Lawyers spend a lot of time improving their ability to deliver legal services to their clients. But business development for lawyers? Not always a priority. When you’re running your own law office, how can you make time to improve the business side of things?
Why Is Business Development Hard for Solo Lawyers?
Business development for lawyers is difficult because when you have your own law office, you’re wearing all the hats. You’re overseeing not just client services. You’re also planning and implementing marketing plans, management plans, and still carving out time for your personal obligations. Business development is hard for solo lawyers because we can’t make more time in a day.
Legal Tech Is a Beneficial Tool to Improve the Business Side of Law
If you had to change a flat tire while you were on the side of the road, you’d either need to call someone and wait for them to arrive or you’d hopefully have the right tools for the job so that you could just take care of business and get on with your day. Business development for lawyers requires the right tools. Legal tech can help lawyers continue down the DIY of business management and avoid the expense of consultants and business management staff.
Getting Started with Legal Tech
Getting started with legal tech is often the most difficult part. With so many options, how do you know what to choose? After all, there’s a legal tech solution for practically everything related to the business side of law (and even on the side of legal service delivery).
Start by creating a list of areas in your business that you think could improve. Try to choose at least ten potential areas. Common areas you might consider include:
- Determining if a lead you received is a good lead
- Your client intake process
- Improving (and using!) engagement letters
- Paying law firm expenses
- Staying on top of billing your time and invoices
- Improving the appointment scheduling experience
- Providing updates to clients on their legal matters
Once you’ve created your list, it’s time to prioritize what should be addressed first. You can do this by using a scale from one to ten, with ten being the most frustrating issue you deal with. This will help you narrow down your legal tech options.
After you’ve decided where to start, ask your colleagues or friends which legal tech solutions they use to address that sort of issue. This will give you a good starting point in creating a list of potential solutions so that you can review their features and choose the solution that best meets your needs.
Learn More
To learn more about legal tech and business development for lawyers, check out these resources:
Tom Martin is a legal AI advocate, lawyer, author and speaker.
He is CEO and founder of LawDroid, a Generative AI Legal Technology company, and co-founder of the American Legal Technology Awards.
Tom has been recognized as an ABA Legal Rebel and Fastcase 50 Honoree.
Tom has presented as a speaker at ABA Techshow, LegalWeek, ILTACON, Clio Con, Legal Innovators, and many others. Tom’s writing has been published in the ABA’s Law Practice Today, Law Technology Today and GP Solo Magazine, to name a few; he has also been featured on numerous podcasts, including Legal Rebels, Un-Billable Hour, Lawyerist, the Digital Edge, and New Solo.
Tom also has his own podcast: LawDroid Manifesto on iTunes. Subscribe to his Substack at lawdroidmanifesto.com.
He serves as a mentor at the Yale Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking and ATJ Tech Fellows. Tom is a graduate of Yale and UCLA School of Law.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Tom now lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife and two daughters.
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