ByLawyers News and Updates

Webinar – Challenges When Starting a Law Firm

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Whether you are an experienced practitioner or a recent graduate, staring your own law firm can present some of the biggest challenges that you will face throughout your legal career. In addition to founding a new business and attracting customers there is the challenge of practising the law in your chosen area of expertise on your own.

Being able to foresee, understand and prepare for these issues will help your firm succeed and remain agile in a highly competitive market.

Join a free webinar session hosted by LEAP and hear from two experienced lawyers and expert panellists from LEAP’s 2018 Start A Law Firm event who have both founded industry leading law firms.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Brad Watts

Admitted as a NSW solicitor in 1994, Brad has more than 20 years experience in legal practice, including as a partner, director and consultant. Brad was a contributing author for 10 years, before joining By Lawyers full time in January 2018 as the Managing Director. Brad brings a wealth of knowledge and an empathetic, hands-on approach to the business of helping small law firms get real time access to the best possible legal content via the By Lawyers legal guides and precedents.

Youssef Maksisi

Youssef Maksisi has worked both in the heart of Sydney’s legal community (Sydney CBD) as well as a boutique firm in Parramatta. He has successfully represented clients, whether corporations or individuals, in a range of legal areas, achieving excellent results. Youssef uses these experiences to ensure his firm, Maksisi Lawyers, provides high-level CBD-style expertise with the personal connection of a boutique firm.

Register for the webinar here and claim CPD points for attendance.

Join By Lawyers at the Small Law Industry Summit

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Make 2019 a year to optimise your firm’s performance by attending the inaugural Small Law Industry Summit hosted by LEAP on 14 March 2019.

By Lawyers are proud event partners of the Small Law Industry Summit and our Managing Director Brad Watts will be presenting on the use of legal practice management techniques to ensure growth.

Since 2007, By Lawyers has been dedicated to helping lawyers enjoy practice more and our Managing Director Brad Watts has over 20 years experience in legal practice and has built several successful firms from the ground up.

The Small Law Industry Summit will also be showcasing not-to-be-missed presentations from industry leaders on topics such as:

  • Cyber-security and risk management;
  • Artificial intelligence and the next generation of legal technology innovations;
  • Getting the best out of your firm’s most valuable asset;
  • Internal governance and due diligence;
  • Succession for you and your practice;
  • Turning talent into a high performance culture; and
  • Increasing profit: The lifeblood of the small law industry.

See the full Summit Agenda here.

Attendees will be able to claim 6 CPD points

Secure your place at the Small Law Industry Summit here.

Interest on unpaid legal costs – TAS

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Under new regulations, the maximum rate of interest on unpaid legal costs that can be charged by Tasmanian lawyers has increased significantly. The Legal Profession Regulations 2018 came into force on 28 November 2018 and replaced the Legal Profession Regulations 2008.

Rule 66 now provides that the applicable rate for interest on unpaid legal costs is that prescribed by the Rules of Court for the purposes of section 165 of the Supreme Court Civil Procedure Act 1932. The current rate is 7.5%. The previous rate was 3.5% and was tied to the Reserve Bank of Australia Cash Rate Target.

All By Lawyers Tasmanian costs agreements have been updated accordingly.

The LEAP Small Law Industry Summit – March 2019

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By Lawyers is excited to announce that we will be presenting at the Small Law Industry Summit hosted by LEAP on 14 March 2019.

The Small Law Industry Summit is the first of its kind and will showcase some of the legal community’s most prominent thought leaders. Key issues which will be addressed include leadership, risk mitigation, practice management and innovation, high-performance cultures and the fundamental role of technology in shaping the future of the legal profession.

Our Managing Director Brad Watts will discuss the four pillars of improved practice management including:

  • the importance of client focus in a modern legal practice;
  • implementing systems and processes that naturally support success;
  • training and supervision to empower your staff and ensure quality; and
  • refocusing your efforts to find joy in practising law.

While it is often overlooked, effective practice management is the cornerstone of building a successful legal practice. Brad has more than 20 years experience in legal practice, including as a partner, director and consultant. His presentation will provide valuable insights for all small firms, whether new or well-established.

