You might call this video by Google’s SEO public relations guru Matt Cutts “search engine optimization 101.” He explains the basics of SEO and what you must always consider when making a web page or blog post.
httpvh://youtu.be/5GK0aQrCDEo
The secret to getting a lot of traffic to your website is not really a secret. For those of you who do not know the single most important thing you must do to get lots of visitors to come to your website here it is:
Put lots of high quality content on your blog/website!
The reason my law firm website averaged 163,000 visitors/month during 2012 is because the site has thousands of pages of content. Yes thousands. My site is 11 years old and includes eleven separate websites all of which have content and bring visitors to keytlaw.com.
Keyt’s Technology Rule #4 is “If you build it they will not come.” Yes, your law firm should have a website or blog, but do not be discouraged if it has little traffic in the beginning. It takes time to create good content. Your goal should be to add original content on a regular basis – daily is best, but several times a week is better than once a week. Set a time every day to write content. I like to get up at 6:15 everyday and spend the first two hours of the day working on my websites. Over time a regular plan of creating content and adding it to your site will add up to a lot of content, higher search engine rankings, more traffic to your blog or website and more new clients.
To learn more about creating content, read an excellent article published by Kissmetrics called “44 Must Read Resources on Content Marketing.”
This morning I saw an email message that contained one line of text and FORTY-NINE lines of signature block spam. Here’s the message (with redaction to protect the guilty) with the same line spacing, but with the 15 html links removed:
Would you be willing to share the language that you use?
XXX XXXXXXXX, Attorney at Law
Quick links:
Prospective Clients
Information and Living Trust Seminars
Existing Clients
Photo & 3 Law related Logos omitted
XXX X. XXXXXXXX, Attorney at Law
Certified Specialist, Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law
(State Bar of X Board of Legal Specialization)
address line 1
address line 2
(xxx) xxx-xxxx (office) / (xxx) xxx-xxxx (fax)
www.xxxxxx.com (main website)
www.xxxxxx.net (information website)
www.xxxxx.com (online living trust seminar website)
XX Insurance License #xxxxxxxxxxFOR PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS:
Schedule Initial Consultation for Estate Planning
(may also be used to access and download Consultation Packet for consultation)
Schedule Trust Administration Consultation
(may also be used to access and download Trust Administration Consultation Worksheet)INFORMATION BROCHURE AND LIVING TRUST SEMINAR INFORMATION
Download Consumer Guide to Wills, Living Trusts and Estate Planning
Register for Upcoming Living Trust Seminar
View or Download Online Living Trust Seminar
Request a Copy of My Living Trust Information CD
Request a Living Trust Seminar for Your GroupFOR EXISTING CLIENTS
Schedule Plan Design Meeting
(may also be used to access and download Plan Design Meeting paperwork if needed)
Schedule Signing Appointment
Member Attorney of the following legal service plans:
Plan 1
Plan 2
Plan 3
Plan 4
Plan 5
Plan 6NOTICE: This communication may contain client privileged and/or confidential information, including material protected and governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Confidential Medical Information Act (CMIA) of the State of California). If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please advise the sender by return email and immediately delete the message and any attachments without copying or disclosing the contents. Thank you.
I do not waive attorney client or work product privilege by the transmission of this message. Unless I have been formally retained by a signed fee agreement on file, nothing contained in this e-mail shall be construed as legal advice.
IRS CIRCULAR 230 NOTICE: Any tax advice contained in the body of this e-mail (or in any attachment) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax law provisions. If you would like to receive written advice in a format that complies with IRS rules and that may be relied upon to avoid penalties, please contact the author of this e-mail.
Not only does all that signature block spam look ugly at the end of the message, but my guess is that most people will completely ignore it. What do you think?
I do like to put a substantive marketing blurb at the end of my email messages My hope is that somebody will click on one of the links and that it might lead to more business. Does it work? I don’t have a clue. I’ve never tested any of my email closings and nobody has ever told me that contacted me because of a marketing line in an email from me.
I believe that when people are given too many choices more often than not they ignore all of the choices and do nothing. What follows below is my current email signature block. Am I giving too much information? Note: The request that the recipient like my law firm on Facebook works. Many people will send me an email response that he or she liked us and a lot of people also respond that they do not use Facebook (these tend to be older people).
P.S. Could you do me a big favor and click on the Facebook icon below to go to the KEYTLaw Facebook page then click on the Like icon?
Richard Keyt
LLCs, Business Law & Estate Planning
Phone: (602) 906-4953 ext. 1
Fax: (602) 297-6890Follow KEYTLaw & Click Like & Google +1
Icons with Links to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube & RSS feeds omitted because I was too lazy to figure out how to put them in this post)KEYTLaw Websites
AZ LLC Law: www.keytlaw.com/azllclaw
AZ Wills & Trusts: www.keytlaw.com/arizonawills
AZ Landlord Tenant Law: www.keytlaw.com/azlandlordtenantlaw
Law Office Tech & Marketing: https://www.keyttech.com
Flying the F-4: www.keytlaw.com/f-4
Am I committing signature block spam? Are you? Tell us about your signature block and marketing results good, bad or indifferent.
I have used WordPress to create 11 websites (put your cursor on the menu text above that says “My Other Websites” to access one of my other sites), ten of which I created to get more clients and revenue. The only WordPress site I created that is not for my law firm is one called “F-4 Phantom,” a site about my five years flying the F-4 Phantom supersonic fighter bomber in the United States Air Force.
If you want to know why I use WordPress to create my law office websites read my article called “Why I Love WordPress for My Law Firm.” In that article I say that the biggest reason I love WordPress for the law firm is because WordPress has over 19,000 free plugins that allow a WordPress administrator (you should be your site’s administrato) to add cool features to your WordPress blog or website. A WordPress plugin is software written to accomplish a specific task or add a feature to your WordPress site. My guess is that somebody has already created a free plugin that will do everything you could possibly want to do with your site.
Do you want to have message forums or a list serv on your site? Would you like your site to have a gallery of photos or videos that are displayed to viewers in the order you select for the number of seconds you select? Would you like to require a visitor to type a captcha before he or she could send you a message? There are numerous plugins that provide all of these features right out of the box. That’s cool and free, but the second neatest thing about WordPress plugins is that when you see one you want you click twice and the plugin is installed and working on your WordPress website. IT ONLY TAKES A FEW SECONDS LITERALLY TO INSTALL A PLUGIN.
The following is a list of plugins in alphabetical order that I always install on every WordPress website or blog I create:
To learn more about these plugins and the 19,000+ other free WordPress plugins go to the WordPress plugins page.
I love WordPress. WordPress for attorneys is a fantastic tool for generating clients and more revenue. I have been creating my websites using WordPress since 2009. As of today I have created 11 WordPress websites. You can access them from the menu link at the top of this page. Of these 11 sites, I am the only person who adds content to 7 of them, two sites contain content created only by two other KEYTLaw attorneys and two sites contain content created by me and other KEYTLaw attorneys.
If your website is not a WordPress site, you are making a mistake unless you have the money to pay a consultant or web development company a ton of money for a super-duper site. My experience is always been that I can invest the time to learn a software program so I can use the program and its powerful features without being dependent on a high paid consultant who probably isn’t really that knowledgeable. See Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 1.
I started the original www.keytlaw.com website in the winter of 2001. At that time I was a partner at one of the largest law firms in Arizona. The firm’s board of directors told me I could not have a website and that a firm website was worthless for generating new clients. I knew that virtually all lawyer websites did not generate new business because they were nothing more than electronic firm brochures. I was convinced that I could create a website with original content that informed the public about legal issues and that it would generate business.
I was right. Since leaving big law in 2001 I have obtained over 6,000 new clients most of whom hired me and my firm because of my websites. A good informational website is a great way for a lawyer to obtain new clients. During 2011 the total combined traffic on my websites averaged 163,000 visitors/month. Per Avvo and www.alexa.com the KEYTLaw website is one of the 35 most visited law related websites in the United States.
Microsoft FrontPage
When I took the plunge and created my first website in 2001 the two most popular HTML editors were Microsoft’s FrontPage and Adobe’s Dreamweaver. FrontPage was cheaper and sold to the public as more user friendly than Dreamweaver so I bought FrontPage.
For eight years I used FrontPage to create every page on the old www.keytlaw.com. Take a look at an old FrontPage created KEYLaw page. The old site look and feel worked well for me for many years despite it’s cludginess. I designed the look and feel of the site without any knowledge of what I was doing, which is why the site looks like it was made by somebody that didn’t know how to design a site. I knew I wanted a website and so I just loaded FrontPage and started creating web pages.
My original website and now the other ten WordPress sites generate a tremendous amount of web traffic because they contain content. See an old web log report for the month of December 2006 which shows www.keytlaw.com had 91,489 visitors that month, an average of 2,859/day. For the year 2006 my old site averaged 85,500 visitors a month and 2,850 visitors a day. Every year the number of visitors increases because we are constantly adding content to our sites. Web success is very very simple – the more good content you have on your site the more visitors it will have.
FrontPage was actually user friendly for its era, but the problem with HTML editors is that you start with a blank screen and you must build every page and every feature of your website from scratch. A simple website was easy to create in FrontPage, but to create any feature required a ton of time and html editing.
