Power Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms using ChatGPT AI.

If you're a lawyer or law firm, it's essential to embrace AI technology by understanding its functionalities, getting trained on how to use it, and integrating it into your tech tools. Leveraging AI and chatGPT will give you a competitive edge and enable you to deliver more value to your clients in less time. Although chatGPT's basic interface can be entertaining, it may not provide the precise responses that lawyers require.

Enrico Schaefer is an experienced AI attorney who shares valuable "power tips" in a video on optimizing chatGPT. To use AI for legal services, you need two essential tools - the "ChatGPT Sidebar" and "ChatGPT extension" for Google Sheets and Docs. These tools will help elevate your AI game. This educational video channel is dedicated to training lawyers on using AI tools and integrating them into their work processes. Don't forget to subscribe and share!

ChatGPT Side Extension for Chrome Browser: 

How to use chatGPT prompts for Google Sheets and Google Docs. 

Surviving the AI Apocalypse. Preparing for the Future of AI-Enabled Legal Practice

The legal industry has historically been slow and resistant to new technology, fearing the impact efficiency and transparency might have on their billable hour business model.  Don’t get me wrong, technology has had a significant impact on the practice of law, starting with the adoption of typewriters by law firms in the 1930s and fax machines in the 1970s.  The premise of this book is simple.  The rise of AI in the legal industry is inevitable, and the impact it will have will be both historic and profound.  

As with other technology innovations, AI has the potential to both revolutionize and disrupt the legal industry. Compared to other new technologies, AI can potentially disrupt legal services in ways we have never seen before. 

At a minimum, AI will transform how legal services are delivered, making legal services more accessible, efficient, and affordable for clients. But what if AI turned legal services completely upside down?   AI can potentially impact the law business - and other service providers - in ways that are far more dramatic than any other technology.   AI has the potential to change courts, law firms, and the core functions of lawyers in dramatic ways.  Whether AI is a fifty-foot wave of disruption or a tsunami remains to be seen. The question of how fast AI will sweep over the legal industry is unknown.  While the idea of AI's confiscation of courts, lawyers, and law firms seems extreme, the potential for disruption beyond our current imaginations is real.

(stay tuned for more insights on how lawyers can prepare for the changes that AI will bring). 

2020 is the Year Lawyers Better Wake Up to The importance of Branding & Reputation

This podcast is about helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.  But today I want to talk about the legal market.  In todays world of information and transparency, lawyers need to understand the value of their brand, and that their brand is tied to their reputation.  Enrico Schaefer, Traverse Legal, PLC

 

Why "branding" and 'reputation' are the biggest opportunity for lawyers in 2020.

Lawyers and law firms have never paid much attention to sales, marketing or branding. The days of ignorance are over.

Law firms need to start paying attention to their reputation on the Internet, the value of their brand in the market for legal services and the opportunity to differentiate in the market. 

Lawyers need to start paying attention to the fact that their 'personal name' is the most important branding opportunity they will ever have. This is a dramatic change from the way things used to be.  Lawyers to acknowledge and understand the value of their 'name' as a brand, and give it the attention it deserves will be winners over the next decade. In 2020, reputation is everything.

In this podcast, Attorney Enrico Schaefer tells you how and why brand has become the most important tool for lawyers in 2020 and beyond.  He teaches you how to build your online brand, protect your online reputation and build momentum which will differentiate you from other lawyers who do the same work. IF you care about your reputation and your career, you need to listen to this podcast. If you have other lawyers who you care about, you should share this podcast with them.  The world is changed.  Opportunity is everywhere.  The fruit hangs low.  It is time to grab it.  For your sake, the sake of your firm and for the future which has arrived. 

 

Are you looking for more resources on building a brand, protecting your reputation online and registering your name as a trademark? 

• Everyone – especially social media influencers, professionals and individuals with some celebrity status – should consider trademarking their personal name. 
• BRANDING: TOP 5 LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR TRADEMARK REBRANDING
• Your customer reviews on Google places, Glassdoor, Yelp, and other websites are important to your success and affect your revenue.  A negative review can cause real pain to you and harm your reputation irreparably. 
• FIVE REASONS YOUR COMPANY SHOULD START TRADEMARK MONITORING

Are you a 'Happy Lawyer?'

In this episode fo GAL Radio, we explore the idea that lawyers can be happy at their profession and launch a series of 'happy lawyer' podcasts devoted to exploring the idea of happiness in the law.  Stay tuned for this common theme of happiness as we interview professionals about how to be happy and find fulfillment in your legal practice. 

 

This podcast is sponsored by the internet, technology and IP lawyers at Traverse Legal, PLC.  "Traverse Legal is changing the way law is practiced."  

