The worst of the recession may be behind us, but we're not out of the woods yet.

The recent economic meltdown is still sending shock waves, and hitting people where it hurts most - their wallets.

The issue is credit.

Many people - particularly business owners - still can't get it.

According to a small business report survey, roughly 34% of small businesses are unsure if they'll be able to access credit this year.

Even worse, 15% said that a lack of credit will prevent them from hiring more employees.

This report is a good indicator of what lawyers and other business professionals are up against this year, especially as it relates to clients and prospects.

Money is tight. Business and revenue are still a concern.

The good news?

We're all in the same boat.

After you read this small business report, you'll realize that ALL OF US face the same hurdles.

Challenging times though call for a plan of attack!

What's yours?

Report Shows Increasing Disparity for Women Lawyers

A survey conducted by the National Association of Women Lawyers casts an unfavorable light on U.S. law firms. The survey indicates that there is a relatively low percentage of women equity partners - about 15% - and that the compensation gap between men and women is growing.

What's even more startling is the information published in a different, yet similar report titled,  New Millenium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women. It revealed that "existing compensation systems in law firms were rank with subjectivity, lacked transparency, and left large openings for gender bias."

Even more shocking?

Nearly one-third of the women surveyed reported being bullied, threatened, or intimidated when it came to the issue of origination credit, which is a key factor in setting compensation.

"The focus for quite a long time has been on getting a critical mass of women into these leadership positions," says Joan William, co-author of the report. "One the other hand, once they get there, they face serious, serious problems even if they do everything right. What we saw were depressingly, tightly documented patterns of gender bias."

The study also showed:

• A lack of women and minorities on compensation committees.
• More than half the women surveyed reported being denied their fair share of origination credit.
• Women are not being given networking opportunities that lead to landing new clients.

Williams also notes that women are commonly asked to sit on diversity committees, mentor associates, work pro bono, and take on other team-work assignments that are more important to the firm's long-term health - all of which do not add up to billable hours. Because most compensation systems award rainmakers and billing hours instead of other roles and responsibilities, it appears that women are getting the short end of the stick.

While the study has been well received, the authors note that it's time for law firms to step up to the plate and begin assessing and cross-checking what they're doing. Women need to be advancing toward equity partnership, equity credit, and named to important committees - not taking a step back.

Source: Women Trapped Under the Same Glass Ceiling by Hannah Hayes.

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The new year is almost upon us. It's time to reflect on the year gone by... and what lies ahead. Chances are you're thinking about ways to grow your practice and your profits.

Thankfully the experts from ABA LPM are way ahead of us. Janis Alexander, Ed Poll, and Mark Robertson have outlined the following quick tips to help get our bottom lines fat and happy in 2012.

1. Develop a cash-flow statement.

A cash-flow statement is your firm’s single most important financial statement. It will project when you will need to borrow money, hustle for more business or increase collection efforts. It will also tell you when you will have sufficient reserves to make the capital investment you’ve wanted or to increase your own draw.

2. Use an electronic timekeeping system.

The efficiency, extra speed and greater accuracy of an electronic timekeeping system makes it far better than the traditional handwritten timesheet. And be sure to enter time as you go from task to task! Trying to create entries for work done earlier in the day much less in the distant past is very time-consuming and won’t be accurate or complete. Lawyers who contemporaneously docket time capture a significantly greater portion of the work they have done—up to 20 percent or more. Also, spend a few minutes at the end of the day reviewing your dockets, and make any necessary corrections or additions while things are still fresh in your mind.

3. Send out e-statements.

Reduce postage and stationary costs AND facilitate faster payment by sending out bills electronically. And, be sure to send the statements by no later than the 25th of each month, so clients can enter your statements in their systems and pay you in the following month’s accounts payable check run.

4. Make your bills client-friendly.

Your bill is the most important piece of paper you send to a client. Make sure it is easy to understand and indicates how the fee was calculated. Do a reporting letter explaining what you have done to help clients better understand the value of your work for them.

5. Reassess your rates.

Review your hourly rates once a year and determine whether the rates should change. If you are going to change your rates, don’t make small changes. For example, increase them from $180 to $225, not from $180 to $185. If current clients object to rate increases, tell them you will charge at the old rates if they pay up front. This ensures you get paid and also keeps clients happy.

6. Keep debt in check.

Make limited use of borrowing and carefully preserve your lines of credit. Borrow for long-term projects, for capital growth and for increasing the size of the firm. Do not borrow for payroll or short-term project funds that should be taken from current cash flow. And never borrow for partners’ compensation.

7. Accept credit cards.

Make it easy for people to do business with you by accepting credit cards for payments and retainers.

