By Tom Kane (Reprinted from Tom’s LegalMarketingBlog.com dated January 25, 2017)

More than 10 years ago, I started talking about:

• considering alternatives to the billable hour;
• questioning the future of the billable hour; and,
• in 2007, raising a question of whether the billable hour was dead?

I now know that those posts were a “touch” premature. I’m not so sure they still are. I can confidently state that the “traditional” hourly billing is dead. According to the “2017 Report on the State of the Legal Market” by Georgetown Law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession and Thompson’s Reuters Legal Executive Institute, in many firms, AFAs (only 15-20% of revenues) and  budget-based pricing “combined may well account for 80-90 percent of all revenues.”

The “widespread client insistence on budgets (with caps) for both transactional and litigation matters” over the past decade is the reason, according to the report. While firms may still keep track of their time on a billable hour basis, be assured that it is a different animal when it comes to invoices sent out. Debra Cassens Weiss’s take on the topic can be seen online at ABA Journal and is entitled “Billable hour pricing is effectively dead because of budget caps, report says.”

After discussing other significant changes to the legal profession over the past decade, the report concludes that “those firms that are most likely to survive and prosper in the new market environment are not necessarily the oldest or the strongest or the smartest, but rather those most able to adapt to the changes around them.” A good start would be to read the entire 17-page report.

Let’s look ahead to see what the new year holds. Here are a few ideas about what’s hot and what’s not for 2017.

Practice Areas.

According to articles and surveys by many of the top legal staffing companies in the U.S., hot practice areas include healthcare, corporate transactional law, intellectual property (particularly pertaining to entertainment law) and technology law. There continues to be a rise in cyber practices including privacy issues and data breach response. In North Carolina, real estate practices, both residential and commercial, are booming.

Legal Jobs.

At the 2016 annual meeting of the National Association of Bar Related Insurance Companies (NABRICO), several states reported the beginning of a shortage of lawyers because of retiring senior lawyers and lower law school admissions. Nationally, the unemployment rate for the employment sector that includes legal is 5.3% as reported by Special Counsel in December 2016.

In North Carolina, our over-supply of law schools and the very slow transition of senior lawyers means that it will take a little longer for us to experience a shrinking legal profession. As a result, many lawyers in North Carolina continue to experience unemployment or under-employment. We currently have more than 28,000 lawyers in North Carolina with more than a 1,000 candidates sitting for the bar exam each year.

Many experts expect to see a decline in the number of lawyers over the next ten years as more baby boomers transition out of practice coupled with the lower number of students applying to law school.

What does this mean for your firm? Strategic recruiting is important. If you have growth plans for your law firm or if you want to keep the status quo as senior lawyers retire, you need to have a growth plan in place. You should be working with the Career Services Department in our law schools, as well as connecting with legal recruiters. You should have a lawyer in your firm dedicated to strategic recruiting and they should have a list of recruiting tactics that include sponsoring events at the law school, participating in resume drops and student receptions, and offering internship or summer associate positions.

Transitioning Lawyers.

As senior lawyers begin to consider their next chapter, the idea of winding down a law practice (for a solo or small firm lawyer) or succession planning (for larger firms) becomes important. A well-developed succession plan should take a few years to work through, at least 18 months. Don’t wait until your best rainmaker announces a retirement date six months away before developing a succession plan.

As a solo lawyer, you should consider the idea that your law practice has value and there may be a market to sell your practice. Attend a “selling your law practice” program or talk with Tom Lenfestey with the Law Practice Exchange (www.thelawpracticeexchange.com) about buying or selling a law practice.

Changing Business Model.

A catchphrase for 2017 is be nimble. Adapt. Experiment with different options for your clients – a variety of ways to communicate, bill, and receive services – and see what your clients like. Many successful businesses experiment with their business model until they find what works best for them. Then they build on the model. Most law firms adopt a model that was built decades ago and they continue to operate the firm the same way, regardless of whether clients like it, employees like it, or associate attorneys like it. When the model ceases to provide results, there is no enthusiasm for building a new model.

The idea of a nimble workplace allows you to seek new ideas, collect input from your lawyers and staff and experiment with your clients. After putting an experiment in place, debrief about the process and results. Ask yourself three questions:

• What went well that we should keep doing?
• What didn’t go well that we should stop?
• What should we try next time?

Move to Digital.

This could be the year for you to move your practice to the cloud. You could also move to paperless. You don’t have to get rid of all paper or servers cold-turkey, but start the new year with scanned files, backed up to the cloud and encrypted. Move your email to the cloud with a program such as Microsoft 365 or Google Apps for Business. Joyce Brafford and Erik Mazzone at the Center for Practice Management with the North Carolina Bar Association are a great resource for technology tips, as well as referrals for technology solution providers.

There are many cloud-based practice management solutions available today. One North Carolina based success story is TrustBooks. Tom Boyle, a Raleigh CPA serving law firms, saw the need for a technology solution designed for legal. QuickBooks is a commonly used tool by small businesses, but lawyers have special needs created by the ethics rules. Tom’s solution was to build Trustbooks, a cloud-based software designed for solos and small firms and priced accordingly. Visit www.trustbooks.com for a free demo.