WordPress
In 2009 I decided to create a law blog so I did a little research and concluded that WordPress was the way to go. The difference between WordPress and FrontPage is as great as the difference between night and day. FrontPage was a low tech do everything yourself program. WordPress is a high tech do everything for you program. WordPress combined with WordPress plugins is a winning combination that allows a novice to do anything with a website/blog with very little effort or knowledge needed by the WordPress user.
WordPress comes in two flavors, i.e., wordpress.com and wordpress.org. The .com version is hosted on WordPress’ website. The .org version is free downloadable software that you must install on a server (shared or dedicated) and that is accessed by people who go to the URL of your domain.
WordPress.com
The .com version of WordPress is a website that as of today hosts 426,536 free WordPress blogs. To have a blog on wordpress.com all you need to do is sign up and two minutes later you are in business on the internet. Your site will be a subdomain of www.wordpress.com such as www.lawfirm.wordpress.com. WordPress hosts your site on its server. Although it is actually very easy to have a WordPress.org site on your own domain, the WordPress sites on wordpress.com are even easy to use. See a list of features offered for free by www.wordpress.com.
The downsides to the .com version are:
1. Your site is not on your domain.
2. You will not have access to the vast universe of plugins available when you have WordPress running on your domain.
3. You cannot have any ads.
4. Customization is limited.
5. Moving your site to a Wordpress.org site later is a big deal for the average WordPress user.
Reasons Why I love WordPress
1. WordPress is Very Easy to Install: With a good webhost like Bluehost anybody can create a WordPress law firm website or blog simply and easily. I’ve hosted my websites at Bluehost since I created my first blog in 2009. Bluehost hosts millions of WordPress sites and is adding 20,000 new sites a month. I cannot say enough about Bluehost. It’s cheap ($5 – $7) month. It’s got great tech support 24/7, which I have used from time to time. What I love best about Bluehost is that is uses something called Cpanel and Simple Scripts. What these two programs mean to the WordPress user (prospective or actual) is that you can create a new WordPress website/blog in less than ONE MINUTE. Yes! In a future video I’ll demo how to do it and how quickly I can create a new site.
To learn more about everything Bluehost gives you for $5/month go to its hosting features page.
2. WordPress is Very Easy to Learn: It takes me about 15 minutes to show a person everything he/she needs t know to add content to WordPress. Only one person in your firm needs to be the administrator of your WordPress site and know how to do things like add, configure and update plugins and do the admin stuff. There is a higher learning curve to be the administrator, but there is virtually no learning curve to be a WordPress content creator. Everybody only needs to know how to create a blog post or a web page, both of which are extremely simple.
3. WordPress Themes: A WordPress theme is software add on to WordPress that gives the entire site a certain look and feel and built in features. In my bad old days of using FrontPage, I had to create the look and feel (theme) of my website. It is not an easy task for a novice, which is why my theme was not too spiffy for eight years. WordPress, however, for some reason I do not understand offers 1,549 free themes that you can download and install in a matter of seconds. Yes. That’s right SECONDS! See the free WordPress themes yourself. If you see one you like all you have to do is click on the “install” button then 5 seconds later click on the “activate” button and your WordPress site has a new look and feel. I use a very popular theme on all of my sites called “Atahualpa,” which had been downloaded 941,182 time as of the date of this article. There are also thousands of themes that you can purchase if you can’t find a free theme you like. Update: I now use the Avada theme on most of my websites. I love this theme. It is state of the art including being “responsive” out of the box. A responsive site is a site that looks great on smartphones, iPads and tablets.
4. WordPress Has Plugins: The thing I like best about WordPress is that there are thousands of plugins (19,330 free ones as of the date of this article) that I can quickly download and install on my WordPress site. Most plugins are free, but some require that you purchase the plugin before downloading. A plugin is essentially software code that you can add to your WordPress site literally by making two clicks with your mouse. Unlike the FrontPage days when the website developer had to create all the code to do anything on a website, there are probably several free WordPress plugins that will do anything you could imagine doing with a website or a blog. See WordPress’ plugins page where you can find all the free plugins. Here are the four most downloaded plugins (I use all of them on all of my sites) with a description of what the plugin does:
How to Learn How to Use WordPress
There are many ways you could learn how to use WordPress, but here are my recommendations:
1. Teacher-Student Method: If you know somebody who is a serious user of WordPress, ask him or her to give you a lesson and if you can call from time to time with questions.
2. Watch Lynda.com Training Videos: Whenever I want to learn how to use software I go to Lynda and watch one or more training videos. When I wanted to learn how to make Adobe Acrobat pdf fillable forms I watched a 20 hour training video on Lynda. Today Lynda has a 6.5 hour course on the self-hosted version of WordPress and a 5 hour course on the WordPress.org hosted version. Both of these courses are about version 3.3 of WordPress, the current version.
You can pay to watch individual videos, but for years I have paid Lynda $25/month for unlimited access to all of its training videos.
3. Watch My Demo Videos: You can’t watch them today, because I haven’t created them yet. In the very near future I will have demo videos that show lawyers interested in learning WordPress everything they need to know to install a WordPress site on Bluehost , configure it with a theme and plugins and how to add content. Check back in the near future or enter your email address in the field in the top of the left column of this page if you want to get an update when I add new content.
Your thoughts? Do you or your law firm use WordPress and have any gripes? Do you use something else that you like? Leave a comment.
More and more people are using QR codes. An example of a QR code is made in one minute is below. A QR code is a digital method of conveying information contained in the design of the QR code. It is a great way to quickly deliver key information to another person or his or her phone or electronic device.
Let’s say we just met at a conference and I want to give you the following contact information:
Richard Keyt
KEYTLaw, LLC
Arizona Attorney
602-906-4953, ext. 1
Website: www.keytlaw.com
AZ LLC Law: www.keytlaw.com/azllclaw
Wills & Trusts: www.keytlaw.com/arizonawills
I could convey the above information using the old fashion method and slowly tell you my contact information while you type it into your mobile phone, but why not use a quicker and 100% accurate method, i.e., the QR code method? Instead of using the old way of conveying information I could just “give” you my QR code that contains my contact info. I would display the QR code shown below on my iPhone and you could scan the QR code using your QR code app on your mobile phone. My QR code application is RedLaser, a free iPhone app that scans bar codes and QR codes.
I made the QR code you see above in one minute for free at Kaywa QR Code.Kaywa allows you to quickly and easily create QR codes that are URLs, text, phone number or SMS text. You can also adjust the size of your finished code.
Although I recently read that the traditional business card is being used less and less I plan to get all of the attorneys in our firm to have a personalized QR code on the back of their business cards and also saved in their mobile phones.
Do you know what a Google “rich snippet” is? Should you? If you want more visitors to your blog or website you need to know what a rich snippet is and how to create them. There are three types of bloggers and webmasters:
Until yesterday I was in category 2. Now, after reading the two excellent articles listed below I have the knowledge I need to create a Google business page for my law firm, KEYTLaw and implement the suggestions contained in the two articles. I’m now at stage 2.5. I just need to implement my new knowledge.
To date Google + does not have the reach of Facebook and Twitter, but we all know Google’s power and innovation track record so it is safe to bet that Google + could be as important blog/website referral source as Facebook. By the way I have heard many people, including a keynote speaker at the 2012 Infusionsoft convention, say that Facebook doesn’t send much (or any) traffic to their blog/website. The primary reasons for the lack of Facebook referrals are:
My websites get a lot of referrals from my firm’s Facebook page. Earlier this month I did a blog post on a new law passed by the Arizona legislature entitled “Arizona Legislature Passes Broad Internet Censorship Bill.” I also put the entire text of the bill on the KEYTLaw blog. The day that blog post went live it got over 800 visitors, including over 400 who were referred from Facebook!
Here are the two articles on Google’s rich snippets and Google + I recommend:
The second article listed states “according to one study on the impact of rich snippets on traffic, the number of clicks increased by 150% once the rich snippet was added. This is one of those opportunities to give yourself an almost unfair advantage in Google.”
Read also “Google+: Should Lawyers Care?” which states:
“Last week, Google announced that Google+ (aka, “Google Plus” or “G+”) has reached 170 million users. By any measure, that is a truckload of users; but it is staggering when you consider that G+ is less than a year old. That makes the infant G+ roughly the size of Twitter (200mm registered users) and larger than LinkedIn (150mm registered users). And, while G+ is still only 20% of the size of Facebook, it has clearly arrived, requiring lawyers to strongly consider it as part of their online branding and business development strategies.”
Google’s short intro to Google+.
httpvh://youtu.be/1JagF4t0tJk
You have probably heard that if you want more business and traffic to your website you need a Youtube channel with a lot of videos. Once you have a channel and videos you must also configure the video in Youtube to maximize the information about your firm and/or practice area, but this requires that you know this fact and that you know what you have to do. The article “Create A YouTube Traffic Jam With These 4 Simple Optimization Tips” solves both of these problems.
