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Management Assistance Program

Law Practice Tips

Management

Safe in the Clouds

By Jim Calloway “Safe in the clouds” sounds peaceful and dreamy, unless of course you have a fear of falling. Lawyers, for better and for worse, are trained to examine everything with an eye toward fear of falling, or more accurately, fear of failing. This starts in law school with the high-pressure Socratic method, high-stakes single exams and...
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Don’t Become the Victim of a Wire Fraud Scheme

By Jim Calloway When I was in law school, a cashier’s check was deemed to be just as good as cash because it was guaranteed by the bank. While that is still technically and legally true today, the question is whether you are holding a valid cashier’s check. Criminals now have the ability to create forged cashier’s checks that...
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Eliminating the Terror of Lost Client Files

By Jim Calloway To err is human, as the saying goes. We human beings make mistakes. We forget. We don’t follow through on carefully crafted plans sometimes; but the legal profession is an exacting undertaking, requiring attention to detail, and the legal system is sometimes very unforgiving of errors. Several years ago, as those of us who advise...
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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...
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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...
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What a Disaster!

By Jim Calloway The year 2017 has been an extraordinary year for hurricanes impacting the U.S. and the Caribbean. It is heartbreaking to see pictures and videos of the destruction and devastation. Recovery will take many years for some of these areas and many families have lost photo albums and prized possessions that cannot be...
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Proposed Agenda for Your Law Office Retreat

By Jim Calloway This probably seems like a presumptuous title. Every law firm is a little bit different, so there are different items they may want to focus on during a law firm planning retreat. But many law firms also have reinvention and repurposing challenges they need to consider. It seems like an agenda on...
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Strategy and Tactics: Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

By Jim Calloway Adopting a strategic plan for your law practice probably doesn’t sound like an exciting proposition to many lawyers. This is particularly true if some eager beaver wants to schedule a mandatory weekend retreat for the entire law firm to work on a strategic plan. No one would dispute the need for a...
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Uniformity vs. Creativity

By Jim Calloway COMES NOW the writer, and for his February Law Practice Tips column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal alleges and states as follows. That is lawyer-speak for “Greetings.” I recall during law school when I was working for a law firm, I asked an experienced lawyer why we started all pleadings with “COMES...
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Client: ‘Can My Parents Pay for My Attorney Fees?’, Lawyer: ‘Yes, but…’

By Jim Calloway Some lawyers and I recently were discussing the problems of family law cases in which the parents are paying for a child’s attorney’s fees. It is a very common situation, given the finances of many young married couples. Parents are usually quite willing to pay for attorney’s fees in family law matters...
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