It’s not easy managing a law firm in 2021. Your firm may be entirely remote or some (or even all) of your firm’s lawyers and staff may have returned to the office. Regardless of where your firm’s workforce is located, new cases keep coming in, deadlines pile up, and there’s…
I was an athlete when I was younger, playing baseball and football all through school. Even now, I still love the mental and emotional clarity physical activity brings. More than that, though, sports allow me to set aside time to share a common bond with the ones near my heart but distant in location. I cherish the group FaceTime calls with my pops and cousins (who live in Texas) as we complain about the Dallas Cowboys on a beautiful fall afternoon, for example.
This is as good a time as any to discuss time. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Remember that time is money”—but I won’t waste any time discussing his kites. What does time mean to lawyers? Billable hours.
In 2004, Dan Glickman began a six-year stint as chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. That may seem like an unusual career change for a nine-term congressman from Kansas and former secretary of agriculture. People sometimes questioned his qualifications to lead Hollywood’s trade association. “I used to grow popcorn,” he tells me he’d respond. “And now I sell it.”
How much weight does the Roberts Court give to precedent? This is the crucial underlying question now that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which puts the fate of Roe v. Wade before the justices. The case concerns a Mississippi law that prohibits abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.
The question is on every lawyer’s mind these days: When will management beckon me to return to my law firm office? And the related questions also weigh heavily: Do I want to do it? Can I do it? Will I do it?
Running a law practice in 2021 is no small feat. With the digitization of documents, filings and court calendaring systems, the added complexities involved in tracking that data can make it difficult to stay on top of the daily challenges of managing a thriving law firm and busy caseload. That’s where law practice management software comes in. It helps lawyers streamline their law firms from client intake to the final bill and beyond.
Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Dan Binstock, a legal recruiter and co-owner of Garrison & Sisson, a leading attorney search firm. Binstock is also the creator of the Virtual Piano Party.
Every once in a while, I’ll hit a wall with this column. The problem usually arises when I have too many irons in the fire at the office. I’m currently battling through the COVID-19 backlog of cases and trials back on schedule now that courts are opening up and jury dockets are becoming more regular.
