ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Consult more than one AI app when dealing with important issues.

Monogamy is not a requirement—or even a good idea—when it comes to AI. Multiple AI perspectives help with high-stakes questions, unsettled law, or anything involving tax regulations (which remain confusing even to the IRS). When two models agree, you gain confidence. When they disagree, you gain a warning sign.

• Pro Tip: Prioritize the best AI apps. Leading AI expert Ethan Mollick (author of the best-selling book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI) regularly shares his assessments of AI app quality. As I write, the most recent version (late 2025) is An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now. I agree with him that Gemini 3.0 is currently the best available. The April 2025 edition of the Kennedy-Mighell Report doesn’t cover the most recent developments, including recent improvements to Gemini, but the general discussion of how lawyers should evaluate apps is excellent.

Explore NotebookLM – Especially the December 2025 Upgraded Version

Legal professionals who regularly handle large volumes of data can benefit from building their own databases from their own data. NotebookLM’s focus on source-grounded analysis delivers significant efficiency and organizational benefits. Its core value lies in managing and extracting insights from your proprietary and case-specific documents. For example, you could create a notebook with case law specific to your legal specialty or with voluminous depositions and other discovery materials.

• Pro Tip (Hot Off the Presses): Google released major upgrades to NotebookLM in December 2025. It integrates Gemini 3 into NotebookLM, with remarkable results. We will report more about this game changer in future articles.

Heed Lawson’s Law™

Always remember:

1. Never rely on anything AI tells you about crucial issues.
2. Always ask AI for advice on crucial issues.

This advice may look familiar because it was also on our 2025 tips list. It’s repeated here for a reason: it was the most important tip for 2025. It’s still the best advice we know for lawyers using AI.

• Pro Tip: Explore specialized AI-powered legal research tools like Lexis+ AI or Westlaw Edge. These tools can help you find what you need faster and more securely.

MARKETING

Persuade authoritative websites to link to yours—especially those from sources in your geographic area.

The single most important thing you can do to improve your law firm website’s marketing value is to persuade other websites Google considers “authoritative” to link to yours, i.e., build “backlinks.” The more high-quality incoming links, the better, but for most lawyers, geography matters. If a potential client searches for an “estate planning lawyer near me,” Google’s algorithm will consider physical location in its response.

Links from high-domain-authority national publications (including, but not limited to, LLRX.com) are helpful, but links from local sources—such as a city bar association, a local chamber of commerce, a regional news outlet, or a nonprofit organization—can provide a boost that may be even better.

If the link is from the .gov or .edu domains, it’s even more valuable. Google’s algorithm considers them the gold standard, not easily manipulated by SEO gimmicks. A link from one of them provides a significant boost.

Search Engine Journal has some good tips on developing backlinks. Legal marketing guru Conrad Saam’s book Own the Map: Marketing Your Law Firm’s Address Online is five years old, but it remains a great resource for helping understand SEO for law firms.

• Pro Tip: Lawyers must take the lead in persuading local organizations to build inbound links. No contractor is familiar with your network of contacts or knows how to approach them about this as well as you can. For example, if you write an article for any local publication that appears online, ask the publisher to include a backlink to your site. If dealing with a reporter (especially one from a local publication), ask them to include a backlink. If your law firm helps a local charity, ask them to include a backlink to you in anything they publish online. You can’t outsource any of these things.

Consider hiring an SEO expert to help you find a good SEO company.

When I needed advice on whether an oak tree in my backyard was large enough to be a safety hazard, I didn’t contact a tree service. I found an independent tree expert through Checkbook Magazine. I paid him about $100. It was worth it. His advice and assessment of various vendors saved me over a thousand dollars and alerted me to safety and financial issues I never would have considered. I’m a lawyer, not an arborist, right?

Hiring an independent expert to help you find the right SEO/website developer may give you a comparable ROI. A distressingly high number of SEO firms overpromise and underdeliver. Some of them can actually harm your marketing by engaging in practices that violate Google’s rules. Few lawyers know enough about SEO to distinguish a good firm from a terrible one.

Good starting points for finding an objective expert include state bar law-practice management advisors or the ABA Law Practice Division. Another option is an independent legal-marketing consultant or a “fractional CMO” (Chief Marketing Officer) who advises on vendor selection but does not run SEO campaigns. Referrals from data-driven lawyers—those who actively track intake results—are more reliable than casual recommendations.

• Pro Tip: An SEO firm with experience in the legal sector can help prevent violations of lawyer ethics rules.

IT SECURITY

Watch Out for Whaling.

Phishing, the fraudulent practice of sending emails or other messages that appear to come from reputable companies to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, has been around for decades. By now, most people have learned to be wary of wealthy but currently cash-poor Spanish princes.

Spear phishing is more dangerous. It tailors the pitch to specific targets and situations. Whaling is similar but prioritizes C-level targets. Don’t underestimate how far attackers will go to achieve this. Chinese hackers have been known to spend a year breaching the networks of major U.S. defense contractors.

Lawyers are attractive targets. The new-business or confidential-file-share scam is a classic. The scammer pretends to be a prospective high-value client or known opposing counsel, referencing a real-world legal topic the lawyer specializes in (e.g., a specific M&A deal or patent filing). The email or text is brief and asks the lawyer to review a document (a supposed NDA, RFP, or case brief) shared via a link to a fake, look-alike SharePoint, OneDrive, or DocuSign portal. The user is prompted to log in with their firm credentials to view the document. Malware in the document can take over your computer, leading to ransom demands or worse.