I did create a Youtube channel for my law firm, KEYTLaw. As of the date of this post, April 23, 2012, our channel is 11 months old and has had 3,678 views of our 19 videos. Below is a sample video from our series called “Ask the KEYTLaw Girl.” It is typical of the videos, but longer than most because it explains the steps needed from A to Z to form an Arizona limited liability company.
httpvh://youtu.be/LtrVQDQ-dfM
All of the videos on my Youtube channel were made by a talented young man I hired.
Compare the above video (very professional in my humble opinion) to the amature video below I made in one hour of filming in a conference room with my Flip camera in 2009. It’s the KEYTLaw girl ad libbing text that I told her to say. We had many takes and I just edited the final and put it up on Youtube without realizing I should have created a KEYTLaw account and uploaded the video to that account. Nevertheless, this homemade video has had 13,210 views since it went up on October 7, 2009, and given me a lot of LLC formation business.
I do get a lot of people who hire me to form their Arizona LLC who make a comment about the KEYTLaw Girl. My favorite is “whoever hired the KEYTLaw Girl should get a raise.” I hired her and I’d like a raise. She is my daughter who has worked form me as my LLC legal assistant since she was a senior at Arizona State University in 2006.
httpvh://youtu.be/Oc5QBLi9TxU
In August of 2011 a good salesman for ExpertHub suckered me into purchasing a listing for estate planning lawyers on Nolo’s website at www.nolo.com. Here’s a link to my listing. The “referrals” I got from my listing on Nolo were of no use to me and did not result in a single dollar of income.
I paid ExperHub $750 eight months ago in return for which I would get a listing for estate planning probate and commercial real estate lawyers when people looked for that type of lawyer in Maricopa County, Arizona. If somebody left an online inquiry about that type of legal service ExpertHub charged me $25 and sent me an email message with the text entered by the prospective client.
Here is a sample of some of the “leads” ExpertHub emailed to me:
The next one is my favorite.
I have a judgement against me for $160,000. I am single and make $10 an hour and will not be able to pay this back in my lifetime but what would happen if I were to marry a man with substantial assets? Will he also become liable for my judgement?
Bottom Line
In my opinion the $750 I paid ExpertHub in August of 2011 was a complete waste of money. Now to add insult to injury I recently reviewed my March 2012 Amex account and saw that ExpertHub charged me another $750 last month. On April 20, 2012, I called ExpertHub and sent an email message asking to cancel my account immediately and refund my $750. Today I got this message from Maria Albano, ExpertHub’s Billing Analyst, Ad Services Manager:
“We received your request for cancellation that was sent to our Customer Service department on April 20, 2012.
Per our Terms and Conditions, our Advertising fees are non-refundable. Nolo/ExpertHub will terminate the automatic renewal of services and charges at any time, provided that Company delivers written notice to Nolo/ExpertHub by confirmed email, fax or letter at least two business days prior to the start of the next billing cycle date if paying on a flat rate or before the account balance reaches $0 if paying per lead.
Because your request came in 4 weeks after we replenished your account on 3/13/12, and after the requirement of notification before your account balance reached $0, I am unable to issue the requested refund. I did however set your profile to deactivate upon reaching $0 balance and you will not incur further charges.
You will be hearing from your Account Representative Dan Haight on our team for feedback and perhaps to offer suggestions for altering your Campaign to retain better results.
ExpertHub never sent me an email with an invoice that showed the charges and the balance remaining in the account. Why do you suppose it didn’t do that? ExpertHub never sent me a notice that my account would automatically renew and be charged $750 unless I cancelled before a certain date. Nor did it send me a message that it had charged my credit card and renewed my account. Why didn’t ExpertHub use the power of technology to keep me informed about the status of my account at least once a month. P U!
Nolo vs. Avvo
For over a year I paid Avvo over $200/month for a priority attorney listing on its website. I had the same result with Avvo, i.e., a complete waste of my money. I do not recommend that any attorney pay money to Nolo / Experthub or Avvo to get client prospects. My opinion is that the primary reason prospective clients use these types of services is because they are looking for free legal advice. If your experience is different, please comment.
The Atlantic: “How some of America’s top law firms devoured profits before the Great Recession, got too fat, and are now suffering the consequences. . . . During the early and mid aughts, firms built unsustainable business models that survived off the froth flying from Wall Street. Now, many have become too bloated to change course and adapt to a new era in business. . . . How did firms set themselves up for a fall? To put it bluntly, they got fat. . . . Firms were able to finance their growth and maintain their obscene profitability by pushing through through large yearly rate increases that met little resistance from clients. When the recession hit, these slow and flabby firms were broadsided. Business dried up. Clients balked at the annual rate hikes, and many started demanding discounts. Most firms maintained profits by laying off associates and staff.”
For more on this subject read an article in Bloomberg Businessweek called “Law Firms’ White-Shoe Blues,” which says:
” a dozen large and prominent partnerships have called it quits in the past decade. . . . There’s more at work here than the Great Recession. Inept management and the weakness of the partnership model have also played crucial, if lesser known, roles. And as unsettling as this shakeout will be for employees of many large law firms, it’s one that is overdue. . . . Part of the problem is that the partnership structure—in which the owners jointly make all the major decisions, including how to divide the profits—works better in smaller, more stable firms with simpler finances and more modest levels of acquisitiveness. Partnership does not nurture broad-minded managers skilled in running sizable operations. . . . the industry suffers from excess labor. The number of people with law licenses grew from 212,600 in 1950 to 1,225,000 in 2011—a sharp change from a ratio of one attorney for every 709 Americans to one for every 257. Forty-five thousand newly minted attorneys become available every year in a field with only 25,000 job openings”
A recent survey by Pingdom found that 48 of the most popular blogs are created with WordPress, up from 32 in 2009. In order the blog platforms by percent of sites using the software are:
Where does your blog/web software fall in this list? The article says, “It’s also interesting to see that our findings are not far off compared to what Technorati found in its State of the Blogosphere 2011 report. In it, Technorati found that 51% of blogs in the world use WordPress.” The article contains a list of the top 100 blogs and the software platform used by each.
If you are not using WordPress for your blog or website you are probably making a mistake. If you are paying somebody big bucks to create a custom site for you then you are really wasting a ton of money.
I started using WordPress in the fall of 2009. It is an incredible program and it’s free. I now have 11 websites/blogs (counting this one) that I created using WordPress. I use WordPress to create pure blog sites and sites that are traditional websites that may or may not have a blog. Here are the reasons I love WordPress and recommend it:
Do yourself a favor and switch to WordPress or create a WordPress site if you do not have a blog or a website. The first step is go to www.lynda.com. Pay to watch one of its how to videos on using WordPress version 3, the latest version. If you learn WordPress and have a WordPress blog or website you can save tons of money and frustration by avoiding the need to pay a consultant.
Tom Socca wrote an article published in Slate on April 11, 2012, in which he announced his hatred for Microsoft Word 2010
“Nowadays, I get the same feeling of dread when I open an email to see a Microsoft Word document attached. Time and effort are about to be wasted cleaning up someone’s archaic habits. A Word file is the story-fax of the early 21st century: cumbersome, inefficient, and a relic of obsolete assumptions about technology. It’s time to give up on Word. . . . it’s become an overbearing boss, one who specializes in make-work. Part of this is Microsoft’s more-is-more approach to adding capabilities, and leaving all of them in the “on” position. Around the first time Clippy launched himself, uninvited, between me and something I was trying to write, I found myself wishing Word had a simple, built-in button for ‘cut it out and never again do that thing you just did.’ It’s possible that the current version of Word does have one; I have no idea where among the layers of menus and toolbars it might be. All I really know how to do up there anymore is to go in and disable AutoCorrect, so that the program will type what I’ve typed, rather than what some software engineer thinks it should think I’m trying to type.”
Read the entire article.
I mention the “Death to Word” article because it illustrates a point I have made many times of the years. I call it Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 3: Few people ever invest the time needed to become expert users of their software or devices, but instead learn only how to do the most basic functions.
Tom Socca is a journalist. He writes for a living. The primary tool of his trade for years was his word processor software program, i.e. Word. Despite using Word for untold thousands of hours he never took the time to learn how to use the powerful features built into the software, many of which can make him a more proficient and efficient Word user. You would think that a person who used a software program a lot would want to become a true expert in the use of the software, but that rarely ever happens.
I disagree with Mr. Socca. Word is not going to die soon. In fact, Microsoft is moving with the times and taking Word to the cloud, which makes sense, especially for law firms and businesses. The only reason Mr. Socca has a problem with Word is he doesn’t now how to use the program other than for its most basic and simple functions.
Take the Word Beginner User Level Knowledge Test
Few people ever invest the time to learn the powerful features built into their software. People can use a program like Word (Time Matters, Outlook, Hot Docs, WealthDox etc. pick your software) 8 hours a day, day after day, month after month and year after year, but are really novices and ignorant about the power of the software.
Take this test to see if you are a novice user of Word or an advanced user of Word.
1. Do you understand and use styles?
2. Do you know how to use and actually use track changes?
3. Have you ever set up and configured autocorrect?
4. Do you know how to use and do you use automatic paragraph numbering?
5. Do you know what the format painter is and do you use it?
6. What is paste special and do you use it?
7. Can you create a document that has merge fields in it and create multiple documents that merge text into the merge fields?
