By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach Over the past few years, particularly following the pandemic, we have seen a lot of changes in the employee market and computing both a fair and competitive wage. Regardless of where you are located, inflation and increased competition for competent employees have come to the forefront. Whether you are thinking about your current employees or are thinking about hiring, you may be curious about what exactly is reasonable or fair compensation for either support staff or associate attorneys. Here are a few tips that we use to determine fair compensation. LOOK AT SOME INDUSTRY…
7 Common Mistakes When Dealing with Challenging Employees
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law Dealing properly with employees is yet another key challenge to running a smooth-operating practice. And, once again, this is the kind of stuff we never learn in law school or any other continuing education course. Unfortunately, I have made all of the following mistakes and have had to learn the hard way. By reading this article, I hope that you will now be adequately warned and can hopefully either avoid making the same mistakes or even able to rehabilitate…
Is Your Office a Safe Place for People to Work?
By David Giuliano, Business Coach For over 40 years I have worked in the business world and I’ve learned many lessons. One of the most important aspects of business success is a work environment where people feel safe, can communicate honestly, and grow as a whole. Having an unsafe environment causes the most damage to the owner of the business. This might seem like a no-brainer, but the truth is in this day and age, it’s extremely hard to maintain a healthy work environment, but very necessary to do so. My work has shown me that if we can address…
Reduce Your Number of No-Shows and Cancellations with a Proper Confirmation Process
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach Having worked with numerous estate planning professionals over the years, one of the issues that a lot of people have struggled with are appointment and seminar no-shows and cancellations. One of my first questions is always, “What does your confirmation process look like?” For some, they don’t have any process in place at all. For others, they have a mixture of an e-mail that is sent or a phone call the day before. While something is better than nothing, there is always room for improvement to help reduce the number of no-shows and cancellations….
Paid Time Off vs. Paid Sick and Vacation Leave: Which is Better for Your Practice?
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach Add this to the list of items that law school doesn’t teach budding lawyers about when it comes to setting up their own practice. What kind of benefits should you offer employees, particularly with respect to paid time off? In recent years, many employers have moved more to a model of straight paid time off hours (otherwise known as “PTO”). This would be a specific number of hours off per year given to employees, sometimes varied depending on full-time or part-time status and many times tiered depending on tenure at the firm. One attorney…
The 10 Biggest Mistakes Estate Planning Attorneys Make – – Running Their Business!
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law Over the past 40+ years, I have been blessed with a successful and fulfilling estate planning law practice. But, it was not always successful and it was not always fulfilling. It was through my own set of expensive, costly and stressful sets of trial and error that I was able to see what worked and what does not. Based on my real-world experience, I have compiled what I believe to be the 10 most common mistakes that I’ve seen most…
Generate More Revenue This Year with More Referrals from Clients
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law If you’ve read any of my previous newsletter articles or purchased any of my presentations (or attended our Ultimate Level event), you know that I am a huge systems nut. Systems for EVERYTHING – – from marketing to receptionist scripts, to conducting initial client meetings, to generating trust documents, to signing meetings, and regular client follow-ups. Utilizing time-tested systems for everything involved in operating an estate planning practice is how you develop a successful practice. Yet, even those who…
Ten Tips for Boosting Office Morale
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach With all that’s going on right now in the world, office morale may be down. A lot of change has impacted people over the past few years. Perhaps you have different staff now, but the effects of the pandemic, the politics, the news stories, and the fears of the economy have left a lot of people feeling burnt out and empty. Even if you have tried your best to keep these things from impacting the overall environment in your office, morale in your office may be taking a hit. Boosting office morale is not…
Staff Reviews & Setting Goals at the Beginning of the New Year
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law In successfully running a law practice for over 40 years, I have found that it’s vitally important to periodically meet with each of my staff members (even ones that may be part-time or independent contractors) to review their job performance and set clear and defined goals. Once you do these reviews on a regular basis, you will be amazed how much more motivated and productive your staff will be! I do these reviews semi-annually, at the beginning of January…
6 Ways You’re Holding Yourself (and Your Firm) Back Without Even Knowing It!
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach If your practice isn’t where you want it to be and you feel “stuck”, do you know why? There may be plenty of reasons why. However, more often than not, there are a lot of things that you, the estate planning attorney, are doing (or not doing) that are the reasons why you can’t seem to move forward. Having worked with estate planning attorney, Philip Kavesh, for over 18 years, both in his law practice and with our attorney customers of The Ultimate Estate Planner, I’ve seen a commonality in most attorneys and what’s…