8. Brush up on your time management skills.

Manage your time effectively so you can dedicate more hours to billable work. Schedule a meeting with your assistant at or near the start of each day, so you both get up to speed on the tasks at hand and avoid wasting time interrupting each other all day. Identify your most productive time of day and try to block it off in your calendar, so you can protect it from meetings and the like in favor of getting bigger tasks done. Also, at the end of each day, plan for the following day before you go home.

9. Don't work for clients who won't pay.

Bad clients are bad for business. Don’t take on new clients without a retainer, especially for litigation, and remember to stop work if the client will not pay you. Allocate the time and resources you would have spent on the non-paying file to work on other matters, or dedicate that time to marketing or other efforts to improve your firm.

10. Investigate alternative billing.

Investigate other billing alternatives by weighing the risks and rewards from the eyes of both the client and your firm. For example, your fee amount could be based on end results—such as closing a deal with favorable terms.

The new year is a great time to re-evaluate what's working - and what isn't - in your practice, particularly when it comes to finances. Making just a few small changes in your billing and accounting methods could yield BIG results in 2012.

Adapted from article Financial Tips: 25 Quick Tips for a Healthier Bottom Line by Janis Alexander, Ed Poll, and Mark Robertson.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

Move Beyond the Billable Hour

Price Yourself to Win More Business

Show Me the Money!

Tackle the Time Crunch

Klick Ditches Email for a New Staff Support System

Imagine starting your work day without email. I'm talking about zero messages, not even an inbox!

Sounds unheard of, right?

Well, it might be to you and me - but not to the people at Klick.

Klick is a digital marketing agency based in Toronto and it's serious about productivity and collaboration. So serious in fact, the company ditched internal email altogether and began using work tickets.

Work tickets are very common in the technical support world, but are hardly used in other professional sectors. Using a work ticket, an individual articulates a need, assigns it to another person, and includes all relevant information. When the task was completed the ticket is routed back to the originator for verification.

Aaron Goldstein, Klick’s Chief Operating Officer, says, "Work tickets create the necessary level of accountability while overcoming two of the biggest weaknesses of email: Knowledge can get lost in a person’s mailbox and prioritization is basically nonexistent since inboxes assume that most recent equals most important."

But that's not all.

Klick went a step further, building it's own workflow management system...

Keep reading this article at Inc.com: The Company That Outlawed Email.

Tell me, do you think work tickets could replace internal email in some law offices and legal departments?

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3 Ways to Defend Yourself Against Rejection

Rejection is a tough pill to swallow, but it is inevitable in the business world. Living in fear of rejection is something many people do. They play it safe, never speaking up or putting their ideas out there. Unfortunately, in an effort to save themselves pain, these people are doing more harm to themselves than good.

How?

Little risk means little reward.

The key is to think about rejection in a entirely different light.

Here are three ways to defend yourself against rejection, soothe the pain - and make you braver.

1. Expect it.

Anticipate rejection. It's as simple as that.

This will challenge you to set a high benchmark to what you do and force you to push forward. And, if rejection does arise, you'll be able to handle it better because you already prepared for it.

Do your best, while preparing to handle the worst.

2. Maintain control.

There are two focuses of control in life — external focus, which refers to anything outside our sphere of influence, such as our environment, colleagues, and society. Internal focus refers to what’s within our sphere of influence — our thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors, etc. Most people will adopt a high external focus of control in the face of rejection, which serves absolutely no purpose other than to feel down about yourself. Not only that, you’re also relinquishing your power to others.

The best way to handle rejection is to maintain your focus of control. Focus on the things you can take action on.

3. Understand rejection is progression.

Contrary to popular belief, rejection is progression, not a step backward. Rejection is actually a step forward to knowing what people want, what’s out there in reality, and how to improve ourselves to achieve our goals. Rejection is actually your partner in growth.

Rejection is nothing to be afraid of. It does not mean you have failed. It does not mean everything you have done has been a complete waste of time. It means it's time to move forward - onward and upward!

Adapted from article How to Be Rejection Proof by Jessica Stillman.

Related articles:

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Quality of Life Ranks High at these Top 10 Law Firms 

Want to know which of the nation's associates wake up excited to go to work?

It's those who work at Williams & Connolly, the firm that ranked first in Vault's 2012 Best Law Firms to Work For.

Williams & Connolly top a line-up of other law firms that standout for their thriving, nurturing environments and overall dynamite quality of life.

In order to compile the rankings, Vault surveyed associate insiders at firms across the country who gave opinions on:

• Overall satisfaction.
• Associate/partner relations.
• Compensation.
• Firm culture.
• Formal training.
• Informal training.
• Green initiatives.
• Hours.
• Office space.
• Pro bono.
• Selectivity.

