Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user:

Recently a lot has been said on legal practice marketing i.e. the best strategies and procedures for lawyers to make their activities and services widely known.

The deontological rules that govern such practice, though they may vary from country to country, are usually prohibitive or restrictive, to say the least, publicity wise, though.

In fact, given its social responsibility and special trust issues, that any legal service contract implies, be it contentious or not,  this is not a mere commercial activity  for it obeys to specific regulations meant to ensure much tighter ethical standards than those applied to most common commercial practices.

On the other hand, the market itself, namely companies, demands for law practice to be modernized, more “commercial” as to take procedures as companies do, thus prompting standards that bring companies and lawyers closer.

As marketing and publicity are concerned, many who are unaware of the deontological regulations of the legal practice, find it strange that they’re not approached by lawyers as they constantly are by other service providers, what doesn’t bother them at all.

Publicity boundaries, or certain publicity restrictions, are quite justifiable for the legal practice considering the afore reasons. Some countries have total restriction to such publicity, thus being in need of some flexibility, though.

Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user:

The use of social networks for marketing and promoting a vast array of economical activities is definitely in and there are some several examples of its good results.

The opposite is also true, though. Many economy players have real doubts on the return of their companies investments in that area (namely the non physical resources, such as time allocated to that task by employees, among others) which, given its nature, are hard to quantify.

Therefore, there is room enough for debating on the efficacy of this sort of marketing, and which are the best procedures to go about it through all different products and economy branches.

There are sectors, like the legal practice, that are bound to restrictions concerning its publicity, either by deontological or professional culture when displaying their image towards the market and society at large, thus making them more reticent and cautious when using these social tools  of promotion.

However, that trend has been slowly changing and, still far from being a universal attitude, a growing number of lawyers and law firms are taken an open and noticeable stance in that area.

Actually, in a business area where personal trust between lawyer and client is paramount, even more so than in any other business activity, there is a natural and reasonable mistrust as to the efficacy of social networks as tools for promoting and marketing services provided by the legal practice.

But there is no turning back on the increasing numbers of law professionals adopting social networks for promoting their businesses, and in the end time will tell who was right, after all.

Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user:

Managing time, the time each of us spend on any given task, to be more precise, is key when managing a company for it stands as an indicator of how much is demanded from that company to meet its tasks (namely what concerns human resources, which is usually seen as fixed or a general cost, rather than a specific one related to a client or project).

By managing time, it is possible to spot waste, logistics inefficiency and other obstacles that may stand in the way of productivity, slowing down its pace thus affecting the company’s results.

Paramount as it is for any company management, it is more so for law firms and lawyers at large, since they often run on a hourly cost/pricing model that is directly dependent on the enhancement of individual performance of the employees for being a successful one, when it comes to results.

Three practical tips on this subject:

• Try to limit interruptions to a minimum, there are always to many (i.e. that email that just came in, is it that urgent to the point of interfering in your present task, or any others that have been on hold for quite some time and so became urgent just because they are overdue?)

• Do not keep up for too long on tasks which have a doubtful return (is it worthy to attend every conference, when you know that the benefit you get from them is barely none? Shouldn’t you go only when that amount of time won’t hurt all the work waiting you at the office?)

• Do not tag everything as ‘URGENT’ (if all is urgent then nothing is, which leads to loss regarding work quality and organization, as well as sorting priorities. Attempt to figure when does the client actually need the work done and then ‘negotiate’ with them the deadline. Most of them realize that they will benefit from a better and more careful work, as long as the established deadline is observed).

Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user. He is also the new LawRD Blog contributor:

The use of any technology always goes through distinct stages that can be longer or shorter, depending on the technology in question and the specific geographical features (cultural, technological, etc) it is deployed into.

Several countries are living exciting times, typical of the recent findings (Portugal included) in IT, or to be more precise, its use in certain areas of the Legal and Public Administration fields.

Actually, political powers have been passing legislation in order to be in some cases mandatory and artificially advantageous in others (i.e. benefits of a doubtful justification when it comes to judicial costs), the use of electronic means for submitting legal suite elements, namely via the Internet and the “Citius” platform managed by the Portuguese Ministry of Justice.

Investing in IT and updating IT in Courts and the Justice system at large is not wrong at all. Using artificial incentives through legislation in order to constraint the judiciary actors to the immediate and exclusive use of a tool not yet fully reliable when it comes to ensure integrity,management and preservation of lawsuits, doesn’t make much sense tough!

In deed, problems are frequent concerning the certification of digital signatures, transferring data among complex and autonomous IT systems, and so on, not to mention the constitutional issues raised up by some magistrates (unfortunately in vain) as to the fact that they are being coerced to using an IT system that is managed and run by the executive power and not by the judicial magistrature itself.

Jurists are known for being conservative by nature, not so much into the newer tech trends, more of  “sheet of paper” fans…

That’s true, and for good reasons too, you know, paper does not “crash”.