Importance of Data.

Managing your law firm requires you to know and use your data. Your accounting and billing software probably collects more data than you use. Use your new digital products to help you master the analytics that make your firm run. Keeping track and analyzing everything from hours on projects to costs of doing business will help you see the big picture of how healthy your law firm really is.

Artificial Intelligence.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (A.I.) has made big strides. Many Baby Boomers spent our Saturday mornings watching the Jetson’s, a science fiction cartoon family, as they lived with a household robot and zoomed around in futuristic space cars. Many of us see IBM’s Watson computer as the most common evidence of artificial intelligence, but in fact, today, we experience artificial intelligence in our smart phones, our cars and our household appliances.

Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking called A.I. “the biggest event in human history.” Technology leaders such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk worry about a time when A.I. could become smarter than humans and whether that will cause it to become a threat rather than an opportunity.

A.I. will impact the profession for years to come not only through enhanced technology tools, but as lawyers sort the many legal issues that will arise over time.

Alternative Legal Service Providers.

While Legal Zoom might be the name we know best, Avvo has also launched their version of online legal services. There is more to say about online legal services than the scope of this article will allow, but for some insight visit Bob Ambrogi’s blog post, “Avvo CEO Says New Legal Forms Offering Will Help Steer Self-Help Consumers to Lawyers” – http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/04/avvo-ceo-discusses-new-legal-forms-offering.html. The post includes links to earlier posts, as well as comments by Avvo’s chief legal officer, Josh King.

The North Carolina State Bar Ethics Committee has a sub-committee studying Avvo’s online legal services and the North Carolina Bar Association has convened a task force to study the rapidly changing legal marketplace and how legal services are provided.

Many of these ideas can be discussed in more detail with Lawyers Mutual. Reach out for a strategic consulting session or to obtain practice guides and other risk management resources for succession planning, strategic recruiting and other practice management topics.

Camille Stell is the Vice President of Client Services for Lawyers Mutual. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualnc.com or 800.662.8843.

The past few months have been busy for YLS members. After welcoming our newly admitted attorneys in October, the YLS joined the GBA for a membership Mix and Mingle in November where we networked with our fellow colleagues.  We finished out the year with our annual Greensboro Urban Ministries event.  We are looking forward to a great start to 2017, and hope to see you at some of the following events:

Natty Greene’s Party, January 20: Please mark your calendars for our annual post-holiday party at the Loft at Natty Greene’s on January 20, 2017.  We will be collecting donations for Hampton Elementary School.

Pro-Bono CLE, January 31: The Greensboro Bar Association and the Young Lawyer’s Section will be sponsoring a free CLE titled “Increasing Pro Bono Participation” at the law offices of Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP on January 31, 2017 at 12 noon. Lunch will be provided and this CLE is open to all GBA members.  This CLE will qualify for 1 hour of Professionalism/Ethics credit.  Please RSVP to Kristen Redman (kredman@tuggleduggins.com) by January 24, 2017 to reserve a spot.

Scrubs v. Suits MD/JD Basketball Game, February 26: Help us raise money for a new play therapy room to expand the mental health services offered to children at the Mustard Seed by helping us defeat local doctors from the Greater Greensboro Society of Medicine in a basketball game.  To sign up to be a basketball team member or to be a member of the spirit squad, please contact Lisa Arthur (lisa.arthur@smithmoorelaw.com).

Greensboro 4ALL, March 3: The YLS and the Piedmont Triad Women Attorneys are taking over the 4:00pm-7:00pm volunteer block at 4ALL this year. To register, please sign up here: https://4all2017greensboro.eventbrite.com.

Lisa Arthur is President of the Greensboro Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section and an attorney with Smith Moore Leatherwood in the litigation practice group.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

Stephen King,
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”

Stephen King,
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I don’t set New Year’s resolutions, primarily because I’ll fail to keep them and I don’t like failure. However, in 2016, inspired by Stephen King’s memoir on writing (which I’ve read many times), I set a New Year’s resolution – read 52 books during the year.

As I write this, I’m in week 50 of 2016 and I’ve read 46 books. I’m convinced I’ll reach my goal. One, because I’m taking a week of vacation before the end of the year so the competitor in me can make up for lost time. And two, because I have a small stack of VERY short books including a Christmas gift from my dear friend and colleague Jay Reeves, Anna Quindlen’s “A Short Guide to a Happy Life.”

I thought I’d share with you some of my insights on reading 52 books in a year, as well as some of my favorites.

The Challenge

First, a book a week is daunting. When the new year began I was reading a book about the creation of the Panama Canal by David McCullough. At over 800 pages, I quickly realized I’d have to put this book back on the reading pile. As I looked at my stack of books, I realized many of my upcoming reads were heavy on history and biographies that were hundreds of pages. These would best be read in a year that didn’t include a 52 book reading challenge.