After hours and hours of analysis the responses determined which law firms in the country are the best to work for. And, these are the results:

1. Williams & Connolly LLP
2. Ropes & Gray LLP
3. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
4. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C.
5. Foley Hoag LLP
6. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
7. Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC
8. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
9. Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP
10. Fish & Richardson P.C.

Here are some of the comments Vault received about these top firms:

“Partners treat associates as full-fledged team members who are trusted to handle all types of projects and whose opinions are sought out and respected. This is the aspect of being a Williams & Connolly associate that is most satisfying (and, based upon what I hear from friends at other firms, most unique).” - Williams & Connelly.

“Ropes invests a lot of time and resources in both formal training and informal mentorship and it is a fantastic place to grow as an attorney as a result.” - Ropes & Gray.

For complete rankings and access to lists from previous years, read Law Firm Rankings 2012: The 20 Best Law Firms to Work For.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

Do You Have What it Takes to Make Partner?

5 Tips to Help You Advance in the Firm

How is Your Firm Represented on Twitter?

Do In-house Lawyers Really Rely on Rankings?

Think Good Ideas Don't Always Come from the Top 

When the economy suffers, so does the legal industry. Law firms across the country have become entrenched in the daily doldrums of rallying the troops and drumming up business.

Desperate times call for innovative measures!

Change is not only key for successful growth, but also for sustaining in tumultuous times. Unfortunately, though, having an idea and seeing it come to fruition is easier said than done - especially in law firms.

Rees W. Morrison, author of the article Ten Truths About Innovation in Law Departments, offers even more insight into the promise of innovation. Here, Morrison has broken down five true statements about change in legal departments - and the common myths associated with them.

1. New ideas are plentiful, but are rarely implemented.

Ask anyone in a law department about what could be improved, and they will list at length. It's a myth that good ideas come only from the top or are rare. And, if internal sources of new ideas are not enough, these days -- unlike the times when a general counsel had relatively few ways to learn about new methods -- multiple channels pour out novelty. Conferences abound, groups for general counsel proliferate, trade journals headline trends, consultants pollinate among departments, books fill shelves, and online networks extol and transmit new practices instantaneously.

Ideas may be many, but without implementation they account for nothing. A creative idea for a law department practice has no value unless the department translates that new idea into actions.

2. Every law department (and firm) can innovate.

Innovation does not mean that no one else has done it before or that it is major; it means that a particular law department lawyer does something beyond the status quo in that department's context. All law departments can push their envelopes.

3. Law departments have limits on absorption of new practices.

There's no way around it: People resist change. It's a constant uphill battle.

That said, law firms should strive to dole out only small doses of change at a time. Too much of a good thing (ie change) requires too much energy over a long period of time and may burn people out.

4. Metrics foster innovation.

As law department managers gradually accumulate more measurements regarding what legal services cost and what works well, those metrics spur innovation. It's largely myth that benchmark numbers tell us what to do differently, but they certainly stimulate sharper thinking on what we can do better.

The confusion of the day-to-day workload lifts a bit when numbers tell a story -- especially one that supports improvement. Better benchmark surveys, with large numbers of participating departments, can give insights into what practices of staffing and spending correlate with best outcomes. Metrics also help persuade people that change will bring about improvement, and they help gauge progress.

5. Modules of change make more sense than whole practices.

Some people view innovation as the adoption of a "best practice." Reality is more complex than that myth: Any change has multiple components so law departments that move in a new direction actually combine some subset of the available components and introduce their own variations. In a nutshell: Mix and max your own ideas to create innovation.

The legal industry, itself, has its own way to embracing change. Head over to Law.com and read more of Morrison's article, which also offers an interesting perspective on innovation's wider applicability.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

Self Belief Leads to Mental Toughness

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Know the Difference Between Being a Manager and a Leader 

Sure, you're great at your work.

Business is booming. Your clients adore you. But, how happy and loyal is your staff? Do they see you as a manager? A leader? Or, both?

Ideally, a great leader will guide, motivate, inspire, and encourage with the right mindset. As renowned entrepreneur Seth Godin puts it - being a leader and a manager are two completely different animals.

"Managers try to get people to do what they did yesterday but a little faster, and a little cheaper with a few less defects," says Godin.

Here are a few other leadership principles that will help you lead more, and manage less.

1. Say no to "yes men."

Don’t surround yourself with people who always agree with you. What’s the point? You might as well make decisions in a vacuum. Why bother to put together a staff of intelligent, talented people if you’re not going to listen to them? Enjoy the debate, and listen to all sides and opinions.