Register now to see presentations from By Lawyers and other industry leaders including the founder of LEAP Legal Software, AFR Rich-Lister and EY Australian Entrepreneur of the Year 2017, Christian Beck.

Attendees will be able to claim 6 CPD points.

About By Lawyers

By Lawyers is dedicated to helping lawyers enjoy practice more.

We have over 7,000 precedents and 140 end-to-end legal practice guides. We specialise in offering  practical and professional guidance for all major areas of law. Every piece of By Lawyers content is written or reviewed by a solicitor or barrister practising in the applicable state or federal jurisdiction.

About LEAP

For over 25 years, LEAP has been at the forefront of delivering innovative technologies designed to advance and protect the efficiency, flexibility and growth of the small law industry.

Secure your place at the Small Law Industry Summit here.

50% of each ticket sold will go towards supporting cyber security education – through a scholarship at Western Sydney University (WSU).

Practice management – The key to a successful law firm

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Our Practice Management guide has undergone a substantial review to better address the challenges facing small law firms now. We have tailored our Practice Management Guide to provide assistance for all firms, whether start-up, breakaway or well established.

Our Practice Management guide contains commentary on running a successful legal practice, covering the following main areas:

  • How to perform a Legal Practice Health Diagnostic Check – a very useful tool for identifying existing strengths and areas where the firm can improve, or as a check-list for start ups.
  • Business planning for a law firm – including a SWOT analysis and environmental scan.
  • Ethics and professional responsibility – crucial to establishing reputation and managing risk.
  • The solicitor/client relationship – how to value and manage client relationships.
  • The employer/employee relationship – all of the essential information required for a firm to become an employer of choice.
  • Practice management – the essentials of managing the work performed by law firms including, matter and data management, financial management and trust accounting.

The By Lawyers Practice Management guide also contains many helpful precedents, such as:

  • Example costs disclosures.
  • Example invoices.
  • An example mission statement for a law firm.
  • A risk management plan.
  • Employment forms – including an application for employment and a new employee check-list.
  • An example asset register.
  • Forms for conducting file reviews.
  • Document safe custody records.
  • An example law firm client satisfaction survey.

Also included in the guide is our Reference Manual – 101 Policies and Procedures which covers most aspects of running a legal practice. Firms can seamlessly implement these policies and procedures as their own with a view to later development and enhancement, or use them as the basis for refreshing and enhancing existing policies and procedures already in place.

The By Lawyers Practice Management Guide also includes helpful articles including The 11 habits of highly successful small law firms by the Global Executive Chairman of LEAP, Richard Hugo Hamman.

Grow your legal practice – NSW

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GROW YOUR LEGAL PRACTICE – PANEL DISCUSSION

There are many challenges facing today’s small law firms. Recently, LEAP have conducted a study with their clients, exploring the challenges commonly associated with running a small legal practice. This research reveals that in the first year of operations, 67% of firms complain of spending too much time on administrative tasks, 57% struggle with attracting new clients, 40% find it difficult to manage cashflow and 44% are not able to attain a healthy work-life balance.

On Thursday, 11th October LEAP are hosting a networking breakfast event in Sydney with the sole purpose of helping small law firms address these challenges. Our own editor Brad Watts will join a panel of experts, Rose Dravitzki (Clarence Chambers), Roxanne Hart (oLegal) and Youssef Maksisi (Maksisi Lawyers), to explore the topic of effective practice management.

During this interactive presentation, the panellists will draw on their many years of legal experience and share their personal stories of starting and managing their own practices. Attendees can look forward to engaging with the speakers and hopefully taking away some practical tips and strategies enabling them to differentiate, grow and enjoy their own practices.

Whether you are looking for new ways to grow your legal practice, need some new ideas for the management of your firm, or are simply curious to hear from others about the approaches taken to build and develop their practices, we invite you to attend this free event. We also encourage you to come with plenty of questions for the panel and make the most of the substantial amount of experience LEAP have collected together for this event.

REGISTER TODAY

For those unable to attend, the By Lawyers Practice Management Guide and the related Reference Manual 101 Policies & Procedures are always available to assist By Lawyers and LEAP subscribers with practice management ideas and issues.

