ROBERT BENNETT ATTORNEY OF THE MONTHHello again to the most recent issue of Attorney at Law Magazine. We now slide through March with the days getting longer, as much of the national news has been focused on coro- navirus, market volatility, and Democratic candidates’ competition for delegates. The Minnesota Legislative Session, and tax fil- ing season are well underway, and the ag- ricultural sector is readying for another season, hopeful that nature is cooperative. The legal landscape in Minnesota has recently experienced some big shifts, and soon Minnesota Law School Commencement cer- emonies will take place. This issue of Attorney at Law Magazine features a story about Robins Kaplan LLP bringing the civil rights and personal injury powerhouse team of Bob Bennett, Katie Bennett, Andrew Noel and Marc Betinsky on board. They add more than 75 years of experi- ence, collectively, and Robins Kaplan intends to leverage their ex- perience in other markets. This issue also contains a Q&A with the Executive Director at Volunteer Lawyers Network, Tom Walsh, and Kristin Rowell continues our conversation on lawyer well-being, of- fering health tips for busy attorneys. As always, we are interested in hearing from you regarding sto- ries about top legal practitioners and feature-worthy firms. We’d like to hear from you also about innovative legal leadership, and about successful solo practices. NEXT GENERATION SPECIAL ISSUE! In May we will publish our special issue focusing on emerging young practitioners that are shaping the legal community in our annual “Next Generation” issue. There is still time to participate – please contact me as soon as possible for more details. Thanks for reading, and for your continued support! David Seawell PUBLISHER 763-742-2805 DSEAWELL@ATTORNEYATLAWMAGAZINE.COM FROM THE Publisher Attorney at Law Magazine is published by: Target Market Media Publications Inc. David Seawell PRESIDENT & CEO INSIGHT MEDIA, INC. EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE Howard LaGraffe VICE PRESIDENT Caitlin Keniston EDITOR Susan Cushing Veronica Jauregui ASSISTANT EDITORS Jaqueline Dávila GRAPHIC DESIGN Z. Peter Sawicki James L. Young CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Brian Craig Kristen Powell Tracy Steiner H.K. Wilson CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Eclipse Productions PHOTOGRAPHY Copyright ©2020, Target Market Media all rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. Advertising rates on request. Bulk third class (standard) mail. Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published materials, Attorney at Law Magazine & Target Market Media cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed or facts supplied by authors. Corporate Office : 5828 North 7th Street, Suite 200 Phoenix, AZ 85014 Phone (480) 219-9716 www.tmmpublications.com • info@tmmpublications.com TARGET MARKET MEDIA TARGETMARKETMEDIA Northern Alabama | Atlanta | Chicago | Dallas | Ft. Lauderdale Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | Minnesota North Carolina Triangle | Ohio | Philadelphia | Phoenix | San Antonio Salt Lake City | Middle Tennessee | Washington D.C. ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · MINNESOTA · V OL. 9 NO. 3 4TABLE OF Contents GEOTECHNICAL CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS ENVIRONMENTAL BUILDING TECHNOLOGY PETROGRAPHY/CHEMISTRY www.amengtest.com 800.972.6364 12 6 2020 What’s the Vision for Your Law Practice? By Tracy Steiner 8 Volunteer Lawyers Network: Protect and Promote Spotlight Interview 10 Trademark Rights – Where Do They Come From? By Z. Peter Sawicki and James L. Young 12 Robert Bennett Attorney of the Month 18 3 Quick Health Tips That Deliver Big Results for Busy Attorneys By Kristin Rowell SPECIAL SECTIONS 16 Event Spotlight 19 Upcoming Events 21 Talk of the Town AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com 5Now that the year is in full swing, and the 2020 optical jokes are for the most part finished, it’s time to really consider how you want your practice to look like this year. I encourage my cli- ents to use the beginning of the year as an opportunity to assess their practice and implement a timeline for changes. Once you get into the routine of completing a yearly review, you have memorialized your changes as your practice continues to transform and evolve. I com- plete this process with my consulting clients as well as in my personal life, especially with finances. For law clients, I call this process REMAP — Receivables, Expenses, Marketing, Audits, People — and if you set aside some time to think about these functions, you may re-map your path to financial success. RECEIVABLES Almost without exception, my legal clients suffer as a result of a sig- nificant number of uncollected accounts on a monthly basis. When the procedures are not in place to manage client accounts each month, practices stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars each year. As one of the more complex and time-consuming tasks, and because high hour- ly rates can cover for lost revenue, solo and small firm owners are often complacent about collections and receivables. Those of us hard-wired from a business perspective shutter at the thought of the loss of control and therefore, the loss of revenue. I don’t like leaving money on the table, so accounts receivable management has always been a priority