TurboLaw Customer Profile – New England Divorce Solutions
May 8, 2009
Since so many of our customers practice in the area of Divorce and Family Law, we thought we’d bring this company to your attention in case it was of interest.
Customer Profile: New England Divorce Solutions
Working with a financial professional who focuses exclusively in matrimonial finance matters can make a difference to your client’s financial success both pre and post divorce. Our flat fixed pricing proposition and financial savvy in all matters regarding divorce finance is the perfect complement to our Family Law Attorneys.
Accountants and Financial Advisors are often used in the divorce process to perform discrete tasks for Family Law Attorneys and their clients. These professionals can often be highly skilled in their functional areas, but often have limited knowledge about the intricacies of divorce. New England Divorce Solutions is the only practice in the region that works exclusively with Family Law Attorneys and their clients on divorce finance issues. We are the premier provider in the areas of litigation consulting and forensic accounting services for matrimonial disputes. Simply put, we are your divorce finance experts.
New England Divorce Solutions offers a wide range of services, which include assisting Family Law Attorney’s with discovery, drafting interrogatory questions, preparing financial affidavits, tracing separate property claims or the dissipation of marital assets, investigative accounting and trial preparation. Our firm also provides expert testimony if your case goes to trial and assists with settlement negotiations. We also offer post divorce services, such as ensuring your clients receive the assets awarded to them in the divorce decree, assisting clients with managing their settlements and planning for their future.
Our team consists of highly trained professionals with a combined 47 years of financial experience. We practice exclusively in the matrimonial finance arena and help Attorney’s and their clients resolve disputes. Our professionals have highly specialized knowledge of divorce financial matters and have obtained advanced designations, such as the Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA) and the Certified Forensic Financial Analyst (CFFA). We are all candidates for the Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) designation, administered through the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA), which will allow our team to value businesses in matrimonial dissolutions.
Our flat fixed pricing structure distinguishes our firm as the only matrimonial finance practice in the country which prices exclusively on a value proposition. This means we no longer bill by the hour for our services. Once we understand the engagement, New England Divorce Solutions will proudly offer our services for a flat fixed price, which is guaranteed. Our price guarantee allows Family Law Attorney’s and their clients to focus on the benefits we provide rather than worrying about the cost. We have received positive feedback about our pricing structure and are often told it relieves stress and anxiety. To learn more about our practice, please call (617) 671-0860 or visit our website – www.nedivorcesolutions.com.
Practical Lawyering in the Digital Age
October 27, 2008
Louisiana lawyer and blogger “Ernie the Attorney” (Ernie Svenson) writes about an upcoming CLE Seminar on Digital Workflow that he’s presenting:
In the past two years I’ve given several presentations on ‘Digital Workflow,’ or how to make your law practice less dependent on paper. Whenever I give this talk the room is always packed with people who want to know the step-by-step process of becoming more digital.
[...]
It occurred to us that there’s a big demand for this kind of information, and it’s not really being presented very often around Louisiana. So, we decided to take the bull by the horns and put on our own CLE Seminar. The idea is to create a group of basic, intermediate, and advanced sessions. And to present them on a fairly regular basis.
Unfortunately for those of us in the Northeast, this seminar will be held in Louisiana, so unless you happen to be doing some travelling down that way, you’ll be out of luck (this time).
UPDATE: Here’s some information on classes/seminars near us (in Massachusetts):
- MBA Legal Technology Expo – Technology Breakout Sessions
- Lawyers in Transition (led by TurboLaw customer Alan J. Klevan, Esq. of Klevan & Klevan LLP in Wellesley, MA)
- Going Small or Solo – Now What? (An ongoing series of workshops on the use of technology in small firms, presented by the MBA)
Using E-Z Pass data to prove infidelity
November 6, 2007
In what might be a compelling reason to go back to using your spare change when paying tolls on the highway, we found this report of E-Z Pass data being used to prove infidelity:
E-ZPass and other electronic toll collection systems are emerging as a powerful means of proving infidelity. That’s because when your spouse doesn’t know where you’ve been, E-ZPass does.
“E-ZPass is an E-ZPass to go directly to divorce court, because it’s an easy way to show you took the off-ramp to adultery,” said Jacalyn Barnett, a New York divorce lawyer who has used E-ZPass records a few times.
Lynne Gold-Bikin, a Pennsylvania divorce lawyer, said E-ZPass helped prove a client’s husband was being unfaithful: “He claimed he was in a business meeting in Pennsylvania. And I had records to show he went to New Jersey that night.”
Whether it’s E-Z Pass or Fast-Lane, such devices provide an often overlooked source of evidence.
Verbal Branding and Productive Interactions
June 7, 2007
By: Stephen Melanson
Do you realize it took until 1977 before attorneys could advertise their services legally?
David L. Hudson Jr., a First Amendment Center research attorney (www.firstamendmentcenter.org) tells us, “(In 1977, the Supreme) Court first determined that attorney advertising was a form of commercial speech entitled to some degree of First Amendment protection in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona.”
Prior to that, he writes, the law said, “A lawyer shall not publicize himself, or his partner, or associate, or any other lawyer affiliated with him or his firm…”. Only business cards were an acceptable form of promotion.