8. Do you know how to create and use macros?
9. Do you know what “keep with next” means and do you use it?
10. Do you know that you can create your personal tool bar with the icons for the Word features you use most often and do you know how to create and modify that tool bar?
If you answered no to more than two of the questions you are a Word novice, but I suspect you are at least semi-happy with the program because you can get Word to do what you want it to do – usually. If you use Word regularly you should know how to use and actually use regularly each of these fundamental Word features.
Word is a relatively simple program. It does not have the complexity or the features of a good contact management system like Time Matters. The ignorant masses who don’t’ become experts in Word have little chance of learning how to use a powerful program like Time Matters much less be able to purchase the hardware and set up the hardware and software so that it works the way it should. You need a TM consultant/expert for that, but good luck in finding a true expert. Hint: Call Tom Caffery if you need a Time Matters consultant.
Keyt Technology Rule Number 3 Applies Even in Situations Where Lack of Knowledge About a Device Can Kill the User
This problem of users having minimal knowledge of software applies across the board to all forms of technology. I first learned about Rule Number 3 during the period I flew combat missions over North Vietnam in 1972. I observed that people will not invest the time needed to become an expert in their technology even when their lives depend on the knowledge or lack thereof. My airplane (the F-4 Phantom twin-engine fighter-bomber) had a black box called a “Radar Homing and Warning System” (RHAW). This device could detect whenever any radar energy struck the airplane. Based on the frequency of the radar energy the RHAW gear detected the type of radar (anti-aircraft artillery (radar guided guns), early warning radar, air to air radar (Mig-21 jet fighters), surface to air missile radar, including SAM acquisition radar, tracking radar and missile guidance radar energy). The RHAW system included a little TV that displayed coded information as to the type of threat and it generated an audio tone that could identify each type of threat.
This device could save a pilot’s life because the RHAW black box told him if he was being attacked by a Mig-21 fighter or if a 32 foot long supersonic flying telephone pole (a surface to air missile) was fired at him. You’d think it would be good idea to understand everything about the RHAW gear because the knowledge truly could mean the difference between life and death. It took a considerable amount of time to become a RHAW expert. When used over North Vietnam the RHAW gear generated considerable amounts of information. Here is a partial list of what we say and heard while over enemy territory:
1. A series of dots meant the radar was an anti-aircraft artillery gun – a radar guided gun.
2. A short straight line followed a dot that repeated meant an early warning radar
3. A short straight line followed by two dots that repeated meant a surface to air acquisition radar
4. An unbroken line meant a surface to air missile that was fired and guiding on the F-4
The RHAW system was a very important black box that saved many lives. To learn how to use the RHAW system properly, however, required a substantial investment of a pilot’s time. More than a few pilots did not invest the time.
I noticed that many pilots could not differentiate between the different audio tones or the different coded strobes displayed on the TV screen. I knew pilots who flew into the most heavily defended area in the history of aerial warfare who TURNED OFF THEIR RHAW GEAR BECAUSE IT GAVE THEM TOO MUCH INFORMATION or at least that’s what they said. I believe the main reason they turned off the RHAW gear was because they did not invest the time to learn the technology and could not use it effectively. Some pilots did not invest the time needed to become an expert user of the RHAW system even though their lives depended on the device.
Many powerful software programs used in businesses today are much more complex than the F-4’s RHAW system and require a substantial investment in time to become an expert user. Most people won’t ever invest the time, but you can and should. The investment will pay off many times over. You will be more efficient and productive by becoming an expert user of your software.
To learn more about flying the F-4 Phantom in combat in the Vietnam War see my website called Flying the F-4.
I Love Word
I have used Word since 1998 when the big law firm where I was a partner switched from WordPerfect to Word. The firm offered all non-attorney personnel a 20 hour class on using Word, but attorneys were given only 3 hours. I was one of only 3 lawyers out of approximately 80 who attended the 20 hour class. I also bought a great book called “Word 97 for Law Firms” and studied it. Within one month after my firm converted to Word I was an expert on Word and have been an expert ever since.
Everybody else in the firm was pulling their hair out and complaining about the transition to Word and how difficult it was to convert WordPerfect documents to Word. I created some Word macros to assist in converting my WordPerfect documents to Word, including a macro that converted WordPerfect’s automatic paragraph numbering to Word’s automatic paragraph numbering. I was able to quickly convert without any problems.
I constantly hear people complain about Word (and many other wonderful software programs), but I know from experience and my own use of the same software that the only reason they complain is because they are mere beginning users of the software despite spending tons of time using the software on a daily basis. The attitude of most people is show me the basics and that is all I need to know. Instead, the attitude of a person that uses a software program a lot should be I’ll invest the time necessary to become an expert user of the software so I will be more efficient and productive.
Learn to Use the Tools of Your Trade
The lives of attorneys, legal assistants, legal secretaries and law firm personnel do not depend on being experts in law office software so they have little incentive to invest the time needed to become an expert in a software program. I submit to you, however, that if you use a program like Word a lot in your business why wouldn’t you want to be an expert user of the software? If you are an expert the software can help you to be more productive. I’ve always looked at learning my software as something absolutely necessary to help me be more efficient and productive so I could make more money. When you think of it that way rather than a necessary evil you tolerate, you have taken the first step to independence from experts towards the goals of doing your job better and making more money.
How to Easily Learn a Software Program & Become an Expert User
Learning to use popular software programs today like Word is extremely easy in the 21st century and not all that time consuming. The best way to learn how to become an expert user of a software program is to watch one or more instructional videos at Lynda. I’ve paid Lynda $25/month for years to have unlimited access to it library of software training videos. As of the date of this article Lynda has to 1,320 courses and 75,244 video tutorials organized by subject and software. Watching Lynda how-to videos is an easy way to become a software program expert.
Several years ago I bought Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional because I wanted to make pdf fillable forms for online engagement agreements. At that time Lynda had a 20 hour instructional video course on Acrobat 8 Pro. I didn’t watch all of it – just the the parts that related to making fillable pdf forms. In no time I was an expert. See for yourself – check out the online pdf fillable engagement agreement people use to hire me to form an Arizona limited liability company.
Last year I bought Word 2010. It’s great. It does have some differences between Word 2007 and a lot of differences between Word 2003. The Lynda videos on Word 2010 quickly brought to the expert level. One area that I spent time learning was styles, which were substantially different from styles in Word 2003. If you are a Word user who doesn’t know how to use styles and who doesn’t actually use them, you are missing a very powerful and useful Word feature. Every document we create in our small law firm uses Word’s styles.
When Acrobat 9 Professional was released, I watched portions of its 20 hour instructional video to learn the new features of the program. I now use and recommend Adobe Adobe Acrobat X Professional for making pdf fillable forms and Acrobat 10 standard Adobe Acrobat X Standard for people who don’t need to create fillable pdfs.
A Happy Infusionsoft Customer Reviews the Web Based Software that Automates Marketing, Sales & Customer Relationships
My small law firm has used Infusionsoft for customer relations management, automatic followup marketing and delegation of attorney tasks since October of 2007. Infusionsoft is a cloud-based software product that is responsible for adding hundreds of clients and substantially increasing my law firm’s revenue.
Here are the important facts I want you to get from this Infusionsoft review:
A. The contest winner went from $0 revenue and no product in February 2008 to one informational product and $844,832 in revenue the last 10.5 months of 2008,
B. A finalist went from $35,000 gross sales in 2006 pre-Infusion to $838,569 in 2007 and $2,099,706 in 2008, and
C. The third finalist’s company had $2,000,000 gross revenue pre-Infusion then had gross sales of $6.1 million in 2007 and $10 million in 2008. For details about how Dentist Profits quadrupled revenue in two years ($2 mill to $10 mill), see Darcy’s online how to web page.
A. You dedicate an employee to actually do the follow up (a very expensive solution), or
B. You use an automatic system like Infusionsoft to do the follow up.
The primary reason I bought Infusionsoft is because I had (and still have) a tremendous amount of people entering my store (that’s what I call my website), but I was not able to convert many of the visitors to paying clients. During 2011 my law firm’s website ( www.keytlaw.com) had more than 100,000 visitors. Before I bought Infusionsoft, I did not collect visitor information or market to website visitors. Infusionsoft collects prospect information automatically from our website and does automatic follow up marketing over an extended period of time.
Infusionsoft has paid off big time. The software has generated a tremendous amount of additional revenue for me and my law firm. I expect even more increases in future revenue as we automate more and more of my law firm’s marketing.
Infusionsoft is a web-based automatic marketing system. Here’s how Infusionsoft describes its web-based marketing system:
Infusionsoft is an “Active” web-based solution designed to help small businesses double their revenues by automating and improving marketing, sales, and customer management.
Our flagship Infusionsoft product revolutionizes how small businesses run from end-to-end. With a heavy dose of marketing automation and additional tools to manage customer service, sales force automation, e-commerce, billing, and a lot more, Infusionsoft replaces the disparate, incompatible systems currently in place and leaves you with more time to strategically grow your business instead of managing fire after fire.
Infusionsoft is a full time UNPAID automatic marketing robot that doesn’t forget to send an email, letter, fax, or voice blast to a client or prospect. It also notifies your staff when they need to contact a client or prospect. It does it all automatically based on the follow up sequences you create.
