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Two Book Package:

Secrets of The Business of Law®: Successful Practices for Increasing Your Profits!
Second Edition

By Edward Poll

(7"x9", 232 pages, soft cover, ISBN 978-0-9797610-5-8, Published by LawBiz® Publishing Co., 2012)

In this newly revised and expanded edition of Ed Poll's highly praised Secrets collection, you'll find a wealth of hands-on advice to help increase success—and satisfaction—across crucial areas of your practice.

The guidance inside includes how to:

  • Raise your revenue and lower your overhead
  • Get—and keep—the clients you want
  • Maximize your technology ROI
  • Make staff integral to your mission
  • Implement a disaster communications plan
  • Sell or buy a properly valued practice
  • Avoid malpractice claims
  • And much more!

AND...

The Profitable Law Office Handbook: Attorney's Guide to Successful Business Planning

16th Anniversary Edition

By Edward Poll

(7"x9", 132 pages, soft cover, ISBN 978-0-9797610-6-5, Published by LawBiz® Management, Co., 2012)

This brand-new edition of Ed Poll's popular The Profitable Law Office Handbook takes lawyers through the business planning process in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step format. You'll learn the essential elements of how to create a plan that your law practice will really use because it will be workable and manageable even for the smallest firm. Plus, the book includes valuable planning forms—with electronic versions downloadable through a special LawBiz website page for book purchasers.

Inside the fully revised edition of the Handbook you'll find:

  • What the benefits of a business plan are
  • How to prepare for the planning process
  • How to set goals for the firm and the people within it
  • How to create a targeted marketing plan
  • How to produce a financial plan that forecasts cash flow details
  • Why, and how, you'll evaluate and adjust your plan regularly

It's all designed so you can follow along page by page to achieve what every law practice needs—an action plan for success!

Interactive forms are available online.

  2 Books : $98.00

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  2 eBooks : $78.00

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"This book is great. It's full of practical advice for lawyers who want to increase their bottom lines. The book is not overwhelming, the individual articles are short and to the point, and the writing style is friendly. I highly recommend it."

– Law Firm Owner

"Poll describes in spare, engaging language many ways small-firm lawyers and sole practitioners can shave expenses, and above all, expand profits. How-to books on business planning can be deadly boring because of abstruse, overblown prose describing an already dry topic. But Poll succeeds in cutting through the mumbo jumbo."

– Paul D. Boynton, in his review of the first edition of Secrets of The Business of Law®

"As firms struggle to stay alive, you might ask who has time to sit down and analyze a firm's goals and develop a strategy. Ed Poll makes that important task easier by asking the right questions and offering the right guidance that will lead you to the right answers for your firm."

– Lexis Hub

I. Planning for Success
Feeling Frozen with Inertia? It's Time to Prioritize
The Case for Business Planning
Preparing the Law Firm Business Plan
Success: The Top Eight Requirements
Looking Ahead: Are You Prepared for Your "Second Season"?

II. Client Relations
Manage Expectations Through Collaboration
Tips for Improving Your Client Relations
What Makes a Better Lawyer? 10 Ways to Get - And Hold On To - Clients
Are You Leaving Your Clients on the Sidelines?
How to Add Value to Your Practice: The Art of Rainmaking
Client Selection: Help for Avoiding Malpractice Claims and More
Communicate with Status Reports
What Clients Hate!

III. Financial Management
How to Make Alternative Billing Part of Your Strategy
Show Me the Money! No Collection ... No Compensation
Accounting for Attorneys: Understanding the Importance of Numbers
Maintaining Trust: Rules, Snares and Worries in Trust Account Management
Bankers and Lawyers: The Odd Couple
The Pros and Cons of Fixed Fees
How to Break Through the Time and Income Ceiling
Credit Card Billing: A Look at the Dark Side
The Open Book Theory
Reducing Overhead: Let Me Count the Ways
Altering the Dynamics of Billing, Profits and Compensation
31 Tips to Help Lawyers Keep Their Pockets Full

IV. Law Office Technology
Technology Investments and Two-Handed Decision Making: Determining
ROI
Blogging Policies and Best Practices for Lawyers and Law Firms
Why Scanning Is Essential in Document Retention Policies
The "End of Lawyers" - Or the Start of New Legal Dynamic?

V. Addressing Management Challenges
The Benefit of Outside "Eyes and Ears": Coaches Teach What Law Schools
Don't
Who Can't Afford an Executive Director?
Making Staff Integral to Your Mission: The All-Inclusive Firm
Using Compensation to Stimulate Collaborative Lawyering
Selling a Properly Valued Practice: A Win-Win for Both Seller and Buyer
Partnerships: A Perilous Path?
Disaster Communication: Develop a Plan and Know How to Execute It
Ignore the New Reality at Your Peril

"I would like to thank Ed Poll for his recommendations in the Secrets of the Business Law and The Profitable Law Office Handbook. I had already implemented several of the recommendations suggested in his Secrets of the Business Law even before reading your book and it was nice to know that I have been doing some things correctly. I intend to implement many of the other recommendations he has made, and I am recommending his books to several of my colleagues."

– John C. Mullin, Jr.

PART I: Preparing to Create Your Business Plan
1. Understand the Basics of Business Planning
2. Anticipate How to Overcome Resistance
3. Identify Who Needs to Create the Plan
4. Plot Out Planning Meeting Logistics in Advance
5. Gather Relevant Information to Guide the Planning Group
Form I.A. Law Firm Economic Survey

PART II: Setting Goals for Your Practice
II.1. Understand the Goal-Setting Process
II.2. Have the Participants Complete Questionnaires About Personal and Firm Goals
II.3. Use the Law Firm Questionnaires to Build an Action Plan at the First Meeting
Form II.A Personal/Professional Goals Questionnaire
Form II.B Law Firm Goals Questionnaire

PART III: Creating the Marketing Plan
III.1. Understand the Marketing Planning Process
III.2. Gather Information About the Firm's Current Situation and the Legal Market
III.3. Identify Your Target Clients and What You Must Provide to Them
III.4. Identify Methods You Might Use to Reach Your Targets
III.5. Produce the Marketing Plan
III.6. Implement the Marketing Plan and Evaluate Results
Form III.A Marketing Situation Questionnaire
Form III.B Marketing Activity Checklist
Form III.C Marketing Strategy Grid
Form III.D Marketing Action Plan

PART IV: Creating the Cash Flow Statement
IV.1. Understand the Cash Flow Statement
IV.2. Create the Collected Revenue Cash Flow Form
IV.3. Create the Paid Expenses Cash Flow Form
IV.4. Create the Summary Cash Flow Form
IV.5. Review Cash Flow Forms and Adjust Where Necessary
Form IV.A Cash Flow Projection: Collected Revenue
Form IV.B Cash Flow Projection: Paid Expenses
Form IV.C Cash Flow Projection Summary

PART V: After Creating the Business Plan
V.1. Evaluate the Plan on an Ongoing Basis
V.2. Modify the Plan As Circumstances Change
V.3. Determine If the Plan Is Working Overall
V.4. Continue to Evaluate, Adjust and Revise
Form V.A Collected Revenue Variance Report
Form V.B Paid Expenses Variance Report

Appendices
Appendix A. Commonly Used Accounting Terms
Appendix B. Additional Resources

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