 

Supervised legal practice – A new podcast from By Lawyers and LEAP

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Many small firms have lawyers on the team who are still in their first two years of practice and therefore subject to a condition on their practising certificate that they may only engage in supervised legal practice.

Join our Senior Consultant and Editor Brad Watts and LEAP National Marketing Manager Claire James for a discussion on the ways in which proper supervision is important for both the firm and for junior lawyers and how it can be an essential element of running a successful small law firm, as a means to ensure delivery of high quality client outcomes and a vital risk management tool.

The President of the NSW Law Society recently highlighted the importance of senior practitioners meeting their supervisory obligations to junior practitioners who are subject to the restriction of supervised legal practice in their first 2 years. This podcast discusses the factors which impact – and sometimes impede – proper supervision in small legal practices and how the By Lawyers guides and precedents can help firms comply with their supervision requirements.

The podcast covers the general supervision requirements and also looks at some specific By Lawyers precedents which can assist firms with their supervision obligations, such as Retainer Instructions and To Do lists.

Oh, and with some help from John Grisham, we also learn why Australian lawyers are better than American lawyers!

 

Practice management for small law firms

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Practice management is both one of the most important and one of the most frequently neglected aspects of being a lawyer. The imperatives of doing the clients’ work too often mean that practice management takes a back seat and the future direction, expansion and profitability of the firm becomes an afterthought.

The 11 Habits of highly successful small law firms is an article by Richard Hugo-Hamman, the Executive Chairman of LEAP Legal Software, who has been helping small law firms to make more money for over 25 years. This very informative and inspirational article was recently published on LinkedIn and Richard has kindly permitted us to reproduce it within the Reference Materials folder in the By Lawyers Practice Management guide.

The article contains numerous valuable insights for anyone running a small law firm or thinking of doing so. Richard draws on his enormous international experience to distil the key habits that define highly successful small law firms.  In summary he concludes that:

  1. They are efficient;
  2. They enjoy practising law;
  3. They employ smart people and treat them really well;
  4. They have selected areas of law they like and focus on them;
  5. They dedicate time to building the firm as a business;
  6. They are early adopters of technology;
  7. They confront the challenges of getting paid and solve them;
  8. They have standard processes and procedures in place for all matters;
  9. They make compliance a natural consequence of running a firm well;
  10. They become experts in customer service;
  11. They understand their finances.

We highly recommend reading Richard’s article, which calls upon you to ACT!

Client Details and Verification of Identity certificate

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We have added a new Client Details and VOI precedent to every one of our publications. This handy document is designed to be used at the first point of contact with a client.

The front page is for the client’s general contact information and identification. The second page includes the formal Verification of Identity Certificate.

The Client Details page can be completed by the client while they are waiting to meet with the solicitor, saving time for the client and the practitioner in the process.

Having the Client Details and VOI as a separate document leaves the Retainer Instructions for collecting the matter-specific information.

We have placed the new precedent immediately before the Retainer Instructions on each matter plan.

We think this will simplify and improve the client engagement process. We would love to hear any feedback from firms as they use the new document.

By Lawyers Alerts – reducing stress

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To reinforce the currency of our publications, we have extended our Alerts system.

At By Lawyers we are committed to reducing stress for small law firms and ensuring practitioners have what they need, when they need it. Our matter plans provide you with the precedents you are looking for and our commentaries give you as much  – or as little – support as required.

Most importantly, our publications always include the latest in legislative and procedural changes.

Alerts have always been posted in our publications as a way of letting you know, at a glance, of any recent updates to the law and advising you when our precedents and commentaries have been updated. However, sometimes there simply aren’t any changes that you need to know about – and we think you need to know that, too.

From now on, where there are no changes current, our publications will display the reassuring flag ‘Alerts – Nil’.

‘Alerts – Nil’ at the top of a matter plan indicates that there have not been any recent changes in that area of law.

At By Lawyers all members of our editorial team have dedicated areas of law to follow, with state-based cross-checks, ensuring no legislative changes escape our attention. Notifications from legislative, courts and law society sources, to name only a few, are checked and cross-checked daily. When we need to update anything, the digital nature of our publications means that we can post updates – and issue an alert – immediately.

We will always inform you when there is something you need to know. Otherwise, you have no need to worry!

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