My Pre-Infusionsoft Lack of Marketing
In my pre-Infusionsoft days, I did NO follow up marketing. For example, a lot of people who are interested in forming an Arizona limited liability company call or send me an email every day. Pre-Infusionsoft, I talked to the prospect on the phone and then manually sent the prospect a marketing email message that said why the prospect should hire me and that had a link to my online LLC formation agreement. That’s it. I never contacted the prospect again. No follow up and tons of lost business. I did not have a system in place to follow up with prospects.
Marketing gurus tell us that most of the time when a prospect contacts you the prospect is not ready to buy. That fact is why you need to get the prospects name and email and/or phone number so you can do follow up marketing to the prospect. If you do not do follow marketing the prospect will probably not remember you when the prospect is ready to buy.
Marketing gurus say you need an average of 7 – 9 touches before a prospect is ready to purchase. That is why follow up marketing is so important. The more often you follow up with a prospect you increase the possibility that the prospect will remember you and hire you when the prospect is ready to buy. Unfortunately for most people their day job interferes with follow up marketing to prospects.
I checked my Time Matters database on November 17, 2007, and found that I had sent and received over 1,400 email messages during the preceding 20 months, the subject of which was forming an Arizona LLC. I never followed up and pursued any of these 1,400 prospects for either LLC formation services or LLC operational related legal services. I lost a lot of business by not having a system that automates follow up marketing with prospects and clients.
How Infusionsoft Can Automate Collecting Leads & Doing Followup Marketing
Usually the hardest part of the sales puzzle is getting contact information from a prospect who is interested in your specific product or service. When you find that kind of prospect, you need to collect their name and email address and/or phone number and do follow up marketing. Now, thanks to Infusionsoft, my law firm has a system designed to collect lead information and do automatic follow up marketing 24/7/365.
My Post-Infusionsoft Marketing
I am going to describe how I set up Infusionsoft to collect information about leads and do automatic follow up marketing to sell more Arizona limited liability company formations. The first type of law business I used Infusionsoft for was LLC formations. The system and process I created for generating more LLC formation business is typical and could be replicated for any type of service or product.
The Free Report
The first thing I did was create a “free report” and offer it on my Arizona Limited Liability Company Law website. The free report is the hook used to collect leads from visitors who come to your website. The gurus say that if you want a prospect to give you his or her name or email address or phone number you have to give the prospect something of value – the free report. I wrote a very informative article with a catchy name called “10 Critical Facts Every LLC Owner Must Know.” (more…)
The following is a list of the productivity software I use in my law practice:
Word 2010 & 2016 by Microsoft
I make my living writing and producing words on paper. Microsoft Word 2010
Timeslips 2014 by Sage Software
Timeslips is the best lawyer billing program I have ever owned. Timeslips is a critical program in my practice that enhances my productivity and ability to bill for my services. I bought my first law office billing program in 1984, Client Management System by Compulaw. It was a great DOS billing program. Over the years I owned and used Omega, TABS III, and Forob. The latter was a great DOS integrated billing, accounts payable, accounts receivable and general ledger program for which I paid $10,000 in the early 1990s. When I had my eight lawyer firm, we paid a billing clerk $40,000 a year with benefits to do the bills. Today, I use Timeslips alone without a billing clerk and save the money I used to spend for billing assistance. I run Timeslips constantly in the background and enter my time as I work each day. It takes me approximately three to four hours a month to review and edit hundreds of bills and print them in final. I use Timeslips to generate over 600 invoices. Because Timeslips makes a copy of every invoice, I do not retain hard copies of any invoice. If a client calls about an invoice, I can access the invoice in question and email a copy of the invoice in pdf format in a few seconds. I have not upgraded to a new version because Timeslips has not added a significant new feature for years.
Quickbooks Pro
I have used Quickbooks for my law firm accounting and bookkeeping since 2001. It is the market leader in small firm bookkeeping software. My wife does all of the data entry. We have a bookkeeper make review her data entry and corrections if necessary once a month. After year end we just give our CPA the accountant’s file and it contains everything she needs to do our company’s federal and state income tax returns. It produces great reports. We pay a little extra for Quickbooks to do an automatic backup every day to Intuit’s cloud storage system. The automatic online back up saved us in early 2012 when my wife’s hard drive crashed and was unrecoverable. We lost 11 years worth of data on that machine, but all we did was install Quickbooks on a new computer and then restore the online backup and all eleven years of data reappeared as advertised.
Time Matters Version 2016 by LexisNexis
The perennial number one selling and top ranked law office contact management program. This program truly does it all, which is why some of its features have a high learning curve. I have used Time Matters since version 2.0 in 1998. Time Matters is a superior contact manager, calendar, to do list, tickler system, internet email manager, document management system and many other things. My Time Matters contains contact information for over 3,700 clients, referral sources, contacts, vendors and government agencies. I can find a name, phone number, mailing address and email address in a few seconds. Time Matters’ document management system is one reason I am a 100% paperless office. See my article called “A Simple Inexpensive Way to Create a Paperless Office” for a detailed explanation of how we became a paperless office. Time Matters allows me to save everything related to a client, matter or contact in one place. For example, if I access World Wide Widgets matter called “Newco vs. WWW,” I will find every document, internet email (incoming and outgoing), phone call (in and out), calendar event, to do list item and relevant website for the matter, including all such items created by other people. Time Matters gives me total client, matter and contact information in one central location. Can you instantly access a record of a phone call you had relating to a client a year ago or a contract signed by a client two years ago? I can because I use Time Matters.
Outlook
We have Outlook installed on our server. It is the primary program everybody in my law firm uses to send and receive email. Some people also use it for their digital calendar. Our server based Outlook syncs with Time Matters. If we send or receive an email message in Outlook, we can click on an icon and add the email message to the appropriate contact or matter in Time Matters. Any calendar events added to Outlook or to the Time Matters calendar sync automatically with the other program. All email and calendar events also sync automatically with our iPhones and iPads. If I am out of the office I can check my calendar on my iPhone or iPad and make an appointment that will automatically sync with my Time Matters calendar.
Infusionsoft Customer Relations Management
Infusionsoft helps small businesses grow fast by automating their marketing, sales, and customer management. Infusionsoft centralizes, organizes and automates small business’ marketing, sales, and customer management, which results in better lead conversion, lower labor costs and greater lifetime customer value. I have been using Infusionsoft since the middle of October 2007, and can say that it is fabulous and its marketing potential is unlimited. The CRM lets me do automatic marketing to my propsects and clients.
For example, as part of my marketing plan to get more limited liability formation business I wrote an article called “10 Critical Facts Every LLC Owner Must Know.” I put a teaser link on my Arizona Limited Liability Law website. When people click on the link to obtain a copy of the article, they are asked to give their first and last name and email address. On entering that information, Infusionsoft automatically begins the following campaign:
A. Infusionsoft sends an email to the person and asks the person to click on a link to opt in to receive the 10 Critical Facts article.
B. When the person clicks on the link, Infusionsoft sends a second email to the person that contains a link to the 10 Critical Facts article that is on a password protected page on my LLC law website. The email is a sales message that gives the prospect reasons why he or she should hire me to form their LLC.
C. Over the next several months, Infusionsoft sends additional follow up email messages to the prospect that are intended to get the person to hire me to form their LLC.
This Infusionsoft assisted marketing system works for me because in 2011 I formed 522 limited liability companies.
Watch the Infusionsoft Demo Video
If you want to collect leads that come to your internet website and do automatic followup marketing and make more money, you owe it to yourself to watch the short Infusionsoft demo video. Important Concept: Getting traffic to your site is great, but if people visit and go away without your system getting the visitor’s email address at a minimum you are losing potential clients and revenue. Use Infusionsoft’s double opt in email marketing system to add more money to your bottom line.
See my review of this fabulous automatic marketing system called “Infusionsoft Review: The Cheapest & Best 24/7/365 Marketing Department.”
Acrobat by Adobe
Adobe Acrobat XI Standard
I use Adobe Acrobat XI Professional
To learn more about how my law firm uses Acrobat read my article called “A Simple Inexpensive Way to Create a Paperless Law Office.”
Hot Docs
Hot Docs is the best automatic document assembly software on the market. You or your Hot Docs programmer use HD to create templates with powerful programming features and logic to assemble finished documents in Word. All of the legal forms that I use frequently for my clients are assembled automatically using Hot Docs templates. I recommend that you hire an experienced professional HD programmer to create your templates and automate documents that you or your firm routinely create for internal use or for clients. Anybody who creates the same basic document over and over (for example, lawyers who prepare contracts, pleadings and other form type documents) should use Hot Docs to automate the process. Hot Docs is the reason my legal assistant and I were able to form almost 600 limited liability companies (and all related documents including an Operating Agreement) in 2012. I could not practice law and be as productive as I am without Hot Docs, my fabulous automated document assembly program. For Hot Docs template development, I recommend Bart Earle who programs my templates. Contact Bart at Capstone Practice Systems; phone 781-652-8419 or email Bart at [email protected].
I was a beta tester and early adopter of Hot Docs Document Services. This is the cloud based version of Hot Docs. It is really really slick. See my quotes about this new service in an April 9, 2012, press release.
