Over the years, I have participated in a tremendous number of programs on how to find a lawyer. Prior to the advent of the Internet, the standard suggestions would be to use lawyer referral services, the yellow pages and word of mouth. Over the years, one of the most reliable publications to find a lawyer has been Martindale-Hubbell, but that book was not available to the general public unless you could find a library that might have a copy. The Internet has to great measure superceded and made all of the old fashioned methods of finding a lawyer obsolete. That is not to say people’s original contact with an attorney may not still be from a lawyer referral service, the yellow pages or by word of mouth, but each and every one of these old methods of locating a lawyer is limited by the amount of information about that lawyer that can be put in the medium whether it be a list, advertisement or conversation. There are so many amazing things about the Internet, it is hard to focus on just one, but the simple fact of having an e-mail address and a hyper-linked Web site where people can go to find out more about you is the area of Internet usage where I would like to focus for this “tip.”

Just yesterday I was involved in a meeting where a lawyer said that under no circumstances would he ever have an e-mail address. He went on to state he did not want people to communicate with him through e-mails and he did not want to have the burden of having to respond to e-mails. When I heard this comment, I was reminded of the advent of the fax machine some 15 years ago and the phraseology that was coined regarding the increased pace of communication by means of the fax as “fax wars.” It seemed as though overnight, the opposition in a lawsuit or your own clients and the Courts expected instantaneous responses by fax. What did we as lawyers do? We all went out and bought a fax machine. Wow, we had all better get an e-mail address and a linked Web site.

As I stated in a previous article, it appears to me that I am getting more inquiries about potentially doing legal services for clients by way of e-mails than I am from any other single source. Collectively, the multiple sources of new legal business which include referrals from other lawyers, referrals from former clients, the yellow pages and lawyer referral services are much greater than the Internet, but the Internet is the single largest source of new business. As I stated last week, having at least one Internet referral membership is an important part of the modern law practice. Likewise, having an e-mail address and a hyperlink to a Web site allows prospective clients to instantaneously learn everything about you that they would want to know without ever having to even contact you in person. Without e-mail and a Web site, you are “keeping your candle under a basket.” Burn the basket!

Maybe we should explore what disadvantages there would be to having an e-mail address and a hyper-linked Web site. Does the communication go too fast? Does the pressure of quicker communication create hastily formulated opinions? Does the access to information that normally would not be available to the general public or to your adversaries give them an edge or a leg up in negotiating or litigating with you? I suppose if your philosophy is that “the glass is half empty,” instead of the glass is “half full,” then you might be able to make some type of a case for your point of view of not having an e-mail address or a Web site. On the other hand, it appears as though the entities that are supervising lawyers such as bar associations or state Supreme Courts are going more and more towards lawyers being able to give more and more information to the public as long as it is not misleading. Additionally, users of the Internet have become so accustomed to being able to find out almost everything they want to find out through the Internet, that I believe they would be disturbed if lawyers made a conscious decision not to make information about themselves and their firms as readily available as possible.

My philosophy has always been to let the information out, to let people know whatever it is they want to know, and let the “cards fall where they may.” I have always believed that what I do in my practice, and for that matter, in my private life, is virtually an open book. Now it may be the most boring book you ever read, but at least it is there to be examined. In fact, I at one time had one of my partners tell me that “the good thing about me was what you saw was what you got, the bad thing about me was what you saw was all you got.” I could not tell if this was a backhanded compliment or a slam, but boy did it sure seem to fit the circumstance.

One of the major reasons I have an e-mail address is my clients’ demand that have one. My clients want to access me when they want to access me, and they want to communicate. My clients want to send me documents by e-mail that I can then edit and send back to them by e-mail. I have found if someone will send you a document or pleading by e-mail and let you download it and edit and reconfigure it, it saves a tremendous amount of time by not having to re-keystroke the document, as well as not having to rely upon the inferior scanner software to try to save you from keystroking. I think that clients that are used to e-mail, love it, and love lawyers that use it!