GAL Radio Presents: Top 5 changes in the business of law from 2004-2019

The Greatest American Layer Blog launched 15 years ago in 2004.  With thousands of blog posts about innovations in law, we decided to highlight the biggest changes we have seen in the business model of law, over the last 15 years. The good news?  Things have improved dramatically over for both clients and lawyers since 2004.  The bad news?  The level of innovation in law continues to drag behind virtually every other industry segment. In short, lawyers and clients need to continue to create new levels of transparency, alternative billing models, learn to share risk and deliver better customer service.  Judges need to work harder at creating efficiencies in the litigation process.   Law students need to inspire their superiors to use technology to create efficiency and transparency.  www.greatestamericanlawyer.com

Welcome to the reincarnated podcast know as GAL Radio, the Greatest American Lawyer Podcast.   Who is the greatest American lawyer?  You are.  You have the potential to change the game.  To break the mold.  To innovate.  To differentiate.  To offer new business models of legal services and client solutions which bring the profession of law closer to its ideal.  To break the chains of mindless billable hours.  Our podcast mission is to change the way law is practiced.  We want to take a moment to thank you for listening to the Great American Lawyer Podcast and being part of the conversation. Click the comment link to send us a message, clap back or send us ideas for future shows. Now, back to this episode of the Greatest American Lawyer podcast. 

How to Be a Resource

Too often, the hourly billing model puts lawyers and staff in their own little world.  Bill hours. Focus on hours.  More hours.  

Even flat and alternative fee billing models can create tunnel vision for law firms which focuses on time, rather than collaboration, efficiency and teamwork.  Strong teams work together.  Building culture and environment where people are grabbing opportunities, rather than running from them, is always a challenge.  Lawyers and staff need an environment where they can be a resource rather than a task slave.

Building an ‘I want to be a resource” as part of the culture for your law firm is simple.  Instead of asking people whether they are too busy to help, make incentives for people to help regardless of how busy they are.  Creative incentives and an upside for people to jump in and 'be a resource' for other staff. We will be discussing the ‘how to’ of creating a culture where people want to be a resource in upcoming posts.  

Stay tuned and post your own ideas and comments below. 

 

Newsletter Unsubscribe Friday

Most people don't really understand the CAN-SPAM Act or spam laws.  As long as the header and other information is not misleading in the email, and you provide for an opt-out, you are likely not in violation of most spam laws.  That's how we all get our emails added to newsletter lists, even though we didn't "opt-in."  

I don't know where all fo the newsletters come from.  But today, I searched through my inbox and unsubscrived to every newsletter that I thought was legitimate, although unwanted. 

Another change we made is to stop copying so many internal attorneys in on the email that goes around for clients.  Now, we only copy the attorneys who are involved in a particular project on particular emails.  This has reduced the amount of total emails to the inbox by approximately 85% in our firm.  While it's great to know everything that's going on in all cases, we easily can access the case management system in order to research a particular file. 

 

 

One Lawyer’s Perspective: Getting organized in the morning

There are so many ways to get organized.  Software technology creates all sorts of lists, tasks, categories, tabs, flags, reminders…and on and on and on.  But sometimes it is easy for a lawyer to get lost in all the various tools which allow for organization.  Picking one tool, adding a process and sticking to it is the key.  I’ve tried lots of different organizational techniques.  With 300+ emails hitting my inbox every day, I am one attorney who sometimes wants to wave my arms in the air and say “give up.”   We use Basecamp as our extranet tool.  For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to recommit to Basecamp and simply load up my global to-do list on all projects, open each project that needs attention today as a new tab, and work through the list.    To the extent I see things in my email or other documents which create task categories or tasks, I am simply going to dictate those into the extranet for handling.  Using Basecamp to store, organize and work the relevant tasks of THE day will be my life for the next week.  I’ll let you know how it goes. 

How do you get organized given a major data overload we all experience? 

Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers by Ernie Svenson

For someone that has been blogging actively since 2004 and driven more web content than probably any lawyer or law firm in the world, I love the following series of posts by Ernie the Attorney where some of the top bloggers on the internet answer 5 questions as to why they blog.

Stand Up and Be Heard: One Lawyer’s Thoughts on Stand Up Desks

Two years ago, I went from a kneeling chair to stand up desk.  It has literally changed my life.  There is no question that a stand up desk is great for your health, your back, your stamina, your engagement and your overall awareness.  Sure it takes about two weeks to gain the strength to be able to stand comfortably.  Put restaurant mat under your feet and some tennis shoes to provide support is all you need to get to the point where the stand up desk feels great.

We now have three members of our office who are using a stand up desk.  Check out the Anderlyn Desk here for more information. 

New Blog Launched - UnIntellectualProperty.com

My law partner, Brian A. Hall, has launched a new blog: UnIntellectualProperty.com.  This blog highlights instances where an owner attempted to claim exclusive intellectual property rights in a trademark, copyright, or trade secret (and to a lesser extent patents) only to have a court of law or other authority declare no intellectual property right exists.  

This blog not only is informative to Internet and IP lawyers, but it also contains Brian's humor and insights in a way that makes sense to non-lawyers.  Check out one of the unintellectual property posts, and you will see how he is trying to provide a resource for those interested in identifying instances of overzealous IP owners.

