Managing a law practice is about much more than representing clients. One of the biggest challenges for law practitioners, especially true solos and small firms, is maintaining an accurate trust accounting system. Read more to learn tips for keeping an accurate trust accounting system.

For most legal professionals, days often move quickly, or at least that’s how it feels. With everything that’s happening—court appearances, drafting pleadings, and client meetings, to name a few—it’s no wonder many people have never paused to understand the importance of taking notes or to find what works best for them. Great notetaking isn’t just administrative clutter: It’s an essential skill that can make or break your effectiveness as a practitioner.

Have you ever felt like your client files are out of control? Client file materials are often scattered throughout various locations and saved in multiple types of formats. Gone are the days of a single paper file stored neatly in your filing cabinet. Read on to learn more.

If this is your MCLE reporting year, the deadline to complete all credits is April 30. As we approach the deadline, remember that the PLF maintains a comprehensive library of free OSB-accredited CLEs covering a wide range of topics!

Is your firm optimizing email marketing strategies to achieve the most impactful results? This article discusses considerations and strategies for unleashing the power of email marketing and leveraging this versatile marketing channel to create unique opportunities for engagement.

Opening and managing a law firm is an exciting venture that also comes with significant financial considerations. Creating and maintaining a SMART budget is crucial and will increase your potential to become profitable more quickly.

Legal professionals spend an average of 66% of their day on email, according to Dashboard Legal. With the daily flood of emails, saving them to client files often gets overlooked. To prevent pitfalls, it's crucial to understand your ethical obligations and establish a system for organizing and saving emails efficiently.

Calendaring is a fundamental task for legal professionals, yet calendaring errors remain a leading cause of malpractice claims. In this post, we discuss Microsoft Outlook, a popular option to enhance productivity and organization, and lessen your chances of committing malpractice.

As any legal professional can tell you, there’s a lot to know when it comes to practicing law. Thankfully, organizations like the American Bar Association exist to help. With a long history and plethora of information, “[t]he ABA works to promote the best quality legal education, competence, ethical conduct and professionalism, and pro bono and public service work in the legal profession.” Consider joining and take advantage of all that a legal-specific national organization has to offer.

When current resources are stretched to their limits and you need help meeting demands, hiring staff can become essential. If you want someone who can work from wherever, a remote staff person is often the first thought.

To lessen the risk of malpractice and ethical violations, legal professionals need to understand the different types of AI so they can make intelligent decisions about which programs they may want to integrate into their practice.

The email domain that Oregon’s circuit courts and the Oregon Tax Court use to send notices has changed. Here are instructions for how to add a domain name to your Safe Senders List in Outlook.

No two firms will likely have the exact same file management procedures, but file management best practices apply to everyone. Understand your storage options and best practice tips to ensure that your client files are being managed properly.

The PLF is excited to announce we have completed the biennial comprehensive review of our in-house practice aids for Oregon legal professionals, including checklists, sample documents, and resource materials. We have also added a few new materials we hope you will find helpful.

There is no one marketing algorithm that works for all legal professions, because each firm is unique. There is, however, one free and easy tool that everyone can use.

Check fraud, particularly “check washing,” has increased significantly over the past year. Here are some tips to protect yourself from this scam.

Lawyers often take on too much. Regardless of how much we want to help, there are only so many hours in the day that we can dedicate to our jobs. Try some of these ways to better manage your calendar before things get out of control.

Discovery can be a major headache for law firms. The proliferation of electronic data makes it challenging for lawyers to efficiently manage all of this information. The typical discovery process can be complicated and expensive, especially for solo and small firms. Managing electronic discovery used to be seen as necessary only for large firms in complex litigation. Now, law firms of all sizes need to be able to handle eDiscovery.

Due to system maintenance, Oregon Judicial Department (OJD) eFile the online platform that allows attorneys and staff to electronically file and serve court documents in Oregon’s circuit courts and the Oregon Tax Court—will be offline and inaccessible on Friday, October 14, 2022, from 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

The Professional Liability Fund offers a wide variety of resources to educate and assist lawyers and law office staff. As part of those resources, we maintain and update a library of over 300 forms consisting of checklists, sample letters and pleadings, and other helpful documents. We recently added four new checklists to our website that we encourage you to review.

How we choose to communicate as a society is an ever-evolving process. With the rise in digital media, trends have seen more consumers turn to text, video calls, and emails as their preferred forms of communication. Is your firm doing everything it can to reach potential clients?

Many malpractice claims arise from a client

The last couple of years have been challenging for many people in different ways. While it can be difficult to look back on this time from a

The PLF recently presented a CLE on potential malpractice risks for bankruptcy practitioners. PLF Claims Attorney John Berge and Julia Manela from Watkinson Laird Rubenstein PC explored how the pandemic could generate an uptick in consumer bankruptcy filings after emergency governmental financial assistance ends and eviction moratoriums expire.

Settlements have always been common in the legal world, and they

Although some courts are moving toward holding more appearances in person, certain court appearances will likely continue to be held remotely for some time to come. While the future of court system operations remains uncertain and will continue to evolve over time, below are some resources to improve your remote hearing experience:

Financial industry leaders expect that many people, both consumers and business owners alike, will continue to favor mobile banking options over traditional banking post-COVID. Take some time to learn the mobile options offered by your bank so you can make optimal use of their features.

Regardless of the practice area, many attorneys are now facing the dilemma of losing track of their clients. The pandemic, and most recently wildfires on the West Coast, has upended many people

Many of us are more reliant than ever before on the stability and speed of our internet connection, now that the pandemic has forced us to work from home and many children are engaged in remote learning. If your home internet connection is not performing at the level necessary to support your needs, consider the options below to make it work for you.

The pandemic has forced us to reexamine how we connect with others. Thankfully, technology has allowed us to create new virtual networking opportunities with colleagues, friends, and family. It is important to maintain those connections and establish new ones; otherwise it has been shown that social isolation can have damaging effects, both personal and professional.

As we move forward and adjust to the changing infrastructure due to the pandemic, it is a good time to think about what type of phone system works best for your law firm. Phone calls remain a very popular form of communication, despite other methods such as email, video conferencing, and client portals, and may be the preferred method depending on the circumstances.

With the spread of COVID-19 and resulting changes in how we conduct business, we need methods for exchanging information in different ways. In particular, attorneys need secure methods to collaborate on Word documents with both their clients and colleagues. This collaboration could include simply gathering information from clients with an intake form, review and approval of a document by a client or supervisor, or more complex collaboration involving multiple versions and tracked changes.

At times like these, the amount of information available on the topic of COVID-19 can be overwhelming. With the vast number of unknowns and quickly changing landscapes, it can be difficult if not impossible to feel any sense of control. I

Client portals allow lawyers to interact with clients in a secure environment to accomplish tasks such as gathering information, sharing documents, and making payments for services. They can be a valuable tool for lawyers, so consider implementing them into your practice if you haven't already.