Once you have an e-mail account for purposes of receiving selected e-mails, and in particular e-mails from your clients, it is very easy to incorporate a hyperlink to a Web site to give those people who want to find out more about you ready access to the information. Why not make it easier for people to learn about you and your practice? Law lists such as Martindale-Hubbell offer services with regard to Web site development and will create a hyperlink between the Martindale-Hubbell listing and your individual listing in their publications.

Recently, I have had quite a few clients state to me that because they had gone to the Internet and read my Web site prior to coming and meeting me, and that they knew that I had been involved in a tremendous number of law related activities over my thirty-three year career and based upon what they had seen on my Web site, they were hoping that I would know something that would be able to help them with their legal matter. My prospective client having previously looked at my Web site, shortened the amount of time needed in the conference to get acquainted with the clients, and allowed us to more quickly get to the heart of the matter that they were there to see me about. Time is money in the legal profession, and, therefore, my clients’ bills were smaller because the initial conferences were shorter. Often times I do not charge for initial conferences unless my clients hire me to do something for them, and in instances where the client was not hiring me, I found that the conferences were much shorter and took less of my time if the clients had access to my Web site prior to coming to the meeting.

Hopefully you now understand totally how taking advantage of a reasonable amount of new technology can help you build a practice. I believe it is possible I believe to become so much of a “techie” that you are literally frittering away good money on “whistles and bells” that do not really help you get anything done “quicker, better or cheaper!” Your mantra with regard to technology should be is this good for the client, “is this good for the lawyers and staff and is this good for the financial bottom line?” If the question is how excited am I about the technology, and not by the practical application of the technology, you are probably spending money where you shouldn’t. On the other hand, if you are lagging behind you need to understand that even the “dinosaurs” are now utilizing technology to compete for legal business.

I recently asked a group of lawyers at a Solo and Small Firm Conference in my state how many of them had palm pilots or a hand-held computer. Out of a group of approximately 20 people, about a third of the people raised their hand. When I asked the further question as to how many were using them in their practice, a couple of the hands came down. If the show of hands in my group was any indication, about 25% of the people at the conference were actually using their palm pilots or their hand-held computers in their practice to make themselves more efficient. Considering the fact that as short as five to ten years ago, no one even knew what a palm pilot or a hand-held computer was, this statistic I think speaks for itself. As miniaturization, processing speed, and the memory of hand held computer continue to improve, the utilization of these devises by lawyers in everyday practice are going to become nearly indispensable. Now you can get your cell phone, the Internet, your computer and your dictation equipment all in a box that is not larger than an area that is three inches wide, five inches long and about an inch thick. Just imagine what will happen when true voice recognition software is available and you can literally dictate into your cell phone, download it into your computer and produce a document! Also, imagine what would happen when you can speak into your cell phone and send both a voice message and an e-mail text message to another person. Similarly, imagine what will happen when you talk to your cell phone, ask it to access the Internet and you instantly get the information that you were looking for without having to “research” it or go to the “books.”

I remember that I wrote an article in 1997 for my state bar bulletin as a guest commentator on what the legal community would be like in the next century. I remember saying that “the specifics are only limited by ones imagination, but three dynamic items emerged as the items that will most greatly affect the practice of law in the next 100 years.” These three items were technology, legal assistance and the law degree being the graduate degree of choice. Each of these areas have bloomed as I predicted they would, but even in ways that were not even thought of five years ago. I summed up my comments on advancing technology with the comment “ you ain’t seen nothing yet.” If that was true back in 1997 it is even truer today! With Internet, e-mails and Web sites, hardware and software, imagine what technologies will be available to allow people to do a better job of finding the “right” lawyer and communicating with that lawyer. “The specifics are only limited by ones imagination.”

Next week’s tip is to develop a firm resume and have it available to give to prospective clients as a way of solidifying your relationship with these people in order to create a long-lasting attorney-client relationship. I think that you will find some of the thoughts on firm resumes to be interesting with regard to how you can project the image you are trying to put forward as well as market your firm. One of the interesting techniques that comes from a firm’s resume is “cross-marketing,” which we will discuss in more detail in the next article.

Talk with you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.