Know Your Business and Mind Your Business

It is important to know what kind of law firm you are.  If you are a firm that drives business off your reputation and referrals, then those are the people you need to make sure you are attending to.  If you get your business off the internet, you need to pay attention to your internet web presence and make sure your search engine rankings do not decrease.  If your business model is dependent on getting your initial customers to sign up for a second and third project, then you better make sure you are showing those projects as part of your process. 

Every law firm is different.  You need to fully understand what kind of law firm you are and make sure you are attending to those things that really count. 

Larry Bodine Named Editor-in-Chief of Lawyers.com and Martindale.com

Larry Bodine is now the editor-in-chief of two of the largest and most prestigious services and websites in the world, www.lawyer.com and www.martindale.com.  I’ve known Larry for many years, as we have both been active bloggers for some time.  Lawyers.com has grown tremendously over the years in terms of content and attorney bio databases.  If you’re looking to find a lawyer, lawyers.com is a great place to start. 

Congratulations to Larry, lawyers.com and martindale.com on their efforts moving forward.

Read the full article.

Top Tech Trends Lawyers Should Keep an Eye On in 2012

Monica Goyal at the Law Times News published this article about the top five tech trends lawyers should keep a close eye on in 2012.  See her list below:

Ernie the Attorney Provides Great Solo and Small Law Firm Tips. Have You Heard of Ruby Receptionist?

Welcome to GAL Radio, brought to you by the Greatest American Lawyer Blog.  Changing the way law is practiced through technology, innovation and creativity.  Turning the business of law on its head and shaking things up to the betterment of clients, lawyers, law firms and society.

Enrico Schaefer:   Welcome to GAL Radio.   Today we are here with Ernie the Attorney.   Ernie is a long-time attorney who practices in a variety of different areas of law.   Recently he has made the full-time commitment to run a CLE company at a website called digitalworkflowcle.com, and he does technology training tips and seminars for lawyers.   Welcome to the show, Ernie.

Ernie Svenson:   It's good to be here, Enrico.  Thanks for having me on.

Ernie the Attorney Launches New Company Dedicated to Lawyer CLE

Welcome to GAL Radio, brought to you by the Greatest American Lawyer Blog.  Changing the way law is practiced through technology, innovation and creativity.  Turning the business of law on its head and shaking things up to the betterment of clients, lawyers, law firms and society.

Enrico Schaefer:  Welcome to GAL Radio.  My name is Attorney Enrico Schaefer and today we're going to be talking a little bit about CLE.  We're going to be speaking with Ernest Svenson, also known as Ernie the Attorney.  How are you doing today, Ernie?

Growing Your Law Firm in 2012

Welcome to GAL Radio, brought to you by the Greatest American Lawyer Blog.  Changing the way law is practiced through technology, innovation and creativity.  Turning the business of law on its head and shaking things up to the betterment of clients, lawyers, law firms and society

Welcome to GAL Radio.  My name is Attorney Enrico Schaefer.  I’m an internet and technology lawyer, founding partner of the law firm Traverse Legal.  We have developed a number of innovative ways to provide client service, to bill clients, to provide flat fee defined deliverable projects with a price guarantee, and a variety of other methodologies all designed to improve the business model of law.  We did actually turn the business of law on its head, we shook it up, and we started from scratch doing only those things that made sense from a business point of view.  And let’s face it, law firms and lawyers typically are very poor business people.  Why?  Well, in an hourly business environment, it doesn’t take much creativity or any intelligence to be able to develop a system which spits out hours and bills them back to the client, and, if you’re lucky, that bill gets paid at the end of the month.  That does not require any innovation, creativity or foresight.

Why Are So Few Managing Partners Great Leaders

I was lucky.  My first law firm was Bowman and Brooke, a niche firm providing automotive product liability defense to the automobile industry.  The founder and managing partner of the firm was Richard Bowman.  By in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, he was one of the most out-of-the-box and innovative managing partners of any hourly billing firm in the world.  Dick Bowman never did anything because it was the way other law firms were doing it.  Bowman and Brooke became an innovator and stood out from the crowd in many ways. 

I have often wondered why so few law firm managing partners are like Dick Bowman.  They seem to inspire nothing except hourly minimums.  They innovate little beyond new billing techniques and policies. 

In the video below, Simon Sinek talks about how great leaders inspire action at a September 2009 TEDX Talk.   He points out that great companies always start with the question "Why?" as they pursue greatness. Think about whether or not you know any managing partners who come to mind as you watch the video…

How to Meet, Sign Up and Obtain Payment from New Clients in Less Than 60 Minutes

Welcome to GAL Radio.  My name is Attorney Enrico Schaefer, and today we’re going to talk about something that’s really important to lawyers and law firms alike.  How do you sign up your clients? 

Keep in mind that the industrial age model for signing up clients was to get them on the phone or in a conference room, have a lawyer or lawyers sitting there.  Those lawyers would then impress the client that they knew more than the client about some legal issue.  Of course, before the internet, the client’s chance of knowing anything about their legal issue was fairly limited.