Three Steps to Building Your Network

A recent blog post talked about the importance of having a strong network and how to build one. Beverly Michaelis summarized it well when she said, "We’ve all heard the phrase, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. But how do you get to know the “who?” 

The blog defined the three steps to building your network, as laid out by career coach Maggie Mistal.

1. Define
   
• Why are you building your network? Is it for referrals, client development or another reason? The type of network you want to build will determine who you seek out.
2. Build
   • When you tell your family and friends your networking goals, make your message personal, since you have a close relationship with these people.
   • Use social media (Facebook and LinkedIn) to reconnect with old classmates, co-workers and business associates.
   • Join your local bar association and attend events, meetings and groups to meet other lawyers.
3. Maintain
   • Do not take any of your contacts for granted; keep in constant communication via newsletter, emails etc. so people feel appreciated.
   • Offer to provide a service to those who have helped you.

How to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

Running a successful law firm requires the hard work and dedication of many employees, so it's important to treat them with respect to keep the morale of your company high and everyone working towards common goals.

A recent blog post by Law Business Tips  defined respect to include:

1. It is 24/7: Appreciate, value and genuinely respect employees at all times
2. Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm for your clients, customers, product and service is highly contagious.
3. Synchronization: Your actions are in perfect sync with the professionalism, ethics, work habits and attitudes you expect from your employees.
4. Promises: If you fail to fulfill a promise you made, you acknowledge it and let employees know if and when you'll do what you said you'd do.
5. Engagement: Benefit from their perspectives, ideas, concerns by asking for their input and truly listening to what they have to say.
6. Clarity: Take the time to clearly communicate your requests and expectations of employees.
7. Timely Information: Keep employees informed of non-confidential changes.

Remember, "Respect means the genuine, consistent showing of your best side."

Can you define your company's purpose in one sentence?

The Harvard Business Management Blog asked readers if they can define their company's purpose in just one sentence. They gave an example from Google, "We organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." As you can see, this isn't a slogan or marketing pitch, but rather what your company aims to do.

Here are some examples of law firm's purposes:

• "Our firm makes filing for bankruptcy stress-free for our clients."
• "We help single parents recover critical support payments due them from court-based agreements."
• "We make sure clients who have been seriously injured get the help and compensation they are entitled to receive, all in a reasonable timeframe."

What is your company's purpose? Do all employees know what it is?

Have You Seen it Yet?

Existing customer who update to v2010 get all of the enhancements we've added since their previous purchase.  Examples of features added specifically in this release include:

• Grab and Add: You can actually create new contacts in Abacus from digital sources (the internet, docs, etc.) without typing.
• Open multiple windows simultaneously: Keep your current work available as you jump between tasks or compare records.
• Smart phone synchronization: Now available for newer phones, such as the Palm Desktop 6x and Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.2-5.0.
• “Save and Log”: Let AbacusLaw establish a unified naming convention and path for efficiently saving documents and forms.
• Lightning fast search for text in the Notes field: If you've used Notes for certain data, but never created a searchable field for it, you now can quickly find them.

New and existing customers know AbacusLaw 2010 delivers complete functionality:

• Legal and rules-based calendaring
• Contact, case and document management
• Document assembly
• Conflict of interest checking
• Auto-fill court forms
• Remote access
• Outlook integration
• Home office, laptop and mobile device synchronization
• Optional: time/billing/accounting/trust accounts and much more

If you haven't seen it in action, view the online demo today.
For more information call us today at 800-726-3339. You'll be glad you did.