There are Kanban-style interfaces built into software tools just about anywhere you look. For various reasons, these tech-based Kanban board solutions aren’t always an option. But what if I told you that you don't actually need a Kanban board at all to benefit from the Kanban method?In today's episode, I discuss a case study involving a client of mine who, for institutional reasons, didn't have the option of implementing a Kanban-style software tool at all, but who still has made tremendous improvements in both the speed at which they resolve their cases and the quality of their client experience.Tune in this week as I walk you through the specific steps ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #46: Improving Legal Workflows without New Technology

There are people all over the US who find themselves in legal binds, but are unable to get the legal help they need. As we enter this season of giving, this episode is here to highlight an Access to Justice success story that I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of, albeit one that is still very much in its early chapters. I’m sharing this to spread a little hope, but also to illustrate some Agile tools and concepts that you might be able to use in your own private practice. Over here, a clear focus on improving the client experience is leading to improved outcomes and streamlined workflows ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #45: Agile Access to Justice, Leveraging Process Improvement to Serve the Underserved

When you’re buried in work, your to-do list is flowing off the page, and you’re feeling totally overwhelmed in your day-to-day activities, I invite you to hit play on this episode. I give a manageable answer to the question: how can Kanban help you become more productive, more efficient, or at least make sense of all of this demand you have on your finite time and attention?To answer this question, I go old school, describing how to build a very simple Kanban board on your wall, a whiteboard, or any simple Kanban system like Kanban Zone, Trello, or Planner. This is a super manageable breakdown of how to use a ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #44: Kanban Made Easy: A Lawyer’s Guide to Visual Task Management

One of the biggest challenges law firms face when moving away from hourly billing and towards incorporating flat fees is motivating your team in a way that actually supports the new business model. I've said before that billable hours targets create the wrong incentives for flat fee billing because they work against efficiency rather than rewarding it, but I believe billable hours targets don’t even motivate a team already working on an hourly billing model.What I’ve found more useful is using strategies for tapping into intrinsic motivation, connecting your team members' goals to the firm's mission and shared values. In truth, meaningful feedback loops and clear, mission-driven performance metrics are ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #43: The Right Way to Incentivize Your Team

Do you know the most profitable parts of your law practice? If you're like most lawyers, the answer is probably no. But without a clear understanding of matter-level profitability, you could be making costly decisions about where to invest your limited time and resources.In this episode, I explain why the traditional approach of using effective hourly rate to compare flat fee and hourly matters is flawed. This metric tends to compare apples to oranges, pitting your actual flat fee revenue against an idealized hourly rate that doesn't account for write-downs, discounts, and collection issues.Instead, I walk through a better way to calculate profitability using a cost of goods sold approach, ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #42: Ditch Effective Hourly Rates: How to Calculate Matter-Level Profit

For well over a decade now, the legal industry has been talking about moving away from hourly billing. But the latest Clio Legal Trends Report not only shows how technology is really accelerating efficiency in legal practices, it also cautions that attorneys who stick with the hourly billing model are facing very real risks to their revenue.Transitioning away from the billable hour can feel daunting, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. By taking an iterative, milestone-based approach to your matters, you can begin to identify which phases of work are ripe for flat fee billing, helping you increase your firm’s profitability.As I share more insights and takeaways ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #41: How to Transition from Hourly Billing to Flat Fees, One Phase at a Time

Are you familiar with Clio's Kanban-inspired feature, Clio Matter Stages? It’s been around for a while now, but as a Kanban enthusiast, I was eager to check it out at this year's Clio Cloud Conference. While it's certainly a step in the right direction and an interesting tool for Clio users, how does it measure up when it comes to implementing some of the more robust Kanban systems?By the end of this episode, you'll have a better understanding of how to apply Kanban techniques to your law practice, whether you're using a simple tool like Clio Matter Stages or a more advanced Kanban solution.Over the next few episodes, I plan ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #40: Legal Workflow Management and Matter Management Are Not the Same Thing

I’m a massive fan of Bottleneck Theory. This is the idea that you can make massive improvements to your legal workflows by finding and focusing on just one part of your overall system: the bottleneck. In this episode, I’m super excited to bring you an interview with The Bottleneck Guy himself, Clarke Ching.Clarke Ching has written multiple books that break down the core tenets of the Theory of Constraints (the formal name for Bottleneck Theory) in ways that are clear and actionable for people who aren’t experienced in Bottleneck Theory. He’s here to help you better understand how to improve your workflows and boost your profitability by thinking a little ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #39: Productive With Dollar Signs, with Clarke Ching

Have you ever struggled with giving tough feedback to your team members? Do you find yourself resorting to the criticism sandwich approach, hoping to soften the blow by sandwiching negative comments between compliments? In this episode, I challenge the effectiveness of this common practice and offer alternative strategies for delivering constructive criticism that actually works.Managing people is one of the toughest parts of running any business and, let's be honest, most lawyers (law-firm owners included) often don't get a lot of training on how to be an effective manager. This episode is intended to respond to some opinions out in the broader media about how to hire, train, motivate, and ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #38: Delivering Effective Feedback to Legal Teams

Something I see with my lawyer clients is that they have so many different things on their plate that each piece of work looks like an object, like a static thing that we need to deal with, as opposed to a dynamic part of a bigger process. When you are overloaded, that is totally natural. But this phenomenon points to the importance of seeing work as flow.We use the word 'workflow' all the time, but it just washes over us. We tend to overemphasize the work part and underemphasize the flow aspect. To address this, I have some specific techniques I use with my clients to help them better understand ... (Keep reading)

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Ep #37: Putting the ‘Flow’ Back into Workflow