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As the legal services climate continues to undergo rapid changes, now more than ever, is the time for lawyers to be thinking about the future. In his Law Practice Tips Blog, Jim Calloway talks the future of lawyering:

While doing my annual review of the year in law office management and technology, my focus kept returning to the numerous predictions of challenging change ahead for lawyers. Some of these trends are already apparent and others are coming into focus. For my column in the December 2010 Oklahoma Bar Journal, I decided to discuss some of these trends and provide some resources to lawyers as they contemplate the future. I hope you appreciate my column titled Reviewing 2010 Should Make Lawyers Think About the Future. Download Calloway Reviewing 2010 and the Future

Here are a couple highlights:

• There are a host of negative pressures on the legal market.
• Fred Ury predicts that within a decade, there will likely be 10 percent to 40 percent fewer lawyers than there are today.
• Lawyers and law students must take charge of their careers and become entrepreneurs.

While I do believe that legal professionals will have to evolve to survive this new future, I don't believe that the outlook for legal services professionals is as bleak as some have contended.

As it always is with any business, the key to lawyers' success in the future comes down to their ability to adapt, change, and evolve. Those that are unable to adapt to their new environment, will perish. It's simple natural selection. On the other hand, legal professionals that are adapting to the future, including adoption of law practice management, networking, and marketing technologies will survive. In fact, due to the nature of many of these technologies, it is likely that costs associated with accessing these tools is likely to be much lower than it has historically.

While there are several unique aspects to practicing law and running a legal practice, too many legal professionals still fail to accept that law firms are businesses. This is not to diminish the important function that lawyers serve our society. However, this is a capitalist society (or at least quasi-capitalist) and in order to be a viable profession, legal professionals must look at themselves as business people.

Whether you are trying to decide whether you need outside help, are in the process of interviewing consultants, or have already retained a web strategy professional, asking some informed questions can make a big difference in your online success.

Here are some basic questions that can make a big difference:

• Can you provide examples of your work and share the results? - There is no substitute for experience. Hold your web strategy partner accountable for delivering tangible results.
• What is your position on Google's Webmaster Guidelines? - The Webmaster Guidelines certainly leave some room for interpretation. However, how your prospective consultant interprets these guidelines will have a significant impact on their success and the risks to your professional reputation.
• What results should I expect? - From the beginning of your web strategy partnership, you should set tangible goals and expectations. If your goals and expectations don't match those of your web strategist, you are likely to be disappointed.
• How long will it take to obtain those results? - Timing and patience are critical to successful web strategy. While you shouldn't expect results overnight, you shouldn't have to wait years to see significant results. Depending on the strategies in place, we generally like to see significant improvements within 6-8 months.
• How do you measure results? - This is one of the most critical questions. Too many consultants track the wrong metrics. Ultimately, you should measure any marketing on how well it increases business to your firm. You should also measure search engine positions, traffic to your site, and potential client inquiries from the web.
• What's your experience in the legal industry? - Just because a web consultant has had success in other industries, doesn't mean they will have success with your law firm. Web marketing for law firms is highly competitive and presents unique challenges that don't exist in marketing other businesses.
• What's your experience in my location? - Understanding the competition in your specific geographic region is also very helpful. Web marketing in New York City isn't the same as marketing in suburban Arizona.
• What strategies do you plan on implementing? - It is absolutely essential that you understand what your strategy professional plans to do for you and why. That is why it's so important for you to learn law firm seo basics.
• Will you communicate website changes, information on your recommendations, and the reasoning behind them? - Successful web strategy requires communication. There are very few "secrets". Mostly, online marketing success comes down to knowledge, skill, experience, and leg work. Don't get duped into buying "secrets", "special relationships", or other magic seo.

Asking these basic questions will help you avoid many of the most common web consultant traps. Are you considering hiring a consultant? What questions / concerns are you facing? Have you interviewed web strategy consultants? What challenges have you faced? Do you have a healthy partnership with your web strategists? What have you found makes your partnership work?

Free Guide: Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant Learn How To Go About Hiring An SEO Consultant For Your Law Firm Including: Hiring a Professional vs Do It Yourself Finding The Right SEO Consultant Pitfalls To Avoid Google’s Recommendations Questions To Ask An SEO Before You Hire Them

"I don't have time to do social media."  "I set up profile and am getting zero results."  "Social media hasn't produced one client for my firm." 

These are some common complaints we hear from legal professionals about social media and social networking.  While I have little doubt that these statements are true for the attorneys that have made them, the very nature of the statements indicates a lack of understanding of the very nature of social media and social networking.

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If you are a PC user, like I am, than you are quite familiar with what happens to your computer as you add more software over time.  Turning on your computer takes forever as program after program launches on startup.  In the past, you always had to go in and hack your way through the startup services, hopefully deactivating the ones that were giving you trouble (ie: taking the most time to launch).  I always found that to be a hit or miss guessing game.  Luckily, there is a new, free program that is a great solution to manage your slowly booting PC.....Soluto.

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