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The Puget Sound Chapter's Small Firm Section is geared toward members in firms with 20 or fewer attorneys and provides Chapter members with small firm management information at bimonthly brown bag lunch meetings. Typically, the section meetings alternate speaker presentations with round table discussions throughout the year. Past topics of discussion have included: budgeting, finance and management, medical plans, pension plans, employee retention, discipline and performance issues, voice and data options, records storage, relocation and lease issues, and computer networks. Meetings are held on the third Wednesday of every even month.
We also have an active Forum on this website (http://www.psala.org/forum) where you can pose questions to other Small Firm members on various topics. For more information, to get help accessing the Small Firm Forum or to suggest topics for upcoming meetings, please contact contact Section Co-Chairs, Patty LaFontaine at (206) 623-4990 or Leone Powers at (206) 386-7192.
If you are a member of PSALA, you can find the Disaster Plan developed by the Small Firm Section under Members Only in the Document Library.
Minutes from a typical meeting:
Small firm Section Meeting - April 20, 2009
Gil Price spoke to our group on the topic of "Marketing & Business Development 101". It was packed full of valuable content, most of which you can understand pretty clearly from his PowerPoint Presentation.
For those present, Richard Wood mentioned information on how to personalize your social media and recently wrote and article on his blog about this topic. "Make your Social Media personal!"
Small Firm Section Meeting – March 18, 2009
Small Firm Administrators gathered on March 18th at Young deNormandie P.C. for a lively roundtable discussion of hot topics for small law firms in the Puget Sound area. As tax season just ended, the topic of issuing 1099s created a lot of interest. Clarification was sought regarding the responsibility of issuing 1099s for settlement money received from insurance companies and the payment of these funds to clients. It was decided that this would be a great topic for a future meeting featuring a guest speaker. Keep your eyes out for that one!
Advice was also solicited by attendees in the areas of capitalizing v. expensing personal property purchases, the death of the book library, furniture refinishing, and the training of employees in CPR and on portable defibrillators.
Employee evaluations and review processes were also shared, with about half of the firms in attendance conducting reviews on the employees’ anniversary date and the rest of the firms conducting reviews at the end of the year. Most of the administrators agreed that doing reviews throughout the year made the process more manageable and less of a burden. Criteria for bonuses were also shared, with every firm using a different formula based on performance or longevity or both, with some as discretionary, while others are fixed.
Finally, there were some great suggestions bantered about regarding ways to combat shrinking small firm budgets during these tight economic times. Creative ways to keep serving lunch at staff meetings included potlucks, the administrator making simple dishes at home, and purchasing lunch items at Costco or other discount/bulk grocers that are fun for the staff to “make their own”.
As the meeting closed, April Campbell, co-chair, bowed out and welcomed Patty LaFontaine of LeGros Buchanan & Paul who will join Carol Hill of Lasher Holzapfel Sperry & Ebberson as the Small Firm Section Co-Chairs for 2009-2010. They both welcome any ideas or suggestions you have for upcoming meetings. The next meeting will be at Lasher on Wednesday, April 8th at noon.