Wealthdocs by Wealthcounsel
Wealthdocs is the best estate planning software that money can buy. Wealthcounsel’s automatic document assembly software called Wealthdocs produces wills, trusts, LLCs, FLPs, and almost every ancillary document an estate planner could possibly want or use. Wealthdocs has a very high learning curve, which you would expect for an automated document assembly program that can produce anything from a simple will to extremely complex trusts and estate plans designed to save millions of dollars in federal and state estate taxes. It requires a lot of up front time to learn and use the software effectively. With its high learning curve and $10,000+ price tag, Wealthdocs is not for the technology challenged or technological faint of heart. I love Wealthdocs because it: (i) produces outstanding estate planning documents for my clients, and (ii) allows me to operate a very efficient and profitable estate planning practice. To learn more about this fabulous software for estate planning lawyers go to its Why WealthDox page.
Macro Express by Insight Software Solutions
I love this productivity program. I have used it for over ten years. Everybody in my law firm uses Macro Express because it saves all of us a tremendous amount of time. If you type the same things over and over you need this program because once you create a macro to insert that text at the point of your cursor you will never type the text again no matter what program (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, your browser, Gmail, etc.) you are using on your computer. To learn more about this fabulous software program more read my review of Macro Express. Click here to buy Macro Express for $39.95 per user.
Sugar-Sync
A program that automatically backs up your important files to the cloud is a MUST HAVE PROGRAM! Sugar-Sync is installed on your server or local computer and configured to automatically back up to the cloud your entire hard drive or files and folders that you select. These types of programs are very inexpensive when you consider the cost and nightmare you can have if your programs and/or data is destroyed on your server or local computer. It comes in handy if you accidentally delete a file or files and need to restore them.
Are you in a 20th century or a 21st century law firm? Lawyers produce, review and store massive amounts of paper. If your law firm is not truly paperless its powers that be should be ashamed of themselves. It’s time to move your law firm into the 21st century and use technology to not only save your firm money by doing away with the cost of filing and storing paper, but also allow all law firm personnel to access client and internal firm documents in a matter of seconds. This article describes exactly how my small law firm became a paperless law firm.
My small law firm has been 100% paperless since March 2004. Here are some important facts about our paperless law office:
In 2004 I practiced law alone with no support staff other than my wife who was also my paralegal, secretary, bookkeeper and file clerk. We went 100% paperless in March of 2004. We do not keep hard copies of any documents.
I have a very high volume, document intensive practice. When I first wrote this article on October 29, 2005, my wife and I had saved 970 documents (46 documents a day excluding weekend days) in the previous month. Most documents we save are documents we create, but we also scan and save a lot of incoming correspondence and other documents. I can easily determine how many documents we save a month by looking at the document number (in my document management system) of the first document we create in any month and the comparing that number to the number of the latest document we create in a month.
For a solo or small firm, it is very easy and relatively inexpensive to create a paperless law office. I am extremely happy I made the switch. I can find any letter, document, notes of a meeting, Excel spreadsheet, .pdf document, Power Point Presentation or piece of paper that relates to a client, matter or contact in a few seconds and have it displayed on my computer monitor. It’s a wonderful thing. All of our six attorneys and our legal assistants and secretaries love our paperless system because it is much easier and less time consuming than filing hard copies in a file in a file cabinet.
My small law firm now has four attorneys and four legal assistants. We continue to create a lot of paper documents – over 1,500 a month.
Why Paperless if Good
There are several reasons why a paperless office is the way to go:
My favorite reason for being paperless is the last item. If somebody calls and asks me a question about a document in our system, I can find and open a signed copy of the document in pdf format in a matter of seconds. People who do not know we are paperless are frequently shocked that I can access their document so quickly.
Hardware & Software Needed to Go Paperless
Here’s how we went paperless:
1. In 2004 I bought two Xerox Documate 252 scanners (one for me and one for my wife, my legal assistant) for about $900 each. It’s about the size of a shoe box and sits next to our flat panel computer monitors. It has a very small footprint. Now every attorney and legal assistant has a personal scanner on his or her desk. Personal scanners on people’s desks are absolutely necessary if you truly want to be 100% paperless. You must make it simple and convenient for everybody in the firm to scan documents and input the documents into your document management system (another must have item of law office technology).
Scanner Advice: The scanner I now buy and recommend you buy is the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac. Amazon sells this scanner for $400 – $450 (Amazon varies the price). This is a smoking deal – you get a 25 page per minute color personal scanner that comes with Adobe Acrobat X standard software. Acrobat is needed so that scans open automatically as pdf files. We love this scanner. It’s the size of a shoe box. It has a 50 page sheet feeder and can scan business cards and color photos. For more about this scanner real my article called “The Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 – A Great Law Office Scanner.”
The scanners you see in computer stores like Best Buy, Staples and Office Depot are slow home use type scanners. When you shop for an office scanner, you want speed (at least 20 pages per minute) and a sheet feeder that takes at least 25 pages. If the scanner on sale doesn’t prominently display its pages per minute scanning speed, it means the scanner is much too slow (a few pages per minute) to use for anything other than infrequent home scanning. Years ago I bought three HP 3380 4 in 1 printer, scanner, fax and copiers for $700 each. They print, fax and copy great, but the fastest I could ever get the HP 3380 to scan was 2 pages per minute in black and white at 300 dpi. Very fast high volume scanners are several thousand dollars and up, but most small offices don’t need that kind of speed (50+ pages per minute). Manufacturers of medium and high speed scanners display the scanner speed because that is one of the main features buyer’s seek.
2. All lawyers and staff have Acrobat XI Standard Win
3. Our computers are on a network. All data files are saved on the server. Our system makes daily backups to the cloud. We use Mozy Pro and Jungle Disk for automatic backs over the internet to a secure web storage site.
4. We use Time Matters for many things, including document management. I’ve used Time Matters since 1998. It is an incredible program without which our productivity would be drastically reduced along with a corresponding reduction in income. I bought my first document management program (PC Docs – later Docs Open) in 1992 for $350 a user. I believe that EVERY (w/o exception) practicing lawyer who has a lot of documents should use a document management system. Having a document management system is one reason I can find any document I seek in a few seconds.
That’s all the hardware and software we used to make our 100% paperless office.
Paperless Office Procedures
Here’s how we actually do the paperless thing:
1. When we receive a hard copy of a document or if we create a document such as a letter or contract, we either scan it with a scanner (if it’s in hard copy format) or “print” to Adobe .pdf (if it’s in Word format) to create a pdf version of the document in a few seconds. Having a personal scanner at our desks is critical for a successful paperless system. You want the user/office personnel to be able to scan the document contemporaneously with creating or handling it. The user is best able to determine the appropriate information for the document to input in the document profile. You must indoctrinate your staff to do contemporaneous scanning and saving to get maximum efficiency, staff productivity and attorney ability to access scanned documents in the system.
2. To scan a hard copy of a document, we insert the document (up to 50 pages for the sheet feeder, but I usually limit it to around 25 pages to reduce the chance of a paper jam) into the sheet feeder of the Xerox 262. If the document is letter size, we press the simplex or the duplex button on the scanner and the scanner then scans the document at about 25 pages per minute. If the document is legal size, I press another button to change to scan format #2, which is legal size paper. I then press simplex or duplex button to start the scan. We scan at a resolution of 300 dpi (preconfigured in the Xerox 262), which produces a good quality printed version of the document.
3. In a few seconds or maybe a minute if the document is 25 pages, the document automatically appears on the screen in Adobe .pdf format, even if Adobe was not previously loaded.
4. We click on the TM save icon in Adobe Acrobat, which causes the TM document profile screen to appear on the screen. To add a document to the TM document management system, the document must be saved using TM’s document profile.
5. In 10 – 15 seconds we enter the following information into the TM profile: document code (PN for promissory note, OA for Operating Agreement, etc.), the name of the document and the client, matter or contact. By pressing F2 in the appropriate field or by typing the client, matter or contact info, TM will find the desired client, matter or contact. TM automatically inserts the initials of the person creating the document, the date and time of creation, the next document number, and most importantly, the document file name and file location on the network. We’ve configured TM to use its automatic naming feature and to automatically create a file name equal to the document name and save it in a folder under the client, matter or contact name. TM’s file naming and file saving location configuration feature is very robust and gives the user many options and a lot of flexibility. If needed, TM will automatically create the folder where it saves the file.
Step 5 is the last of the steps needed to free your office from paper. I did two test scans, one with a 35 page document and the other with a five page document. One minute and 45 seconds from pushing the scan button, I had scanned the 35 page document, converted it to Adobe .pdf format, created a document profile in TM and saved the profile and pdf file. The same process from start to finish for the five page document was 40 seconds.
Ask yourself how long would it take your secretary or file clerk to file a hard copy of a document. The filer must find and obtain the hard file, punch holes in the document, physically tack down and file the document in the file, then return the file to the appropriate location. Not only does hard copy filing take a lot longer than paperless filing, but it might take days or weeks before the document actually is filed in the client or matter file.
The old fashioned method of filing hard copies is inefficient, costly in terms of staff time to file, a waste of expensive office space for row after row of file cabinets, a waste of time for lawyers and staff to find and deliver files to personnel, and expensive to store long term.