2. Know and understand your team.

You can’t be a good leader if you don’t know what makes your staff tick. You don’t have to get too personal, but by understanding the issues that may affect each person’s job performance, you’ll be better able to motivate and lead them.

3. Teach, and then stand back.

Give a person as much information as you can about a project, and then let them figure out how to get the job done. If they start moving in the wrong direction, of course you should step in, but letting employees figure out what works and what doesn’t is not only more fun for them, but teaches them valuable lessons.

4. Support and encourage.

Everyone on the team should feel that they have each other's backs - no matter what.

Of course, leading may not be your forte - and that's okay. It's not for everyone. If managing comes more naturally to you, then embrace it - and have the right attitude and mindset in check.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

How to Keep Staff Engaged

Lead Your Office Out of the Doldrums

How a Simple Checklist can Improve Your Practice

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5 Ways to Help Your Staff Feel and Work their Best 

Your staff may show up to work, but are they really there giving the firm their full attention?

Your employees should not only be engaged in their work, but also committed to the firm's mission. In fact, evidence shows that the more engaged employees are in what they do, the better their performance and the higher the rewards for everyone.

Here are five tips for giving staff what they need to help them feel and work their best.

1. Let go of any negative opinions you may have about your employees. Approach each of them as a source of unique knowledge with something valuable to contribute to the firm. Remember that you are co-creating the achievement of a vision with them.

2. Clearly communicate what's expected of employees—what the firm values and vision are, and how the company defines success. Employees can’t perform well or be productive if they don't clearly know what it is they're there to do—and the part they play in the overall success of the firm. Be sure to communicate your expectations, and to do it often.

3. Get to know your employees, especially their goals, their stressors, what excites them and how they each define success. Show an interest in their well being and do what it takes to enable them to feel more fulfilled and better balanced.

4. Constantly ask how you are doing in your employees' eyes. To get strong at this skill and to model it for employees, begin dialogs with employees using conversation starters such as, “It's one of my goals to constantly improve myself as a lawyer. What would you like to see me do differently? What could I be doing to make your job easier?” Be sure to accept feedback graciously and to express appreciation.

5. Reward & recognize employees in ways that are meaningful to them (that's why getting to know your employees is so important). And remember to celebrate both accomplishments and efforts to give employees working on long-term goals a boost.

While your talents no doubt help drive the firm, employees are truly the firm's greatest assets. Their ideas, feedback, and enthusiasm will help grow business and help the firm succeed.

When employees are happy, the firm will be happy as well.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

Use Your Staff to Boost Business Development

How to Make Sure Your Staff is Motivated and Invested

Are You Difficult to Deal With?

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Maximize Efficiency and Avoid Accounting Problems 

Effective billing can be a tough nut to crack for small firms and solo attorneys. You need to be paid for your work, but what if clients just aren't pay their bills? Or worse, what if you're not keeping proper track of how much you should be paid?

If your time and expenses are your main sources of revenue, you don't want to take chances with your livelihood. Here's a list of dos and don'ts to help maximize your billing method.

Do:

• Track your time and expenses immediately and accurately. If you work six billable hours on Monday, don't wait until Friday to enter those hours in your ledger; this can only lead to mistakes. Also, if you make a practice of reporting your time and expenses immediately and accurately, clients will be less likely to dispute their invoices.
• Set a billing period and stick to it. If your billing period is one week, prepare and send your invoices at the end of the week, not the end of the month. Waiting to send your invoices only adds unnecessary days or weeks to your cash-conversion process.
• Treat your time and expense reports and invoices as cash. Consider them the most important documents for your business, particularly if you bill time as your primary source of revenue.

Don't:

• Give your clients an excuse for not paying on time. If you call them to ask about late payment, don't ask them if they received the bill. Chances are they'll say it must have got lost in the mail.
• Delay preparing and sending your invoices to clients. This only prolongs the amount of time it takes to see those invoices turned into cash and can leave your company with an slim cash flow.
• Think you still have to write down time and expenses with a pen and paper. There are a number of computer and online programs available to track time and expenses, including some that can be accessed with a mobile phone. This can make it easier to report your time and expenses when you are away from your office or computer.

Make billing a priority in your firm. This is the one area that can't be relaxed. Reporting your billable hours should be part of your daily routine, and make no excuses for yourself  - or your clients.

More resources from Top Lawyer Coach:

Financial Tips to Help You Boost Profits in 2011

Move Beyond the Billable Hour

5 Ways Not to Botch Your Chances of Winning Work

How to Guarantee ROI for Your Clients