As a lawyer, what would you do if a prospective client contacted you by email and asked for your help collecting a large debt? What if you were sent a retainer check from a new client who contacted you through email? Would the answer be different if the client were a well-known foreign corporation? Lawyers around the country and around the world have been falling victim to well-executed fraudulent schemes involving phony checks (or cheques). Though the scam varies, there’s always a phony check and a request for some of the funds to be wired by the attorney.

Jim Calloway recently blogged about scams against lawyers and linked to an article I recommend: Check Scams That Target Lawyers. Another article I recommend is How Not to Get Stung by Promises of Easy Offshore Work by my colleagues Laura Calloway and David Bilinsky. You might think it couldn’t happen to you, but the perpetrators are very sophisticated. A Houston attorney recently shared his story of being taken for $182,500.

Did Santa Claus bring you a new electronic item? Or did you purchase new hardware as a year-end capital expense? Whatever the reason, if you find yourself with old computers or electronics that are too old to benefit anyone (even the National Cristina Foundation won’t take Pentium II computers anymore), you need to responsibly dispose of the old clunker.

Being responsible means taking or shipping it to a government or private recycling center. It means doing a little research on the Internet to find out where to go and which location accepts what.  It means sanitizing hard drives and other storage media so that you don’t breach your ethical and legal duties to safeguard your client’s property (not to mention your own personal data). This can be done using software like Darik’s Boot And Nuke, Disk Wipe or Eraser .

You can also use a physical device to erase, like Drive eRazer, which works well if you have miscellaneous hard drives without the computer case. CD’s, DVD’s, floppies and tapes are the Tribbles of the law office – they have a way of self-proliferating. Most new paper shredders can shred CD’s and old floppies.

Once your computer is sanitized and free of data, you need to find someone who will accept it for proper disposal. It is not proper to put a computer in a landfill!  For a list of e-cycling websites, go to the PMAP pages of SC Bar.org and find “old computers.”  Be sure to read the article there on disposing of computers responsibly –  by yours truly and Ross Kodner: “Dumpster Disasters.”  Good luck and happy e-cycling!

One of my favorite funny movie lines of all time comes from 1956′s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers“. Our hero is running for his life. His voice-over narration is (deadpan): “I had known fear before, but never fear like that.” The understatement cracks me up every time.

I was somehow reminded of this line when reading the introduction of a new book dealing with bad times in law practices.  Lawyers have seen tough times before, but never quite this tough.  How Good Lawyers Survive Bad Times by Sharon Nelson, Jim Calloway and Ross Kodner has just been released by ABA books. Need a pep talk with a heaping helping of practical advice? This book is a 212-page cookbook for making lemonade out of lemons, figuratively speaking. As anyone who has seen these well-known authors and speakers would expect, the advice is delivered with compassion, common sense and a dose of humor. Most of the advice is geared to those in small firms, those recently laid off, and those struggling to find jobs. There are tips on getting clients to pay, finding a new job on the Internet, alternative billing , and resume writing. The last section of the book is devoted solely to using technology to practice better, cheaper and faster than before.  For lawyers experiencing the worst of what the economy has dealt, this book is a lifeline. Purchase your own copy, or check it out from the Bar lending library.

“How long do I have to keep my old, closed client files?” Believe it or not, that is the number one question we get asked in the Practice Management Assistance Program (PMAP). Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask it. Our Risk Management Counsel, Jill Rothstein, hears it just as often.

So, what’s the answer? We wish we knew for sure. The SC Rules of Professional Conduct are clear that lawyers must safeguard their clients’ property, but for how long isn’t clear. Appellate Court Rule 417 ‘Financial Recordkeeping‘ cites six years after termination of representation for financial records. It is probably this rule that leads lawyers to extrapolate that six years is a good rule of thumb to follow for keeping old files. But I often hear of firms who keep them longer. The record for longest amount of time is held by a small firm lawyer who inherited the practice from his father, who bought it from another lawyer. They had about 95 years’ worth of files.

moldy files

The Bar Ethics Advisory Committee has done its utmost to assist lawyers by issuing an FAQ (frequently asked question) on the matter. FAQ #1 can be found online. Be sure to read it before forming your own office policy.

How can you prevent law office theft, fraud and embezzlement? One way is to be aware of the potential problem areas so that you can be alert and vigilant. Blogger Laura Calloway, the practice management advisor of the Alabama State Bar, has collected an excellent list of procedures you can put in place to prevent problems in your office. Example: Always reconcile bank statements within two days of their arrival in the office. To see the whole list, go to the September 16 post on The Last Word.