President's Notes

by Judd Kessler, Esq.

The Best Internet Marketing for Lawyers

My good friend, Gunter Enz, started doing Internet marketing exclusively for lawyers about 10 years ago and has since become the key to many lawyers' success and profits from the Internet. What's his secret?

Gunter guarantees that you will get calls from prospective clients. How can he guarantee it? Because he has created key partnerships with other media, websites and search engines to bring in clients who are looking for lawyers. He limits the number of lawyers he will accept in a geographical region and specialty. He tracks every call. He knows what is working, envisions what could be better, and constantly adjusts as the marketplace changes.

If he accepts your law firm, he'll take care of you for a year. And his renewal rate is the highest I've ever heard of.

Class: Payroll (an Advanced E-Class)
When: Ideal to take early in the year
What You'll Learn: The class covers how to set up employee deductions, employee profiles and your state unemployment information. We will show you how to run your quarterly payroll reports as well as your required tax payments.

Class Outline:

• Deduction Codes
• State Unemployment Info
• Employee Profiles
• Processing Payroll
• Payroll Register

In this issue

• Abacus News  - Worker's Comp Special Edition Now Available
• Feature Article - Reduce Professional Liability Claims
• Support Tip - Using PDA & Blackberry Devices
• Training Spotlight - Payroll
• Law Firm IT Profiles - Law firm stats

Abacus has announced the release of its fourth Special Edition. Each works with AbacusLaw v2005 (Classic or Gold), providing practice specific Matter and Name screens as well as custom Rules, Reports and Docs. Each special edition capitalizes on "best practices" techniques we've researched and had lawyers validate. Users save hours of time it would take to personally implement these valuable customizations. In Classic or Gold, you can further modify each to match your office policies and procedures as well as state-specific rules. Click on the practice area(s) relevant to your office for more information:

• Worker's Comp
• Personal Injury
• Family Law
• Estate Planning

[This article was written and submitted by insurance industry expert Paul Mahaffey.]

The statistics that have been accumulated by the American Bar Association from insurance companies show that in any given year lawyers in the various states will have between 2 and 5 claims per 100 lawyers insured. The data does not include claims against uninsured attorneys nor does it include complaints filed with the various regulatory authorities. California has the highest frequency while others will have varying results.

Click Here to read the rest of this article.

Q. How can I transfer my schedule and contact names from AbacusLaw into PDAs (including a BlackBerry)?

A. If CompanionLink isn't already running, click your Windows "Start" button and select "Programs," "CompanionLink" and then "CompanionLink Setup." The "CompanionLink for Abacus" window appears. Click "Settings." Identify the target device to sync with, and your device user name. Click "Next."

The "Contact Manager Settings" window appears. Click "Configure." A Properties page appears with several tabs for you to control the sync process. We refer to this as the Setup Wizard. On the "Database" tab, identify the path to your Abacus directory.

On the "User ID" tab, set your Abacus User ID. At this point you should review all the tabs. Note - you can query for transfer as much or as little of the data as you desire. If you don't understand a setting, click the "Help" button or press "F1" for specific help.

The transfer method is critical; it determines whether existing data in both Abacus and the PDA are merged (synchronized), or if data only moves from Abacus to the device. When the settings are correct, click "OK" to return to the "Contact Manager Settings" window, and click "Next." A final "you are now ready to synchronize" window summarizes your settings. Click "Finish" when you are ready to exit Setup.

When you are ready to do your first sync, you can click the "Synchronize" button in CompanionLink, or, for Palm, put the unit in the cradle and push the "HotSync" button. After it's initialized all you ever have to do is hit the "HotSync" button.