As for setting up the hardware and software and training staff to scan and save into TM, any good TM consultant should be able to configure a scanner and TM’s document management system and teach users how to do operate the paperless system in a very short period of time. I taught my wife how to scan and save in TM in a 20 or 30 minute session. It really is just as easy as I made steps 1 – 5 above seem.
Practical Note: If you convert to a paperless or semi paperless office, don’t waste the time, money or energy to scan and index existing documents and files except those that are actually being serviced at the time and inactive files that you think you will need in digital format in the near future. Start fresh and scan going forward. Most of your old files will rarely if ever be accessed so it does not make sense to convert the inactive files to digital files unless it is for the purpose of eliminating file and storage space.
Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 1
Learn to use your software so you can teach others how to use it. If you cannot use your software you will be dependent on third parties (to whom you will pay a lot of money) for your productivity and profitability. These third parties include consultants, but also include secretaries. Every time you get a new secretary you must hope he or she knows how to use your software because if not, there will probably not be anybody in the firm who can teach the secretary how to use the software beyond a basic entry level. See Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 3. In 1986, a lawyer friend who also used CMS billing software that I used called and said that his billing clerk told him that CMS did not have the capability of printing a list of the names and addresses of all clients. Of course it did, but the billing clerk was not sufficiently knowledgeable about CMS to know how to use all of its features. This leads me to the second rule of technology.
Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 2
Everybody needs a good contact management program. There is no better way to collect, retain, find and access information about ANYTHING than within a good contact management program. For example, I have a contact in Time Matters for each of my cars. If I go to the record for a particular car, I can find every important fact about that car such as copies of the title, the registration, every invoice for maintenance and description of the work done. Create a record in your contact management program for everything that is or may be important and then collect all information and documents pertaining to that item within its record
Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 3
Most people will only take the time to learn the bare minimum necessary to use a software program. Word is the most popular word processing program, but I have rarely met anybody who knows more than the basics, i.e., how to save and print a document. You may think you do not fit this description, but if you do not understand and use styles when you use Word you are a bare minimum Word user. Almost all of the lawyers and legal secretaries I have ever known are bare minimum users of Word and every other software program they use. To become an expert at any software program requires time and effort and maybe even reading the manual. Have you ever studied the manual for any software you use in your law practice? Few lawyers have the time or the inclination to learn software. When my large law firm converted from WordPerfect 5.2 for DOS to Word 97 for Windows in 1998, all lawyers and legal assistants were given three hours of Word training and all secretaries were given 20 hours of Word training. I was one of only a few lawyers in the firm who took the 20 hour class instead of working 20 billable hours. Although the class was a good introduction to Word, I did not learn enough to become a Word expert. Being a Word expert was of paramount importance to me because since 1980, I made my living as a writer of legal documents. My word processor software is the tool I use to make my documents. I must always be an expert in using my word processor. I purchased “Word 97 for Law Firms” and studied it. Because I devoted a lot of time initially to learning Word, I became a true Word expert in thirty days. I modified my word processing habits to conform to the way Word worked and made a series of useful macros that I use to this day. Everybody else in the firm pulled their hair out for months because changing from WordPerfect 5.2 for DOS to Word 97 for Windows is a nightmare unless you understand Word 97 and how to make the conversion.
Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 4
If you build a website or blog they will not come. Yes your law firm needs a website or blog or both, but do not expect that it will get much traffic initially. Content is king. A lot of good original content is what results in high search engine rankings which in turn send visitors to your website or blog. It takes time to create content so the sooner your law firm starts adding content the sooner it will get high search engine rankings. Without content your website/blog is nothing more than an electronic firm brochure that will not bring traffic to your website. Make a commitment to yourself and keep it that you set aside time every day or week to create original content. Your goal should be to add a minimum of 50 – 100 original articles a year to your site. In ten years your site would have 500 or 1,000 articles. Getting traffic to your site is a long term goal.
Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 5
I call this the Website Content Equation. It is the website formula for making more money. The equation is:
more blog posts or website articles = more website content = higher search engine rankings = higher web traffic = more new clients = more revenue
Below is a chronological list of my major law office technology accomplishments since I bought my first computer in 1983. Since 1980, I have practiced law full time while conducting a never-ending search for software and hardware that will make me more productive, more efficient and more money. The search has been fun, extremely successful and very profitable. I recommend that you invest more time in technology and you too can reap the rewards.
Why I Wrote this Tech Biography
The reason I am publishing my law office tech background is so that people who read my articles on law office technology can see that I have knowledge, experience and a practical basis on which to base my pontifications. Too many law office technology gurus blow mostly hot air and do not know what they are talking about. I think the reason so many law tech pundits are so far off base is because do not have real world knowledge and practical experience with respect to the subjects about which they opine.
For example, if Joe Pundit writes an article telling you what is necessary for a successful law office website and he does not have a successful website, why would you believe anything he says about the subject? How does Joe Pundit measure a successful law firm website? If it is based on awards or recognition of other law office technology gurus, then www.keytlaw.com is a total bust because it has never won a single award or even been recognized by a guru. Heck, all www.keytlaw.com does is generate traffic (an average of 163,000/month during 2011), a measurement that does not even exist in the mindset of the average law office tech expert. Per Avvo and www.alexa.com my website is one of the 25 most visited law related websites in the United States. My Arizona Limited Liability Company Law website is the primary reason I formed 522 limited liability companies in 2011 and 3,300+ since I started counting in 2002. Translation: When it comes to law office technology I can talk the talk and walk the walk.
Why I Love Legal Tech Pundits
I am not bitter that my website has not won any awards or gotten any recognition. I would rather have a lot of website traffic and the business it generates than one worthless website award. The fact that people write about law office technology without a clue about their subjects cracks me up. I love the fact that people who cannot do law office technology write about it because as long as the average lawyer in the United States learns about technology from people who do not understand the subject it means there are very few lawyers who can ever acquire the knowledge necessary to compete with me in the high tech world of the 21st century law practice.
Time Line of Technology Knowledge & Accomplishments
1. First Computer: I bought my first computer in 1983 for around $3,000. It was a Compaq portable with a 9 inch green screen. It had 256k or RAM and two 5.24 inch floppy drives
2. First Word Processor: I bought WordPerfect 3.0 in 1983. My license number was in the 50 thousands. I became a WP expert and used it until 1998 when the large law firm in which I was a partner switched from DOS and WP to Windows and Word.
3. First Law Firm: I started a two lawyer firm in 1984 with the Compaq computer, WP and an impact printer that cost $1,000. We saved forms and client documents on many 5.25 inch floppies.
4. First Billing Program: I bought my first billing program in 1985. It was the “Client Management System” by Compulaw. CMS was a great program for its time. I learned how to use CMS and taught to every secretary and staff person in my firm who used it, which brings me to Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 1.
5. Created Legal Form System: Beginning in 1984, whenever I had to prepare a contract or legal document for a client and if I did not have an applicable form, the first thing I did was prepare a form document and then modify the form as necessary for the client’s document. I did this religiously and still do it to this day. As a result, I now have over 500 legal forms that I created and use in my practice. I rarely have to create a new form any more. A good form system is essential and money in the pocket for any lawyer who produces the same documents over and over.
6. System Administrator of My Firm’s Novell Network: In the early 1990s the law firm of which I was a founding partner needed to network the firm’s computers. I selected Novell’s Netware 3.11 software as our network operating system. Everything I read said it was great software (and it was), but it required a full time system administrator. I had my computer guy install Netware 3.11 and network all of the computers. I studied how to administer the network. In a relatively short period of time, I learned how to use Netware to satisfy my firm’s needs. I was the sole system administrator of the network. I added, deleted and modified all users and software. I made daily backups. I did it all and it only took a few hours a month.
7. Purchased First Document Management Software: Shortly after installing our Novell network, I purchased a document management program called PC Docs. I not only installed it on my Novell network, but I also was the only person to administer it. PC Docs was the leading document management program sold in the U.S. when I purchased it. My firm had eight lawyers plus legal assistants, secretaries and staff, all of whom were creating and accessing documents on the network. With thousands of documents being created every year, we desperately needed software to manage those documents and secure documents from being accessed by people who did not have a need for access. I paid $350 per user for PC Docs, which included a $100 per user premium for the full text indexing feature of the program. The benefit we got from PC Docs far out weighed the cost. I believe that every law firm should have a document management system (“DMS”) to manage the documents created by the firm. A DMS eliminates creating Windows folders, file names and exotic & unique to each firm document file naming conventions. The user creates a profile that identifies the document including document type, name, client and matter and the DMS stores it and makes it easy for anybody with the required security to access the profile and the document. Currently I use Time Matters for my document management system, and it is fabulous.
8. Installed Full Text Indexing on Network: When I installed PC Docs, I “turned on” the $100/user full text indexing feature we purchased. Turning it on was a simple matter of answering “yes” to a question asked in the system administrator’s area of the software. I also added a dedicated computer on our network and gave it the task of indexing on the fly the text of all documents saved on our network. Full text indexing allowed anybody with the appropriate security to search for a word or text phrase and find within a matter of seconds all documents on the network that contained the word or text phrase. When I joined the big firm and became a partner, I found that the firm had paid the extra $100 per user for full text indexing, but the IT department (not knowing what full text indexing was or why lawyers might want to us it) did not have indexing “turned on.” What a waste of $20,000+.
