconvenience to you and your clients. Finally, there are certain occasions you should never use a free service. For example, free business cards that put the printing company’s logo on the back do not look professional (e.g. Vista Print). Elefant suggests spending the $20 and get professional looking business cards. Also, she could not stress enough the importance of not sacrificing client confidentiality or other ethics rules. This could be a costly mistake. Lastly, do not use a website or e-mail domain with the host in the name (e.g. www.aol.com/joesmithlawfirm; joesmithlawfirm@hotmail.com).
The following are some free resources that Ms. Elefant recommended:
Free Legal Research: Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/)
Free Mobile/Legal Research: Fastcase (www.fastcase.com)
Free (or low cost) practice management tools: Zoho Projects (http://www.zoho.com/projects/)
Free Online Document Storage and Sync: Dropbox (http://www.dropbox.com/)
Free Time Keeping/Billing Software: FreshBooks (http://www.freshbooks.com/)
Time Tracking Programs: toggle (http://www.toggl.com/)
Calculate Hourly Rate: FreelanceSwitch (http://freelanceswitch.com/)
Free Message Service & Universal Number: Google Voice (www.google.com/voice)
Free Conference Call Service w/ Recording: FreeConferenceCall (www.freeconferencecall.com)
Free Webinar: Freebinar (www.anymeeting.com)
Free Client Survey Forms: Wufoo (http://wufoo.com/)
Free E-mail Newsletters: Mail Chimp (http://www.mailchimp.com/)
Free Logo Design: Logo Ease (http://www.logoease.com/)
Free Word Processing Software: OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)
Free Web Presence: WordPress.org, Google Sites, Blogger
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