CBA Record January-February 2025

it can send automated reminders. When court hearings are finished, it can auto mate case updates for your clients. Make marketing part of this analysis. What led to the most website conversions in 2024? Does the firm have a LinkedIn posting strategy? Have you done a webi nar recently? Have you considered an in person event? Does your website comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Have your clients migrated away from X to another social media service such as BlueSky or Mastodon? Perhaps your firm should have accounts there as well. When I conducted this review myself, I also looked at my personal use of tech nology within my practice. One idea I liked from Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity was blocking off time to get work done without distractions. Newport says that people are not really as good at multitasking as they think they are. While I do use a scheduling service, I’ve limited the hours that people can choose from to keep blocks of time free. I can still manually schedule during those times, of course, but it keeps me from switching focus too often. Using the “Start, Stop, Continue” framework, you can make your own deter minations as to how well your technology stack is working. Done regularly, with feedback from all stakeholders in the firm, you will have a good roadmap to deter mine what improvements can be made.

LPMT BITS & BYTES BY KEVIN THOMPSON Stop. Start. Continue. A s we start 2025, it is a good time to stop, reflect, and consider how well your technology is serving

SMART goals—ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. “By the end of 2025” is too vague; it may make more sense to break the year into quarters, with specific mile stones and timelines added to the plan. Be sure to address who is responsible for implementation. Is it time to form a tech nology committee? Is it time to revisit who is on existing committees? The “start” list can be brave and bold. Perhaps this is the time to look into a virtual receptionist. Perhaps it is time to implement a firmwide CRM and do a better job with intake. Perhaps it is time to switch phone systems or practice man agement software. Do you give technol ogy allowances to your employees? What can such allowances be used for? Can any AI tools help your practice? Maybe it is time to “start” using exist ing tools better. Is it time to develop firm wide styles in Word, so that formatting documents for court can be done faster and easier? Is it time to look at Micro soft Bookings, which may already be included in your Office 365 plan, rather than paid alternatives like Calendly? Can existing tools be linked together better? For example, Zapier is a service that can automate integrations between platforms, like making your CRM integrate with your mailing list software even if the sys tems don’t talk to each other off the shelf. Zapier can also automate a series of tasks, making your small firm look like it has a huge staff. When a new meeting is set,

your practice. I recommend collecting this feedback from everyone in the firm, not just the lawyers. Find some quiet time, and consider the following ques tions from a technological perspective: (1) What are we doing as a firm that we need to stop doing? (2) What do we need to start doing as a firm? (3) What do we need to continue doing as a firm? Typical brainstorming rules apply; no ideas are to be dismissed at this stage. Once collected, see if you can identify any themes. Take stock of what to “continue” doing with your technology. Don’t lose sight of what is working well, and don’t implement or stop something that would diminish one of the bright spots already working well. What are you most proud of in 2024? What are you doing well? What achievements can be celebrated? What goals are you consistently meeting? Consider carefully what it would mean to “stop” doing something as a firm. Is there consensus on what to stop? There can be hard choices—sometimes outli ers are on some people’s “stop” lists but could be on the “continue” list for others. There could be easy “stops” too, like stop treating email like instant messaging. Or stop having team meetings for something that could have been taken care of with an email. If you decide to “start” something, set

Kevin A. Thompson heads the intellectual property practice at Levin Ginsburg, where he is a partner; he also chairs the CBA’s Law Practice Management and Technology Committee and co-chairs the International

and Foreign Law Committee. He receives no compensation by vendors for products mentioned in this column.

Need to Fulfill Your IL MCLE Requirements? Check out our library of 250+ on demand legal titles at Learn.ChicagoBar.org.

42 January/February 2025

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online