Practice Blawg » Gregory Luce

I’m Leaving, But Not Going Far

Gregory Luce — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:03:30 +0000

I started the Practice Blawg in September 2008 with a short post about producing a “comprehensive” family law judgment and decree. Exactly 105 posts later, this is likely my last. After four years at the Minnesota State Bar Association, I’m leaving at the end of May to pursue other opportunities.

It’s been a great four years, and I hope that the work that the MSBA staff and I completed during that time shows. It includes developing and launching a robust document automation system; a top-to-bottom overhaul of practicelaw; the addition of hundreds of new forms and resources; and the experimentation with other online offerings, such as mypractice or the (still in beta) MSBA CourtOps Online. My favorite project was Off the Clock, which allowed me to get out and meet with solo and small firm lawyers and talk about tech issues, usually over a beer or coffee. I will miss all of these things. I will also miss the talented staff with whom I worked and who have been integral to our success.

It’s been great blogging with Andrea and Nancy, particularly because when we met each Tuesday morning, we managed to spend most of that time talking about the law and the profession, only at the end coming up with what we planned to write in the next week or so.

For those wondering where I’m going, I won’t be going far. I’ll be sticking around the Twin Cities and you’ll probably see me pop up in another venture over the summer. And, as I posted about a bit ago, I’m on my way back to Italy in January 2012, one of the perks of being married to an academic.

My best wishes to those who read my posts, and special thanks to Nancy Hupp and Andrea Hable, who collaborated with me on the Practice Blawg and plan to carry it into the future. It’s in great hands.

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MSBA’s Trust Accounting Guides Released Publicly

Gregory Luce — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:20:36 +0000

For more than ten years, the Minnesota State Bar Association has provided guides to help its members set up lawyer’s trust accounts with commercially available software programs. Mike Trittipo, the MSBA’s director of technology, has been drafting and editing the guides since 1998, when he started with Using QuickBooks 6.0 for Lawyers’ Trust Accounting. In the last two years, we’ve added guides for GnuCash and updated prior versions of the QuickBooks guides. We now have Keeping Clients’ Trust Accounts with QuickBooks 2010 Professional and there’s talk now about completing one for a cloud-based accounting program.

Until today, however, the guides have always been a member-only benefit, locked behind our membership wall. Today, we are pleased to release all of our trust accounting guides publicly.

Why? A couple of reasons. One, we typically provide the trust accounting guides upon request to any attorneys who request one, whether a member, non-member, or even if the attorney practiced in Missouri and had no connection to Minnesota. It seemed reasonable to help attorneys who wanted to set up their IOLTAs correctly. It makes sense now to open it up not only to those who ask, but any attorneys who simply seek it out. Why not benefit the profession as a whole, arguably at the expense of diminishing the value of being an MSBA member?We’ve decided to go with the benefit to the profession.

Part of the decision comes shortly after a rave review we received for Minnesota Legal Ethics, an eBook we helped produce with legal ethics expert Bill Wernz. We’re giving that away too, a fact not lost on a recent reviewer, who said:

Due to the Minnesota State Bar’s commendably public-spirited financial and editorial assistance, the treatise is absolutely free to anyone and everyone seeking a copy. If only the American Bar Association and some other state and local bars around the country took a similarly public-spirited approach. I appreciate that bars make money selling books, ethics opinions, and the like. But a price tag inevitably curtails circulation and severely limits the bars’ public outreach and the usefulness of these publications to the bar and the public. Hats off to the MSBA!

The last straw came last week when I was attending an ABA Tech Show session. Rodney Dowell was speaking about open-source software and, when trust accounting software came up, he naturally brought up the open-source program GnuCash. He then noted that the only available GnuCash guide was under the MSBA’s membership lock and key.

It didn’t have to be that way. And that’s what nice about today’s release. We hope it benefits you, but we also hope it benefits the legal profession as a whole. Let us know.

Five trust accounting guides are available, each as a PDF document:

Keeping Client Trust Accounts with GnuCash 2.2.4;
Keeping Records for Client Trust Accounts Using Microsoft Office Accounting 2006 or 2007;
Using QuickBooks 6.0 for Lawyers’ Trust Accounting;
Trust Accounting with QuickBooks 2005 Professional;
Keeping Clients’ Trust Accounts with QuickBooks 2010 Professional

Want one? Click on a link below and complete a form, which requires an email and your name. Why a form? We continue to update the guides and giving us an email lets us send out updates when they are available. It also lets us know where in the world we end up sending our guides.

Request a Copy

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© Gregory Luce for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IOLTA, MSBA, Trust Accounting

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Premium WordPress Themes for Law Firms

Gregory Luce — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:40:37 +0000

This started out within the comment thread of my last post about WordPress and it reminded me again that I need to update a much older post about what premium WordPress themes I like for professional-looking web sites.

As I’ve said before, I’m loyal to about three theme developers. But I’m now looking at two other developers and their themes, particularly a few specific themes that appear to be tailored to law firms and other professionals.(...)
Read the rest of Premium WordPress Themes for Law Firms (816 words)

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Ten Things I Do After Installing WordPress

Gregory Luce — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:30:45 +0000

Most people know that I’m a big fan of WordPress. We use it for the Practice Blawg and we are increasingly using it for many of the MSBA websites and online projects. I’ve also taught a number of attorneys how to install WordPress and to use it for their law firm websites. Hosting and installing WordPress is pretty easy (Lawyerist just had a post about hosting your site here) and we have some short videos that walk you through the hosting and installation process here.

But what happens after installation? Basically, I run through a list of ten essential things to do after every WordPress installation. Here they are (click on an item to expand it out).

1. Change the Permalinks

2. Neutralize Mr. Admin

3. Nix the Default Category

4. Install Plug-Ins

5. Consider an Under Construction Page

6. Burn It in Feedburner

7. Install Google Analytics

8. Install a Theme

9. Add Lorem Ipsum Gibberish

10. Mess Around

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Adjustments Made to Monster Judgment and Decree

Gregory Luce — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:17:40 +0000

We periodically review the “Monster” Stipulated Judgment and Decree on practicelaw. And while we initially set out to review it quarterly, that is now turning into periodic reviews that roughly approximate three times each year. We just completed our last review and made only minor changes, mostly related to updating statutory citations throughout the document. The most recent version is now available on practicelaw here (it’s form number FAM-680).(...)
Read the rest of Adjustments Made to Monster Judgment and Decree (165 words)

© Gregory Luce for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Forms, Judgment and Decree

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