Practicing law in the current landscape dominated by fast services can be quite a challenge. If that wasn’t enough, certain things can hurt your law career – without you even realizing it.
An ineffective approach to working can make you fall short of your full potential and snowball into creating bigger problems down the line if you are not careful enough.
You should stop right now if you’re doing any of the following:
1. Getting things done too close to the deadline
If crunch time is a common occurrence every time you get a new client, you are probably flirting with disaster.
There are multiple reasons why this is happening. However, the most likely culprits are bad organizational skills coupled with inefficient processes.
You can make organizational problems a thing of the past by using project management software such as Asana or monday.com. Visual representation of the project at hand, coupled with division of work into smaller tasks can help you work at your best and accomplish tasks way before that deadline hits.
Badly arranged processes can also cause major time losses while doing repetitive tasks that could be done faster using legal software. Workflow inefficiencies are glaringly evident with time-consuming processes of manually reviewing and editing documents.
This particular issue can be resolved by using legal document software for attorneys. For example, legal document software can help you by automatically highlighting the most important elements of your document. As such, it eliminates the need to go back and manually review and slowly edit information-heavy text.
2. Neglecting marketing and business development
Most lawyers fail to realize business development and marketing are a continuous process. If you stop forsaking these two important areas, you can become more successful in today’s market.
Focus on nurturing your present and past client relationships since this will help them stay on board. As a bonus, they are most likely going to refer you to their friends or colleagues.
This doesn’t mean you should ignore your professional network though. Set aside time each week for checking up and scheduling meetups with colleagues and associates. This way you can get new referrals constantly.
However, don’t disregard the importance of building a strong online presence and a strong personal brand either. Make sure to use every tool available to position your website better in search engines through SEO and content marketing, while at the same time leveling up your social media game through creating engaging content and targeted ads.
Constant marketing and business development efforts will maximize your chances of a steady stream of clients and referrals. Ultimately, you can raise your prices once your workload becomes too big. Since this might discourage some new clients, you can use the saved time and money to try out new marketing and business development tactics to attract high-profile clients.
3. Not learning enough about technology
Technology is what helps lawyers stay relevant and meet client demands. While you don’t need to be a programmer or a developer to stay ahead of the curve, you should constantly research new technologies, while also learning how to use the available tools to their full advantage.
Case in point: learning the in and outs of the software you are currently using could give you a well-needed boost in efficiency. For instance, Microsoft Word for lawyers can be a powerful tool if used to its full potential. It’s possible to get a lot more mileage out of this simple program if you customize it to your liking.
The same thing applies to every other piece of software you are using as well. You’ll never hear about someone being criticized for being too competent.
Persistent improvement
The way to avoid potential problems and become the best attorney falls on two things:
- Making adjustments to your working process;
- Recognizing the developments that will help you see more action in the future.
You should always strive to improve every aspect of your workflow, increase your marketing and business development efforts, and up your tech game to better serve the needs of your clients. It will all add up in the end – it certainly can’t hurt to try.
