There’s still time to register for the 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting to be held on Wednesday and Thursday, June 23rd and 24th. Our incredible program will be presented on the engaging and interactive Eventmobi platform and will feature 17 workshops that will cover a variety of pertinent legal topics.

To access the detailed 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting brochure please click here. This year we are offering the option to easily register for the program on our website! Click the following links to register:

The CLE Committee of the Rhode Island Bar Association in collaboration with the CLE Office is committed to presenting a curriculum that will integrate substantive areas of law with practical training and skills to the members of the Bar. The CLE Committee encourages any member of the Bar to submit ideas and programs for presentation. When planning your topic, keep in mind the audience wants practical information that can be used in their everyday practice. 

 

If you would like to submit an idea for an upcoming seminar or you would like to participate as an instructor for a future CLE program, please click here to fill out and submit a proposal form. The CLE office welcomes and encourages presenters of diverse backgrounds in regard to race, color, religion, country of ancestral origin, handicap, age, sex, or sexual orientation. Please contact CLE Director Tanya Nieves at tnieves@ribar.com or by phone at 401-421-5740 with any questions. 

With that in mind the Bar’s Legal Information & Referral Service for the Elderly, a component program of the Lawyer Referral Service, will once again be offering our senior citizens the opportunity to receive legal assistance through Ask A Lawyer and legal clinic forums at senior centers throughout the state. We are seeking attorneys to volunteer to provide legal information that empowers older members of the public to better understand their legal rights to help them better determine their future. Please contact Elisa King by email at eking@ribar.com or phone at 401-521-5040 for available locations and further details.  

If you are a member of the Lawyer Referral Service or Volunteer Lawyer Program and speak another language or have staff who do, please let us know today. Adding this information to your profile will help strengthen the referral process for those with language requests. Spanish speakers are desperately needed. Please contact Elisa King by email at eking@ribar.com or phone at 401-421-7799.

 

If you missed last month’s FREE live seminar, An Overview of Tenant Protections & Strategies for Successful Results you can now view it on-demand. The program provides an excellent current overview of tenant protections. The speakers also cover protections due to COVID-19 to better represent clients and successful negotiating strategies for advocates for BOTH tenants and landlords.

Please note, You must agree to accept a pro bono landlord/tenant or eviction case to complete the registration process. The staff will provide further details on how to join the Volunteer Lawyer Program, Elderly Pro Bono Program, or US Armed Forces Legal Services Project if you are not already a member of one or more of these pro bono programs. Please contact Susan Fontaine by email at sfontaine@ribar.com or by phone at 401-421-7758 for further details.

Lawyers ignore red flags – at least when they relate to client engagement.

Attorneys tend to avoid the intake process. And, a byproduct of that is that law firms often engage with clients they shouldn’t – largely because they haven’t done enough due diligence in the lead phase. Attorneys tend to ignore their gut feelings about the potential for longstanding pain on a specific engagement when there’s a check (virtual or otherwise) on the table.

But, books like the ‘Checklist Manifesto’ have shown that simple lists can be really effective in helping professionals to make big decisions.

So, if you don’t have a list of red flags for potential clients, you may end up stepping in it, down the road. Maybe you think those red flags are so obvious, they’re not even worth writing down. But, they are – if for no other reason than that they speak to your client vetting process, and will keep you in line on close cases. Plus, the act of establishing some red flags will likely generate some more, beyond the basics – essentially guaranteeing that you will have a more comprehensive vetting process than you do now.

List-making is a harbinger for efficiency; and, it keeps a lot of business professionals out of trouble.

So, if you find that you keep regretting adding the clients you take on, maybe it’s time to become more circumspect about whom you engage.

This tech tip is brought to you by the Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Consultant, Jared Correia, of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting. If you need help with billing, client relations, data management, financial management, marketing, office technology, time management, disaster prevention & recovery, or any other area related to managing your practice, Red Cave Law Firm Consulting will provide Rhode Island Bar Association members with unlimited virtual consulting services (email, telephone, chat, video) FREE OF CHARGE. To get started, visit the Bar’s LPM page here, or just email Jared directly at jared@redcavelegal.com.