and favorite to fix for clients. It has been my experience that lawyers have a threshold of accep- tance for receivables far above what managers and consultants like to see, or would allow if they were solely in charge. The procedures to minimize your monthly need to collect from clients centers around a team approach. With my clients, I need the entire team to buy in so that the systems will not fail. Be honest as you evaluate your receiv- ables; you are only hurting your own bank account if you don’t face your shortcomings. You end up working harder for less money, which also doesn’t make long-term financial sense. EXPENSES Another of my personal favorite tasks within practice management is reducing expenses. Solos and small firms often do not spend enough time on “bottom line” issue. Along with increasing revenues, decreas- ing expenses is the other way to put more money in your pocket. Over the course of my career helping professional practices, the vast major- ity of my clients spent little to no time negotiating expenses on a yearly basis. This is unfortunate; just a little time reviewing and bidding out services can make a dramatic difference in your bottom line. The two expenses taking the lion’s share of total monthly expenses for solo and small firms are rent and people, to include payroll and benefits. While you may get one chance every 1-5 years to negoti- What’s the Vision for Your Law Practice? BY TRACY STEINER ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · MINNESOTA · V OL. 9 NO. 3 6ate your lease, bidding out your healthcare and benefits should be done annually. The one way to mitigate ongo- ing increases in coverage is to find a trusted broker who will work with you to bid out your healthcare coverage. This requires the ability to evaluate bids not only from cost, but from a coverage perspective, especially if you have employees with specific issues. The broker should sit down with you to review and analyze potential bids. Devoting time to this task could save you significant money each year which goes right back into your pocket. MARKETING The internet has certainly changed the way practices view marketing, and for good cause. Recent studies have shown that upwards of 90% of consum- ers use Google to search for a lawyer. Additionally, where word of mouth was always the best referral source, now 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews for recommendations. Happy clients can certainly still be a great referral source, but if you aren’t putting your best foot forward on the web, you are missing the boat for at- tracting clients. Rebranding your logo or practice used to be cost prohibitive. Today, it is not only affordable, but recommend- ed. Making sure your website is user friendly must be a priority for solo and small practices that want to compete for clients with polished sites from the larger firms. Changing your logo, add- ing a tagline, updating your website and posting blogs are some of the ways to make yourself competitive in the technology rich environment of 2020. Almost 67% of consumers search for legal help on their phone. Have you checked to see if your site is mobile friendly? AUDITS Nobody wants to talk about the ugly truth; estimates are that up to 50% of professional practices have been, or cur- rently are, the victims of embezzlement. Despite the im- portance of unscheduled internal audits, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners indicates that only 20% of businesses perform unscheduled audits. For doctors and lawyers, especially solo and small firms, that number is significantly lower. In larger firms, there are several layers of controls; in solo and small firms, those measures typi- cally don’t exist. I have personally seen fraud/embezzlement in over a dozen practices. For as much as we want to believe the “It won’t happen to me” philosophy, your preparation and diligence, combined with controls and random audits, is the only way to prevent you from becom- ing a victim. I ask my lawyer clients if they would go to court unprepared, and of course the answer is always no. Similarly, you can’t review your busi- ness if you don’t have the knowledge of seeing “clean” financial records. Your accountant is not going to audit your books for fraud; it just isn’t part of the monthly close or tax process. Making sure you aren’t a victim is up to you, before it happens. PEOPLE Finally, reviewing staff on a yearly basis should be part of your REMAP strategy. This includes performance reviews, if you haven’t done them an- nually, salary and benefit reviews, utilization reviews (staffing numbers/ tasks) and needs for the coming year. Managing people can be one of the more time-consuming tasks, when you include payroll and policies and procedures. We all know that people make or break our business, so devot- ing time to addressing your human resource needs will only improve your chances of financial success. You don’t have to have a large staff or even more than one to be assessing this informa- tion on a yearly basis. Devoting efforts to improving the business aspects of managing your practice through REMAP will get you on your way to re- ducing complaints and improving the bottom line. TRACY STEINER, MHSA, IS THE PRESIDENT OF T. SCOTT CONSUL- TANTS LLC. A CONSULTANT SINCE 1995, HE HAS BEEN ASSISTING MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AND LAWYERS WITH THEIR VARIOUS PRACTICE MANAGEMENT ISSUES. VISIT WWW.TSCOTTCONSUL- TANTS.