Things have changed.
With consolidation and the overall ability to differentiate from each other diminishing, law firms are getting more and more attentive to their marketing efforts and brand identities.
For now, let’s focus on branding, and a curiously hidden element of it: verbal interactions as a brand building tool. Imagine how you’d feel if every time someone in your firm spoke to someone outside it, you lost money and your brand was diminished.
That sounds pretty awful. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly uncommon.
Most organizations, as far as I can tell, don’t recognize that direct contact with the public, i.e., actual conversations, represents the front line of their brand, and that these interactions must be managed as branding activities.
From over twenty years of varied business experience, there’s one thing I’m quite sure of: the last people to be trained and given a full understanding of an organizations’ value and brand positioning are, quite surprisingly, those on the front lines of direct customer contact.
That’s not only a shame and a lost opportunity, but it literally stands branding on its head.
Given one regrettable interaction, some clients will remember it the rest of their natural-born lives, and to them it’ll symbolize a firms brand from then on. (If you doubt this, ask an unhappy client what your brand is. Often, they’ll be most upset about an interaction they had with someone on the staff.)
It’s bad for business and, well, just bad for everybody. Therefore, verbal branding ought to be a management priority and a critical training issue.
Before we continue, let’s establish some philosophy: No matter what you do, you can only count on your audience (the public and individuals) remembering one or two things about your firm—period!
I know this to be true, and I can’t overstate the importance of understanding this going in, so you’ll develop your messaging correctly.
With this in mind, how confident are you that an initial contact with someone is promoting your brand effectively? Or for that matter, think about your web site – another type of “interaction” – and if a visitor will leave the site remembering what you want them to?
Without this effort to manage what people remember about you, especially through verbal contact, your brand could be diminished every day and potentially with every conversation.
Yes, it’s a scary thought. But as I mentioned, at some companies it’s happening right now, everyday.
Consider: Do you really need to tell people so much during a first conversation? Are questions of any kind likely to take you “off message,” never to return? If so, maybe you haven’t really found your best brand message. And by the way, does the home page of your web site really need to be that busy? It’s probably diluting your message.
Let’s get back to the central point. What do you really need someone to know – or if you will, remember – so each direct interaction is as productive as possible? The idea of “productivity” is an important one to verbal branding. An interaction is productive to the degree that people remember what you want them to, whether it’s a day, week, or month later.
When you’re compelled to tell your audience every detail of your organization and service, it simply means your verbal branding needs work.
As Vincent Gardenia said in Moonstruck, “That’s all I’m saying; I’ll say no more!”
Let me describe a productive business environment from a verbal standpoint: each interaction has a foundation of just a couple of central concepts; your answers to questions support, and track back to, those concepts rhetorically instead of diverting from them; and when anyone in your organization is asked, “What in the world do you guys do?” they understand what needs to be communicated, and they can do it with simplicity and confidence – every time.
Is it less exciting? Maybe. Does it work? Definitely.
Plus, the entire staff now has more confidence and the relief of knowing what to say. That’s how you generate more revenue, increase market share, and build your brand on a daily basis, conversation by conversation.
I like a quote by Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team:
“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Stephen Melanson is a brand and positioning consultant, specializing in verbal brand development and teaching its application.
Email: stephen@melansonconsult.com
Collaborative Practice, A new Approach
May 3, 2007
Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Dan Tremblay.
Collaborative Practice is an alternative dispute resolution method originally developed for resolving Family Law disputes, particularly Divorce, but could be applied to most civil areas of law. Those who practice collaborative law have seen the negative effects on their clients and on themselves of traditional litigation. Stu Web, an attorney who was “getting pretty sick of it,” decided there must be a better way of handling divorces. He started experimenting with a different approach where “settlement only” lawyers formed an agreement with their clients that they would not litigate and if any party decided to litigate or the process failed, the agreement required the attorneys to turn the case over to litigation lawyers. Thus Collaborative Law Practice was born.
There are no time standards except those imposed by the clients themselves. There is no need for the traditional discovery. The entire discovery is conducted voluntarily in four way meetings with the attorneys and parties; there is no need to “hide the ball” as happens in traditional divorce and civil proceedings. The meetings are considered settlement proceedings and therefore confidential. The speed of the process is dependent on the parties and therefore they manage the cost and length of time it takes them to come to agreement. The product of these meeting is an agreement. In the case of a divorce the agreement and joint petition can be presented to the court.
In addition, allied professionals are used to help facilitate the process. In divorce, coaches, neutral child and financial specialists help expedite the process by advising as necessary to help overcome obstacles and impasses in divorce cases. By adding these experts to the process, the parties address their whole situation instead of focusing on only the legal aspects of the divorce. The direct benefits are the speed of the process and therefore the savings in cost to the parties; confidentiality, especially where divorce proceedings will be available online to the public at some point in the future; and the maintenance of the relationship between the parties, important especially where children are concerned. It is recognized that not all parties will be right for this process, but most will be good prospects for this less adversarial process.
