The Florida Bar Practice Resource Institute Enjoys One of the Most Successful Launches of Any Bar Program
John F. Harkness Jr.
The Practice Resource Institute (PRI) was launched in January 2015, taking the place of the Law Office Management Assistance Service (LOMAS) as the Bar’s service to help our members with all of their practice management needs by offering advice and assistance. With the launch PRI brought a new website and a team of practice management advisors who stand by to assist via telephone, email, and live chat. PRI also brought a new focus on delivering timely and relevant news, tools, education, and other resources to Bar members.
The PRI website has the goal of making it quicker and easier for Bar members to find information and resources. The website breaks practice management topics into five main focus areas: office technology, finance and accounting, marketing, general practice management, and starting a new practice. Each focus area houses the latest news, tools, CLEs, and other educational resources relevant to that category. Since its beginning, the PRI website has been visited over 238,000 times.
The PRI website keeps an extensive knowledge base of practice management information with more content added every day. In addition to the knowledge base, the PRI website allows you to interact with a practice management advisor in real time via live chat. This feature can be accessed from your desktop computer, laptop, or mobile device, providing an opportunity to engage a practice management advisor from wherever you may be. Since July 2015, PRI’s practice management advisors have assisted more than 100 Bar members using this new, exciting tool.
In January 2015, PRI partnered with Legal Talk Network to launch The Florida Bar Podcast, which features subject-matter experts in the areas of law office and law practice management and technology. The podcasts are presented in an easy-to-listen-to format that can be played via the PRI website, Legal Talk Network mobile app, or any podcast player on a mobile device. This format allows attorneys to listen at their convenience. Since its start, there have been 25 episodes of The Florida Bar Podcast with over 22,000 downloads.
One of the main focuses of PRI is to develop and deliver new educational offerings to update our members on the latest trends in practice management, and PRI has delivered more than a dozen new CLEs for our members, representing over 10 hours of free CLE credits. As a whole, PRI has delivered more than 144,000 complimentary education programs, representing over 334,000 hours of free CLE credits to our members since the complimentary education programs began in September 2010. PRI will continue to develop programs to deliver cutting-edge practice management education to our members at no cost.
Another goal of PRI is to assist the Bar’s Member Benefits Committee in identifying new member benefits providers, especially in the area of technology. During the year, The Florida Bar has added more than a dozen new member benefits providers to assist our members with their practice management needs. These providers range from practice management software to e-discovery and litigation support to document assembly. PRI is constantly working to identify areas of need and bring in new providers.
PRI’s practice management advisors are available to put their collective experiences and expertise as office managers, legal administrators, and information technology to work to assist you. Should you find yourself unsure about a situation or need advice on a new technology or process, PRI will help.