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION. 90% of consumers use Google to search for a lawyer. Additionally, where word of mouth was always the best referral source, now 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews for recommendations. AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com 7AALM: How was VLN founded and what does it do? Walsh: Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN) was founded in 1966 by six young attorneys. Originally named Legal Advice Clinics, the organization was founded in response to the critical need for legal services for people expe- riencing poverty. VLN’s mission is to protect and promote the basic human needs of people experiencing poverty through the power of le- gal volunteers. We accomplish our mission by helping people at legal advice clinics at com- munity centers and courthouses, phone ad- vice services, community legal education, and representing clients in a wide variety of civil legal issues. Through our volunteers, we help more than 8,000 people annually. Attorney at Law Magazine asked Volunteer Lawyers Network Executive Director Tom Walsh to tell our readers more about the network and how attorneys can become involved. SPO TLIGHT INTER VIEW Volunteer Lawyers Network: Protect and Promote AALM: How would you encourage a young lawyer to become involved in their legal com- munity? Walsh: I’m fairly biased, but I think volun- teering is truly the best way for young law- yers to become involved in their community. Volunteering provides young lawyers with the opportunity to practice client counseling skills, learn about court processes and pro- cedures, make court appearances, and be ex- posed to new legal areas or topics. In addition, by volunteering a young lawyer can meet and network with lawyers, judges, and court staff while at the same time making a positive dif- ference in the community. ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · MINNESOTA · V OL. 9 NO. 3 8AALM: How frequently does VLN offer CLE events? How much do they cost? Walsh: VLN offers a mix of CLEs, with some focusing on specific legal topics and others focusing on the “soft skills” needed to competently serve our clients. VLN holds a new volunteer orientation and CLE about every month. The session, based on an award- winning training developed at VLN, focuses on cross-cultural communication and how to effectively represent clients living in poverty. We also offer trainings on substantive legal issues monthly. VLN CLEs are either free or very low cost for current or prospective vol- unteers. AALM: Does the program offer any men- torship opportunities? Walsh: Yes! VLN provides mentoring for new volunteers through our staff resource attorneys and our experienced volunteers. Mentor attorneys answer questions, review pleadings, and even accompany pro bono at- torneys to court. If you are interested in men- toring, please let us know. We need your help! It’s a very powerful way to help Minnesotans in need and improve the legal community. AALM: How is the program involved in the local community? Walsh: VLN strives to offer clinics and pro- gramming in the communities where our cli- ents live. We host community legal clinics at libraries, medical clinics, community centers, social services agencies, and places of worship. We also partner with other legal nonprofits and social service agencies to offer culturally sensitive and comprehensive services. AALM: What is the traditional demograph- ic of your volunteers? Young? Solo practitio- ners? Walsh: Our volunteers reflect our diverse legal community. They range from brand new attorneys to those who’ve practiced for more than 40 years. We work with volunteers from all walks of professional life, including solo practitioners, corporate counsel, government attorneys, and lawyers from large firms. AALM: Besides networking and CLE events, what benefits do you provide your volunteers? Walsh: VLN has malpractice insurance which covers all pro bono cases, clinics, work- shops, and activities performed by a volun- teer. We have a staff of six resource attorneys who develop forms and resources, answer questions, and mentor volunteers. VLN also offers meeting spaces, a mailing address, and use of our phone number for volunteers. We also have a board of directors with several sub-committees and a special event board comprised almost entirely of volunteers. AALM: How does VLN meet the challenges facing your clients? Walsh: We continue to expand our services to meet the ever-changing legal needs of our client community. For example, in the past 18 months, we have responded to the affordable housing crisis by helping tenants living in sub- standard housing seek much needed repairs, representing tenants facing eviction, and helping potential renters remove the barriers to housing by expunging eviction records. AALM: How do volunteers become in- volved with VLN? Walsh: New volunteers can go to our web- site to apply and sign up for a new volunteer orientation. I also encourage new volunteers to contact me or any VLN staff member di- rectly about volunteering. Our volunteers reflect our diverse legal community. They range from brand new attorneys to those who’ve practiced for more than 40 years.” “ AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com 9Next >