By OBA Practice Management Advisor, Julie Bays If it feels like Microsoft 365 changes every time you open it, you’re not imagining things. Between frequent updates to core apps and the rollout of features like the New Outlook, lawyers are often left trying to hit a moving target while managing critical client work. At this…

By OBA Practice Management Advisor, Julie Bays If you haven’t claimed your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), you could be missing out on potential clients actively searching for legal help in your area. These free listings appear prominently in Google Search and Maps results, often displayed before law firm websites in local searches….

By OBA Practice Management Advisor, Julie Bays If you’re looking to grow your law practice with insights from those who’ve mastered the art, consider Be That Lawyer: 101 Top Rainmakers’ Secrets to Growing a Successful Law Practice by Steve Fretzin. Released on May 1, 2025, this book compiles actionable strategies from 101 accomplished attorneys, covering…

By OBA Practice Management Advisor Julie Bays Scammers don’t take a summer vacation, but they may count on you taking one. Each year, as temperatures rise, so does scam activity targeting small businesses, and that includes law firms. Employees are out of the office, firms run leaner operations, and distracted professionals are more likely to…

By Julie Bays, Practice Management Advisor The FBI has issued a warning about a cybercriminal group known as the Silent Ransom Group (SRG), also called Luna Moth or Chatty Spider, which is actively targeting U.S. law firms. These attackers are using convincing email and phone scams to trick staff into giving them remote access to…

By Julie Bays, Practice Management Advisor In the legal profession, success isn’t just about what you know, it’s also about who you know and how you stay connected. Building and nurturing a strong professional network can open doors to new career opportunities, facilitate trusted referrals, and provide access to a wealth of knowledge and experience…

By Jim Calloway Artificial intelligence has generated significant interest and debate within the legal profession. The initial exposure many attorneys had to AI was reading of instances where lawyers were sanctioned by courts for utilizing AI to draft briefs but failing to check the cited sources. We all learned about AI hallucinations. So, lawyers’ apprehensions…

By Jim Calloway Dragon Naturallyspeaking® allowed me to co-author three books for the American Bar Association. Given my typing speed, I would not have written those books without speech recognition. But I’ve long since left that tool. After Microsoft embedded Dictate in Word and Outlook which did speech recognition almost as accurately as Dragon at…

By Jim Calloway Imagine the potential awkwardness when you are advising a client about a serious matter and Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri responds aloud, chiming in about the things you are discussing. Some readers need not imagine! The client may then have concerns about how many electronic devices are listening to their confidential conversations….

Lawyers appreciate that many of our security threats today come directly into our inboxes. In addition, spam that is not trapped by a spam filter wastes your valuable time. Despite this, we often give out our email addresses freely. You may not be familiar with email masking, but it is a useful email management tool….

ABA TECHSHOW turned 40 this year, and what a celebration it was. The conference moved to McCormick Place in Chicago, drawing record attendance and a packed schedule full of sessions on AI, legal tech, and practical tools for modern law practice. One of the biggest highlights (and the best-attended session of the week) was “Soaring…

by Jim Calloway Most lawyers use PDF creation and management tools that are very powerful. But such power generally means complexity. Sometimes you have something open on your phone you want to quickly send to a client or coworker. Here’s a quick method to “print” to PDF on your iPhone or iPad: Tap “Print” from…

By Jim Calloway Imagine you show up for a deposition or trial to find they have changed their display setup connection to something new, and you are not sure you have the correct connector. Or you are in a day-long pretrial prep “war room,” and you discover the phone charging cable that looked like the…

By OBA Management Assistance Program Director Jim Calloway Lawyers use Google apps in many ways. Some haven’t opened Gmail in years, but they use Google Drive as a collaborative workspace when jointly drafting legal documents with others. Others frequently watch YouTube videos when logged in without even realizing YouTube is a Google product. Chrome is…

By OBA Management Assistance Program Director Jim Calloway If you have a practice where you primarily represent consumers, particularly those who have never retained a lawyer before, it is as important to make scheduling appointments for new prospective clients as simple and easy as possible. Nowadays, some people avoid speaking on the telephone whenever they…

By Jim Calloway It is not your imagination, spam calls and robocalls are increasing, in many cases powered by artificial intelligence tools. They are annoying and time wasters. But lawyers occasionally do have to answer some calls from unknown numbers. I can personally attest that going into your recents and blocking the calls individually does…

By Jim Calloway Keyboard shortcuts are timesavers. But, to be useful they have to be memorized. For most of us, that limits the number we will regularly use. The three we have all committed to memory are Ctrl + C (Copy), Ctrl + X (Cut) and Ctrl + V (Paste). 12 Windows Key Shortcuts I…

By Jim Calloway Digital interactions form the backbone of lawyers’ daily communications, as is true for many businesses. Today we will discuss security for sensitive text messages. Apple’s iMessage Most readers are aware that Apple’s iMessage encryption provides end-to-end encryption. That encryption was upgraded in 2024. Apple’s improvements are significant as Apple iMessage is encrypted,…

By Jim Calloway It was always a positive day in the law firm when I had several potential new client appointments scheduled. New clients. New challenges. New retainers. This was long ago. Back then, I began new client intake interviews with “getting acquainted” questions like name, address, phone numbers, etc. Perhaps we should re-examine whether…

By Jim Calloway Gmail is under attack from hackers. Gmail users should move forward cautiously when clicking on any links received in their Gmail inbox, particularly those that were unexpected, according to a recent FBI warning. AI-Powered phishing attacks have grown at a staggering rate. It is estimated that there are over 2.5 billion active…