This past weekend we were at the Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Lawyer Conference (#wssfc10), and we wanted to take a moment and thank our hosts: the Milwaukee Bar Association and the State Bar of Wisconsin.
It was a pleasure to be a part of of the conference, both as a vendor and as a speaker. Our President and co-founder, Jack Newton, was one of the conferences plenary speakers, and presented on “What Lawyers Can Learn about Customer Service from Zappos.”
There were numerous interesting sessions, too, that covered a range of topics relevant to solo and small firm lawyers. The topics were broken down into four major groups:
- Substantive, like wills, online agreements and non-profit organizations;
- Practice Management, like disaster planning & preparation, task management and alternative fees;
- Technology, like alternative software applications (open source), website building and smart phones;
- Quality of Life/Ethics, like dealing with difficult clients, restorative justice and ethical and malpractice risks of social media.
Ethical and malpractice risks of social media is especially timely with the ABA Ethics 2020 Commission whitepapers that are making the rounds on blogs and on Twitter. There is one on Internet based client development (PDF) and one on client confidentiality and lawyers’ use of technology (PDF).
Needlessly to say, there was plenty for solos and small firms to take in, digest and implement.