9. Wrote First Contact Management Program: In the early 1990s I looked at the contact management programs on the market and was not impressed. I knew then that I wanted software that could track information about my clients and contacts. I purchased WordPerfect Corporation’s relational database called “DataPerfect,” and learned how to create relational databases. I created a contact management DataPerfect database I called the “Office Information System” or “OIS” for the eight lawyer firm that I founded. The program retained names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers and other pertinent information about our clients and contacts. Everybody used the OIS, which was on our Novell 3.11 network. At its peak, the OIS had information about more than 7,000 clients and contacts. This leads me to Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 2.
10. Wrote First Time Keeping Program: In the early 1990s, I could not find a lawyer time keeping program into which I could enter my time on a daily basis so I wrote one using DataPerfect. I used the program for several years until I switched to a lawyer time keeping program built into the time and billing program used by my firm. My time keeping program had the names and numbers of all clients and matters. It collected my time by day, client and matter. It printed reports that showed how much time I worked by the day, week, month, and year. At the end of each month, I printed all of the time for the month and gave it to my secretary to enter into our billing system.
11. Owned & Operated a Four Phone Line Electronic Bulletin Board System: In the mid 1990s, I become interested in the forerunner of the World Wide Web called the bulletin board system or BBS. I set up a computer in my home connected to four phone lines. I learned how to program BBS software called TBBS and created a very popular BBS called “Phoenix Online.” My BBS offered the public many fun games, Roger Ebert movie reviews, 20 gigabytes of downloadable files, and free internet email. Anybody could register on Phoenix Online and get and use an internet email address that ended in “@phoenixonline.com.” Creating my BBS in the mid 1990s helped me in 2001 when I created www.keytlaw.com.
12. Caused My Big Law Firm to Add Document Types to PC Docs: When I joined the big law firm (80+ attorneys) in 1996, it was essentially using the same software that I had purchased and installed for my eight lawyer firm. Both firms used Novell 3.11 for networking, WordPerfect 5.2 for DOS, WordPerfect Office, and PC Docs. When I joined the big firm, I noticed that nobody in the firm really understood PC Docs and how to use it. See Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 1. In addition to paying $100/user for full text indexing and not turning it on, the IT department taught firm personnel to insert the document number in the document name field of the document profile and to give every document one of two document types, either “pleading” or “letter.” This made it very difficult to find documents because when you looked at all the documents listed under a matter, all you saw in the document name field was a number of seven digit numbers characterized as either a pleading or a letter. When I gave the head of the IT department a list of 60 or 70 document types and asked that she add them to PC Docs, she said she could not because “it would double or triple the size of the document type database.” Like many IT types, she thought I was a lawyer who did not know s___ from shinola about networks and law office software and she could fool me like she had fooled everybody else. With a network of over 200 users and huge gigabyte file servers, adding the new document types would have been a few thousand bytes at best and of no significance on the network. I had to write a memo to the Board of Directors to get them to approve adding the document types to PC Docs. They never did turn on full text indexing
13. Caused My Large Firm to Purchase Time Matters 2.0: When my large law firm switched from DOS to Windows in 1998, I had to replace the OIS and DataPerfect with a Windows based contact management program. After researching the available contact management programs at that time, I concluded that Time Matters 2.0 was the best contact management program. I convinced the Board of Directors of my firm to purchase a 20 user license. I became the systems administrator of TM 2.0 on the firm’s network. The only people in my 80 lawyer firm who used Time Matters from 1998 – 2001 when I left the firm were the people in the corporate department. The firm had a wonderful training room with ten computers connected to the network, white boards, tables and chairs. I used to offer classes on how to use Time Matters and never once had a lawyer attend. Only a few secretaries ever came. This leads me to Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 3.
14. Created an Internet Website Gets a Ton of Visitors: In 2001, one of my areas of practice was internet law, including domain name law. I wanted to show my clients and potential clients that I understood the internet. I also had a desire to write articles to help people understand the law. In the winter of 2001 I started my website at www.keytlaw.com. I did not start tracking visitors until November 2002. I can remember when I was paying $300 a month for pay for click advertising and getting 3,000 visitors a month to www.keytlaw.com. I thought it was awesome to have that many people visiting “my place of business” every month. For the calendar year 2011 www.keytlaw.com had 1,957,043 visitors (an average 163,000/month in 2011).
15. Learned Microsoft FrontPage: To create my original website, I had to learn Microsoft FrontPage. It has a learning curve, but once I got over the initial hump, it has been a easy to use and simple program ever since. I am the only person who has ever worked on www.keytlaw.com. It is entirely my creation. I could have paid somebody to create my website, but for what I now have, I would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Had I not learned FrontPage, I would now be completely at the mercy of whoever was my current web developer. The slightest change would cost money and perhaps take hours or days to appear. Because I knew FrontPage, I can fix an error on my website myself in a few minutes from the time a user alerts me of the error or bad link.
WordPress Update: In 2009 I learned WordPress and have been using WordPress ever since for www.keytlaw.com and all of my websites. WordPress is an incredible program for creating websites and blogs. If you are not using WordPress and administering it yourself you are making a big mistake. WordPress is so simple it eliminates the need to spend big bucks with some outside web developer.
16. Learned Search Engine Optimization: From the first days of my website, I researched and studied search engine optimization. Because I understand search engine optimization, many of my web pages are highly ranked by Google and other search engines. Some of my web pages have more than 3,000 visitors a month. Many pages average over 1,000 visitors a month. Imagine the amount of new business you could generate if you had 500, 1,000 or more people reading one of your informative articles every month.
17. Learned Hot Docs Programming: In 2001 I purchased Hot Docs. Hot Docs is the recognized world market leader in the document automation software industry. It has also won virtually every industry award – including Law Office Computing Reader’s Choice Award for Document Assembly and the TechnoLawyer Reader’s Choice Award for Document Assembly and Automation – for five consecutive years. Since purchasing Hot Docs, I paid over $2,000 for four days of basic and advanced Hot Docs training from LexisNexis and created many Hot Docs templates that I use in my practice to quickly produce legal documents. Hot Docs is the reason my legal assistant was able to form 522 limited liability companies in 2011.
18. Created a 100% Paperless Office: My law practice creates a tremendous amount of legal documents, correspondence and paper. By using available technology, my practice became paperless in March of 2004. If you would like to learn how your office can become paperless, see my article called “A Simple Inexpensive Way to Create a Paperless Office.” As of April of 2012, we have over 140,000 documents in our Time Matters document management system.
19. Created an Online Store for My Law Firm: My clients can purchase legal services online and pay by credit card. I created online engagement agreements that clients can sign with digitally secure signatures and click on a submit button to email the agreement to me. Clients can pay for our legal services in our online web store. My website has a shopping cart for legal services. Check out my web store where I sell legal services and products. and my legal forms store.
20. Adopted Infusionsoft in 2007, an Automatic 24/7 Web-Based Customer Relations Management system: I use Infusionsoft’s CRM to do automatic marketing 24/7 to clients and prospective clients. We add prospects and clients to campaigns that automatically send out a series of email marketing messages to them over an extended period of time. The CRM is a fabulous way of automatically keeping in touch with clients and prospective clients. It has substantially increased our lead capture rate and bottom line. If you want to collect leads from your website and make more money, the first step is to watch Infusionsoft’s video demo that shows how it works its magic. You want people to visit your website, but you must also capture their email address so you can do follow up marketing. Marketing gurus say that most of the time when people visit your site they are shopping. If you do not capture a prospects email address so you can send follow up email messages the prospect will probably not remember you when the prospect is ready to purchase. We offer free reports that visitors obtain only if they give their name and email address. Once they sign up for our free report on widget law we know they are interested in widget law and will send follow up emails about widget law and why the prospect should hire us as their widget law attorneys. Infusionsoft collects the prospect information through webforms it creates and then does automatic email follow up marketing.
To learn more about Infusionsoft and how I use it to collect leads from my website, do automatic follow up marketing and make more money, read my review of Infusionsoft called “Infusionsoft: The Cheapest & Best 24/7/365 Marketing Department.”
21. Website Marketing: I have created many websites used successfully by to generate new clients. Click on the link on the top menu row to see all of the websites KEYTLaw attorneys have created. We believe in web marketing. It works for me and my law firm.
22. Facebook: We created a Facebook Page that actually sends traffic to our websites. Check out the KEYTLaw Facebook page.
23. Web Videos: We believe in using videos to inform potential clients, get more web traffic and market our services. See our video series called “Ask the KEYTLaw Girl” (used for LLC formation marketing), testimonial videos and our other videos on our Youtube channel.
Technorati will need to verify that you are an author of the blog by looking for a unique code. Please put the following short code 5HUVG9EQX33G within a new blog post and publish it. This code must appear in the published post and it must also appear in your corresponding RSS feed once published. Once it is published, use the “Verify Claim Token” button on this page to tell Technorati your blog is ready for Technorati to verify the claim token and proceed to final review.