Bogus court or regulatory notices are another example. The email appears to be a subpoena, court order, or disciplinary notice from the state bar association, a specific court clerk’s office, or the IRS. It claims the lawyer must immediately click a link to view a confidential document or motion, or submit an overdue form, to avoid a penalty. The link leads to a fake login page (e.g., for Microsoft 365, Westlaw, or a court portal) that steals credentials. Alternatively, the email may include a malicious attachment named something like Motion_for_Default_Judgment_CaseXYZ.zip. When opened, it installs ransomware or other malware that compromises the entire firm’s network.

• Pro Tip: Beware what you share. Attackers may use publicly available information from a lawyer’s social media or LinkedIn to name-drop a specific partner or case area.

Understand the new risks posed by stolen smartphones—and how to protect yourself.

A stolen smartphone is no longer a mere nuisance that requires a trip to the carrier store. It increasingly is a portable identity theft kit.

Biometric authentication—fingerprints and facial recognition—offers strong protection against some risks. Biometric defenses don’t help if a thief also acquires the device’s passcode, whether by coercion, simple bad luck, installation of a surveillance camera in the right location, or even shoulder surfing. The most sophisticated thieves work in teams. Evidence indicates that some thieves like to operate in crowded bars, but any public place can be risky.

Once the thieves have the passcode, the phone stops behaving like a locked vault and starts behaving like a master key. Email, password managers, cloud accounts, and digital wallets may all become accessible within minutes.

Banks use one‑time passcodes via SMS or authenticator apps, so access to your phone can let thieves break into other accounts even if they don’t know your passwords. Selling your phone is a relatively small part of their profit stream. They’d rather loot your bank account or crypto wallet.

With the passcode, thieves can configure your mobile phone in literally minutes so that it recognizes them, not you, as the owner. Even with help from a sympathetic cell phone vendor, it can be difficult or impossible to regain control of your data.

Even worse: Despite federal legal protections, some financial institutions treat transactions authorized by a valid passcode as presumptuously legitimate. Victims have reported difficulty recovering funds when banks deem the activity “authorized,” even when the phone was stolen.

The most important immediate step after a loss is to activate lost mode through Apple’s Find My app or Android’s Find Hub app. These tools can lock the phone and disable payments, buying valuable time.

• Pro Tip: Minutes matter. Skilled thieves move quickly. A prompt, methodical response—locking accounts, contacting carriers, and changing critical passwords—often determines whether the damage is contained or compounded.
• Bonus Pro Tip: A strong password manager like 1Password can give some backup protection. Even with the passcode, thieves can’t easily break into them.

Make sure you don’t lose potential clients due to poor phone coverage or poor receptionist performance.

Most lawyers spend significant time and money generating leads. Too many waste their investment due to poor phone coverage or an unprofessional, ineffective front desk. As lawyer marketing guru Conrad Saam observes, “Too many successful marketing campaigns funnel promising prospects to unanswered phones or to rude, overworked, unavailable, or uncaring front desk staff. … Fixing a poor front desk experience can be the most cost-effective marketing investment a firm can make.”

• Pro Tip: Periodically conduct mystery calls or physical visits to the firm. Lawyers (or someone your staff won’t recognize) can contact your firm, purporting to want to hire a lawyer to handle some problem.

PRODUCTIVITY

Select the largest computer monitor display that fits your budget and workspace.

Despite its convenience, the laptop remains a productivity bottleneck. Whether you use a laptop or a desktop, you may find that adding more screen space significantly boosts productivity.

Adding monitors is straightforward on modern operating systems. The most effective configuration depends on the task and the available desk layout. Many prefer a central 27-inch display flanked by smaller screens for ancillary documents or communication streams.

Some prefer a single, expansive ultrawide monitor (34 inches or larger). This single expanse eliminates the divisive bezel, a feature preferred by those whose workflows require a seamless, panoramic view of complex data—such as large financial models or legal text comparisons. The choice between a multi-panel array and a single, formidable display is less a financial matter than a meditation on one’s preferred working geometry.

Legal tech power user Dennis Kennedy loves his 39-inch monitor—and I would buy one in a minute if I could afford it.

• Pro Tip: Get expert advice on finding high-quality monitors (and anything else you might want to buy) from trusted sources, including The New York Times Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, or PC Magazine.

Focus your learning where it will help you the most.

We’ll close with one of the biggest potential productivity boosters: Become an expert in the tools you use most.

Many professionals operate their core software—be it a word processor, spreadsheet, or project management platform—at only a fraction of its capacity, leaving a vast reservoir of time-saving features untapped. Becoming an expert in your most important tools is a major productivity multiplier.

Consider your primary writing tool, such as Microsoft Word. Going beyond basic text entry by mastering built-in features like Styles and Macros is transformative. Styles ensure consistent formatting, enable instant, document-wide changes, and automatically generate a professional table of contents or table of authorities, saving hours of manual adjustments and eliminating formatting headaches. Macros automate recurring tasks.

Pro Tip: Google Docs is a worthy competitor to MS Word—unless your organization has been assimilated by the Borg.

Bonus Pro Tip: Are macros too much for you? Learn just enough about them to identify where they would help you most, then ask your IT staff to develop one or more.

Thanks to Ahsan Nasar for his help with this article.