The TBA has relaunched its Mentoring Program, a six-month experience designed to foster mutually beneficial relationships between attorneys — no matter age or years of practice — and connect members with resources to assist in the mentoring relationship. To participate, you must be a TBA member and be available to talk with your mentor/mentee two times per month via phone, email or text. Sign up here and check out the resources we have developed.

Are you considering moving to a new practice management system, time/billing/account system, voice over internet phone (VOIP) system, or document management system? New scorecards are designed for printing and distributing to firm members to evaluate vendors. Access hundreds of resources in TBA’s Practice Management Center, including a new checklist on best practices for training employees on new technologies.

A new whitepaper offering 10 tips for cleaning up your Outlook inbox — Outlook Top 10 Tips and Tricks — is now available in TBA’s Practice Management Center. This and many other best practices are located in the Managing a Firm section that looks at cybersecurity, document automation and management, money and practice management, and a large section on technology with recent updates to our whitepaper on getting the best deals on technology.

TBA’s Practice Management Center offers comparison charts on many legal tech tools. This month, updates have been made to PDF programs and web meeting services. A new comparison chart on Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 is also now available. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Google and Microsoft.

The TBA Practice Management Center offers an easy way for members to get their legal technology and law practice management questions answered at no cost by an expert at the Affinity Consulting Group. All experts are former practicing attorneys who have spent years working with law firms on best practices, technology, management and process. Email your questions to tbapmc@affinityconsulting.com.

Updates to several comparison charts in TBA’s Practice Management Center are now available for TBA members. See comparison charts for guidance on PDFs, document management and cloud-based practice management solutions. New whitepapers include insight to legal retention and recruitment and social media for legal professions. Get tech and practice management support by emailing tbapmc@affinityconsulting.com.

Among the many initiatives announced today by newly-installed TBA President Sherie Edwards is a new four-month program for entrepreneurial lawyers, solo practitioners or newly formed solo/small firms looking to strategically and sustainably scale and modernize their law practice. Focused on business education and development, the Scaling Small Law program will cover issues such as business planning, marketing, finance and budgeting, client service and experience, ethical considerations, and outsourcing and leveraging technology. The program, which offers 15 hours of dual CLE credit, will run from mid-August to mid-December. Applications are due by Aug. 2.

New updates to TBA’s Practice Management Center are now available. They include revisions to guidelines for email encryption and encryption options for online sync programs and portable media;  information on password managers, e-signatures, voice over internet phones and document automation; and new recommendations on headphones. Get TBA sponsored tech and practice management support by emailing tbapmc@affinityconsulting.com.

The digital you is the new YOU in 2021. Help clients and colleagues find you with an updated profile photo. After you update your photo, you can customize your contact information with TBA’s address preferences – members can choose different addresses for directory, mail, and billing. Watch this tutorial on how to update your information. Still need to renew for 2021-2022? Login and access renewal information through your MyTBA dashboard.

TBA’s Practice Management Center has resources for learning how to convert WordPerfect documents to Word. Follow the steps here and avoid the endless rabbit hole of minor repairs. And be sure to check out other whitepapers on document management and general technology support.