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Building and Maintaining Your Professional Network
By Jim Calloway Today, businesses often succeed or fail based on their marketing plans and activities. A good product or service may theoretically sell itself, but if no one knows about the business offering or if the only fact someone knows is negative, there’s little chance of success. Lawyers have traditionally had a strained and nervous relationship with marketing…
The Lawyer’s Tools of the Trade
By Jim Calloway What are a lawyer’s tools of the trade? Many years ago, as a consumer bankruptcy lawyer, I had to research the meaning of “tools of the trade” as applied to lawyers under Oklahoma law. Oklahoma has opted out of the federal bankruptcy exemptions and instead uses the exemptions under 31 Okla. Stat. §1. The state statute…
Technology Competence for the Family Lawyer
By Jim Calloway Some lawyers were concerned when the Model Rules of Professional Conduct were changed to include a comment that competence as a lawyer included an appreciation of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” Many states began adopting this language into their own version of the rules with some variance in language. Now…
A Brief Recap of ABA TECHSHOW 2018
By Jim Calloway and Darla Jackson For those with an interest in legal technology, there is really nothing like ABA TECHSHOW, held each spring in Chicago. Although this year, the weather was anything but spring-like. For us, one of the best things about ABA TECHSHOW is (really shameless plug warning) that we will be seeing…
Keeping the Customer Satisfied
By Jim Calloway Yes, I know our profession has clients and not customers, but bear with me. “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all,” according to business book author Michael LeBoeuf. Customer (or client) satisfaction has long been an aspect of business management. Many business empires have been built on good to…
Conference Coming to Tulsa’s River Spirit Casino Resort June 21-23 Solo & Small Firm Conference
By Jim Calloway “Serve Your Clients and Protect Their Data” is the theme of the 2018 OBA Solo & Small Firm Conference, June 21-23 at River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa. It is important for all lawyers to guard their clients’ confidences and protect themselves against hackers and other wrongdoers while avoiding measures that are…
Time-Saving Microsoft Word Customizations and Tools
By Jim Calloway Often there are easier ways to do our everyday tasks, but we can’t use more efficient techniques if we do not know about them. TRACK CHANGES One of those efficiencies is using Track Changes in Microsoft Word. When many lawyers make final edits on a document, they print it off and make…
The Future of Law
By Jim Calloway There has been a lot written and said about the future of law. It is very interesting to observe how many of those future trend predictions are now coming to fruition. So, despite the danger of possible embarrassment risked with predictions and prognostications, let’s talk about the future of law. One prediction…
The Year Ahead
By Jim Calloway As we reach the end of 2017, it is a time for looking back at the year’s accomplishments and planning for the year ahead. Whether you have been directly impacted or not, we are in an era of significant change and challenges for lawyers, the practice of law and the methods of…
A Risky Business: Managing Law Firm Risks
By Jim Calloway Disaster recovery for law firms, cyberattacks, backing up data and protecting digital client security are all things I have discussed in this space during the preceding year. This month I want to cover law firm risk management more generally. Managing and mitigating risk is a key element of much legal work, even…