Consider joining this paradigm shift in the legal process by taking the Collaborative Law training and joining the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council. Find out more information at www.massclc.org. If you are a divorce lawyer, your clients and their children will be glad you did and you will find a new, more rewarding way to practice law. This process has been so successful with divorce that it is now being used for other civil adversarial processes as well especially in Business, Labor and Probate Law. Reference: The Collaborative Way to Divorce, by Stuart G. Webb and Ronald D. Ousky.
A new Lawyers Best Friend – Pre drafted legal forms
October 31, 2006
A newly admitted lawyer to the Massachusetts Bar, has several options upon receiving his or her license to practice law. They can apply for an associate position with a big firm, and conduct research for the next five years; they can apply to work in a small firm and do all the work the senior lawyers do not want to deal with; they can hang their own shingle. This article will take the perspective of the later, i.e., a recent law school graduate with an entrepreneurial spirit, a little cash on hand, and a desire to start his or her own practice.
Forget about the fact that marketing and obtaining clients is going to be the most difficult aspect of the new venture. Forget that the new attorney must choose an area of practice, for even a general practitioner can’t work in every field of law. Once the client walks in the door and the attorney wants to accept the case, the flood-gates of paperwork will open.
The first document a new lawyer must draft is a fee agreement. There are several internet sites out there that have these types of legal contract, as well as other legal forms, but those legal documents are very general in nature and likely do not satisfy the Massachusetts General Laws. However, a quick look in any Lawyer’s weekly will show a host of legal software companies who have created word documents drafted specifically for Massachusetts, or what ever state your practice requires.
Next is the whole process of filing a complaint or answer if a law suit is involved, drafting HUD statements if real estate is the issue at hand and so forth. One new Massachusetts Probate Attorney, recently said, “I didn’t know where to start before I had the direction of my document generation software and my online research tools”. She went on to state that, “but for the form generating software, I would have had to consult for hours the Massachusetts Practice Series and other form books”.
Once a case has been filed, the real onslaught of paper work and forms hits the fan – DISCOVERY. There are interrogatories, request for production of documents, requests for medical records, requests for police reports, subpoenas’ for depositions, etc. There are motions for summery judgment, motions to compel, and so many more. A new lawyer who has never drafted these documents has virtually no where to turn, but to the form books for hours and hours of unbillable research time.
The biggest problem for new lawyers is they did not learn how to try cases in law school. Rather, they are more equipped to argue an appeal in front the The United States Supreme Court then they are to handle a simple will contest, or personal injury matter. The bottom line is, in order for a new attorney to be efficient, they can either purchase one of these up to date, form generating software packages, be lucky enough to have a mentor, or put their dreams and aspirations on hold for two or three years, while working for a small practice. In the case of the young probate attorney, she decided to purchase the software, and was lucky to have one of the premier real estate and probate attorneys in the state as a mentor. However, not all new lawyers are so lucky, and if you are going to spend 30 hours a week researching what forms are needed to follow procedure, you will be hard pressed to find time to actually represent your clients, let alone conduct legal work that can be justified as billable hours.
The gist of all of this is that it would be highly advisable to look into the technology that is available today if you are a new lawyer, and in fact, even if you are an experienced lawyer, this technology allows you to stay current with any changes in the law and procedure for state courts in your document library.
The following article was drafted by Michael Goldstein, Esq. who writes select articles about technology for TurboLaw, a Massachusetts legal form software application.
One Judge’s Opinions on Blogging
April 27, 2006
Ernie The Attorney writes that “[t]he fine blog 3L Epiphsny has an interesting Q&A with Judge Richard Kopf (a federal trial judge in Nebraska) about legal blogging and its place in the realm of scholarship.”
It is very interesting to see how legal blogs are being cited in case opinions. I expect to see more and more blogs being cited in this way, especially as more and more attorneys and legal scholars begin blogging.
Treating Machines like People
December 6, 2005
There is a very interesting discussion going on over at The Volokh Conspiracy regarding whether legal doctrines, when applied to machines or computers, should treat the machines/computers as people.
Daire and Smith are interesting cases, I think, because the outcome apparently hinges on how to apply legal doctrines designed for people in the case of automated machines. The question is, do you treat the machine as a stand-in for a person, or do you treat it as something else? On one hand, the instinct to anthropomorphize computers seems natural; computers are designed to perform tasks on their user’s behalf, and it’s easy to model them as mechanical servants. On the other hand, computers are just machines, and pretending that they are people seems inappropriate in a wide range of cases.
Definitely check it out, and especially the comments – it’s quite an interesting question!
Lawyers like to Blog
October 7, 2005
The New York Times has this article about how popular law blogs (sometimes called “blawgs”) are becomming with lawyers. From the article:
“It’s all words, that’s all the law is,” Scott Turow, a lawyer and the author of “Presumed Innocent” and other novels, said when asked to speculate on reasons for the proliferation of law-related blogs, sometimes called blawgs. When people think of law, he continued, “You think of jails and marshals and corporate executives. But the reality is, that’s what it is – it’s all words, and lawyers are verbal people, both in terms of the written stuff and the spoken stuff.”
Law School Rankings
August 1, 2005
The New York Times reports (free registration required) on a U.S. News & World Report regarding how law school rankings are computed.
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