As I continued to read during the year, I had to make decisions along the way. “If I stop a book I don’t like, can I count it towards my goal?” No. “Can I skim a book I don’t love, but count it towards my goal?” Yes, provided I read the majority of the book and lightly skimmed. “Can I include children’s books or Young Adult Fiction?” Yes to both. I included a slim collection of Christmas short stories written by Louisa May Alcott as well as the latest Harry Potter publication, a stage play titled “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. By September, the Challenge drove every book selection decision. I still read books that were on my list and that I wanted to read, but memoirs and business books were a much better fit for a book a week. No one but me was monitoring my challenge, but I wanted to feel I had earned my reward of completing 52 books.

Recommendations

This year I read memoirs or essays by David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, Pat Conroy, Anderson Cooper, Rob Lowe, Drew Barrymore, Ray Kroc, Dr. Paul Kalanithi and Shondra Rhimes.

While I enjoyed each of these authors, I recommend “When Breath Becomes Air” by Dr. Paul Kalanithi. Dr. Kalanithi is a 37-year old neurosurgeon who died in 2015 of lung cancer. His beautiful memoir leads us through a soul-searching journey on what makes life worth living.

One of my favorite collection of essays was the posthumously published “A Low Country Heart: Reflections of a Writing Life” by Pat Conroy. Conroy has been my favorite writer since I discovered “The Prince of Tides.” This collection of essays was more meaningful as it was the last. Conroy’s books occupy a single shelf devoted to my favorite author and I re-read them more than any others in my collection.

I read multiple business books this year: “The Future of the Professions” by Richard Susskind, “Personal Branding 101” by Katy Goshtasbi, JD, “Internet Branding for Lawyers” by Jeff Lantz, “Lawyers at Midlife: Financial Planning” by Michael Long, Mary Crane’s “100 Things You Need to Know” series for lawyers, “The Anxious Lawyer” (on implementing a meditation practice) by Jeena Cho, and “Ted Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking” by Chris J. Anderson.

I enjoyed all of these books and they are available to Lawyers Mutual insureds through our Lending Library (visit our website http://www.lawyersmutualnc.com/risk-management-resources/book-lending-library for more details). I’d recommend “Ted Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking” by Chris J. Anderson. I hope you are familiar with TED Talks and either watch them on video at www.ted.com, through the TED app on your mobile device or via the TED Radio Hour, an NPR podcast. The book analyzes many of the best TED Talks and offers guidance for anyone to become a more powerful public speaker. Topics covered include: common traps, idea building, the allure of stories and how to control your nerves.

The Technology of Tracking the Reading Challenge

My colleague Warren Savage introduced me to GoodBooks, a mobile app (and website) that includes book reviews, recommendations, social sharing with friends and the ability to create your catalogue of books you have read, are currently reading or want to read. I use the app’s Reading Challenge to track my progress. It’s also nice to have a single place to track recommendations I receive from friends or books I read about that I want to add to my reading list.

Your Reading Challenge

There are many ways to set your own reading challenge. You can embark on a plan to read a certain number of books, books from new or different genres than your “go-to”, or take a tour through classic literature. Perhaps re-reading some of those high school assignments that once seemed like a chore would be a good start.

Ann Morgan, a freelance writer from London, embarked on a great reading adventure. As she describes it on her blog, “In 2012, the world come to London for the Olympics and I went out to meet it. I read my way around all of the globe’s 196 independent countries . . . sampling a book from every nation.” To see Morgan’s extraordinary book list visit here – A Year of Reading the World – https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/

I read to learn. I read because I love it. I read to become a better writer. Join me in setting your own reading challenge for 2017.

Camille Stell is the Vice President of Client Services for Lawyers Mutual. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualnc.com or 800.662.8843.

For our January 19, 2017 lunch meeting at the Empire Room, we will feature two local agencies that work to help families and children with issues that often involve our local court system here in Guilford County.

The Family Justice Center (http://www.myguilford.com/family-justice-center/), located on the second floor of 201 S. Greene Street, has 50 professionals from 15 different disciplines on-site and provides a “one-stop shop” for victims of child abuse, domestic and sexual violence, and elder abuse.  The FJC provides a wide range of supportive resources, such as victim advocate assistance, assistance with filing restraining orders, planning for safety, interacting with law enforcement officers, meeting with a professional to discuss civil and criminal legal issues, receiving medical assistance, and gaining information on how to access shelter and other community resources.

Court Watch of North Carolina, Inc (http://www.courtwatchnc.org/) is located at 122 N. Elm Street. Court Watch helps children and families who need assistance from the courts.  Court Watch currently provides multiple programs, including 1) a 4 hour parenting class designed to meet the needs of parents or persons acting in loco parentis who are raising children in separate households (applicable to separated, divorced, never married, grandparents, step-parents and other care givers); 2) a pro se program that provides instructional packets and forms to help people file a new custody or visitation complaint as well as modification and contempt motions; and 3) a private process server program that provides a private investigator to locate and serve court documents on Guilford County non-paying parents when the Sheriff’s office has been unsuccessful in achieving service.

We will also have an update on the result of our Jones Book project and the progress of our Habitat for Humanity fund raising project.