Recently, my company, Dog River Business Solutions, sponsored a seminar featuring law office marketing consultant Scott Channell, Esq. of Client Search, Inc. During that seminar, a problem that many law offices have was identified that totally surprised me; namely the failure to use contact management software in the practice of law.

In his presentation, Mr. Channell drove home the point repeatedly that the best marketing strategy is to focus on your existing clients. Make sure that they know about your various areas of practice. Stay in regular contact with them, even after you have completed representation. Return phone calls promptly and keep them abreast of developments. Let them know that you appreciate it when they refer new clients to you. He demonstrated how an office might expect to receive $20 on every $1 invested in such activities as compared to a five to eight dollars on every dollar invested in yellow page ads.

After his presentation, I asked seminar attendees how many of them had contact management software. To my dismay, only a few raised their hands. Some did not even know what contact management software was. How can this be, I thought to myself. A lawyer without contact management is like someone with poor vision who has lost her contact lenses. She cannot perform even the most rudimentary of tasks.

For the uninitiated, contact management software is best understood as a rolodex with filing cabinets and daytimers hanging off of it. Almost any contact management program can work, once you get accustomed to it. Given that I run both a law office and a computer business, I do not use one of the (quite good) packages specifically designed for the law office like Amicus Attorney, (see Review by Ted Hobson, Vermont Bar Journal October, 1996), rather I use a program called Maximizer.

Maximizer is the hub of all of my activities. From my contact screen (akin to a business card only better), I have available to me, at the touch of a keystroke, all of the correspondence (i.e. letters, documents, invoices, email, and faxes) and conversation notes that anyone in my office has ever had with that person. All of the documents are listed in reverse chronological order, just like my physical correspondence file. The notes from phone conversations are likewise in reverse chronological order with the initials of the person from my office who made the note. The next step in my automation process is to scan in and attach to the contact file all incoming correspondence. Then I will always have the entire file at my disposal so that I always have all of the information that I need no matter who calls.

Another benefit of contact management software is that from your contact screen you can send email, faxes, letters, print envelopes or letters and have your computer dial and time phone calls. Point and click buttons enable you to launch the ancillary applications that you need (i.e. word processing, email and fax/modem) right from your contact screen and have it draw the necessary information (i.e. Name and address into letters, email addresses or fax numbers) directly into your application. This enables you to choose and efficiently employ the most effective means of communicating with that person almost effortlessly. It also has mail merge and other broadcast features so that you can personalize form letters and like correspondence that you desire to send out to multiple recipients (e.g. notice of a firm open house or a press release about your recent success before the Vermont Supreme Court). All of these make maintaining regular and consistent contact with your existing clients that much easier.

A final benefit of contact management software is the calendaring feature. In my office, I have a number of people working for me and we are all networked together. When I need to schedule a meeting, I am able to have my computer search everyone's calendar to find available times to make meetings easy to schedule. In addition, my receptionist is able to schedule meetings when clients call by simply checking the relevant person's calendar and scheduling appropriately. Similarly, I am better able to manage each employees work load because I have access to their calendars. Finally, a system can be established in order to effectively use the calendaring feature for docket control or to identify other critical dates.

Contact management software will not solve all of your office automation issues, but the failure to employ or the ineffective use of contact management software can dramatically affect your ability to maintain the type of consistent, regular and quality contact with your clients that is required in order to grow and build your practice. In addition, contact management software employed properly can be one of if not the most important tool in providing top notch service to your clients. So, the moral of the story is: contact management software, don't practice without it!

Copyright [2003].  All rights reserved, except any article may be copied in its entirety, for non-profit usage, with proper attribution so long as a copy of said article, as reprinted, is sent to Mr. Atherton at P.O. Box 90, Northfield Falls, VT  05664.

Steven H. Atherton

The Digital Lawyer