I'll be catching a flight out to the West Coast tomorrow, headed for the Blogher conference where I'll be on one of the panels. This is all very new for someone like me who attends conferences predominated by lawyers. At Blogher, while I'll be in the gender majority, seems that I may be in the professional minority (i.e., few lawyers!) - which is fine by me.
Thanks so much to Ernie the Attorney for this link to a commencement speech by Steve Jobs. In his speech, Jobs describes a rocky path to different types of success, beginnings and endings and new opportunities. It's worthwhile reading for us solos who many times, find ourselves dead-ended or uninspired in our practice and need to pick ourselves up and recreate. It's nice to know that we're in good company.
Ann Israel, a biglaw recruitment attorney who writes a column for New York Lawyer typically responds to questions about how to make partner or what's the best law school to choose. It's rare that she gets a question like this one from an attorney wondering whether he should go solo after his first year out of school. Ms. Israel is biased against solo practice, so predictably, she advised against the move - but I was surprised to find that I don't disagree with all of her advice.
Continue Reading...Add Florida to the list of jurisdictions with free legal research services, as reported in this article. Florida is using Fast Case for its service which provides access to US Supreme Court Cases, Florida Supreme Court cases and Florida statutes and regulations. I've always thought that free legal research is one of the most valuable tools that the bar can provide to improve the quality of legal service. Isn't it time that all bars made some online legal research available for for free?
I'm not sure what to make of the story described in this article, Law Firm Sues Couple Over Past Legal Fees (7/23/05). Seems that a couple spent three years fighting to keep a large subdivision from being built near their home, racking up $92,000 in legal fees in the process (in addition to which, they are $370,000 in debt). Apparently, they won their battle and received $16,000 in court costs, but not the $225,000 they requested in legal fees (the article's not clear on the difference between the amount of fees requested and amount that the couple seeks to recover). In any event, now the firm that represented the couple is trying to recover roughly $12,000 in unpaid fees, in monthly installments of $500, which they claim they can't pay.
Continue Reading...Via Legal Underground, I learned about this neat ABA sponsored experiment whereby marketer Larry Bodine helped solo Andrew Ewalt set up this weblog and will be monitoring his business growth throughout the year. I'm predicting that Ewalt's blog will improve his search engine rankings, may get him some interviews or speaking engagements but as with most blogs, isn't going to contribute directly to an influx of new clients (meaning people who see the blog and call to retain him). I'll be happy, though, if I'm wrong about that.
Well after all of the controversy, looks like the Massachusetts legislature will raise rates for court appointed attorneys as reported here in State House OK's Raises for Lawyers for the Poor, David Abel (July 22, 2005). According to the article, lawmakers will increase court appointed rates to $100 an hour from $61.50 for homicide cases; to $60 per hour from $46.50 for nonhomicide Superior Court cases, including sexually dangerous persons cases; and to $50 per hour from $37.50 for district court cases and children in need of services cases, as well as children and family law cases, sex offender registry, and mental health cases. However, the plan also caps the number of hours that each attorney can bill, to 1400 annually. Thus, the maximum that attorneys can earn from court appointed work annually would range from $70,000 (handling lower end cases) to $84,500 (at the upper end).
Continue Reading...Donna Thompson-Schneider is a solo criminal defense attorney who hasn't visited her incarcerated clients. Lest you think that this is another story about an irresponsible attorney giving her clients ground for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, read on. The reason that Donna hasn't visited her clients is because the prison has a practice of requiring women visitors to remove their bras to clear the metal detectors (apparently, not just underwires but even hooks will set them off). Except...that many other law enforcement personnel, including district attorneys and employees of the public defenders' office can bypass security entirely. Moreover, as Donna discusses here, she was willing to accede to a security wand or even a pat down, but prison personnel rejected both options. After trying for amicable resolution, Donna decided to send this letter to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Continue Reading...From this Press Release, I learned about a new book, Urban Lawyers, by John Heinz and University of Chicago Professor Edward Laumann, that examines Chicago's legal profession using data gathered as part of an American Bar Foundation study conducted in 1994/95. That's too bad, because while the book sounds intriguiging and confirms much of what I've observed about the legal profession here in D.C., it's also on the verge of being outdated because of the way that blogs are changing the practice of law.
Continue Reading...Hello, readers! I'd like to put together a Top Ten List for my sidebar of reasons that lawyers should consider hanging out a shingle. GAL posted something similar here, a list of the benefits of being an independent practitioner. For me, the reasons for going solo include autonomy, flexibility to achieve balance with family, an opportunity to learn about different fields of law and the ever present possibility that you'll stumble across the case that might catapult you from obscurity into the limelight.
But that's just me. I'd like to gather ideas from readers as well. You can send your contributions to me at elefant@myshingle.com or post them as comments below. Submissions can be anonymous, but I'd be interested in learning whether you're a solo (and if so, for how long), large firm or government attorney, academic, student or not an attorney at all.
Within the past few months, I read an article, I believe at law.com by a large firm associate, complaining about how much she disliked when other people she encountered shared their negative experiences with other attorneys. (as I recall, in this case, the hotel bellhop had cornered her). The associate wrote that she didn't quite understand the complaints and about feeling as if the complainers were trying to extract an apology from her. The entire article had a very "I'm not my brother's keeper" tone to it and as a result, I didn't bother to save it or post it at the time.
Continue Reading...Ernie the Attorney reports that the Louisiana Bar is offering Fastcase, a legal research service, free to its members. Louisiana thus joins the twenty other bar associations that offer Casemaker, another free research service. What I noticed about Fastcase is that it includes access to district court decisions dating back to the 1950's. This impressed me because district court cases are hard to locate online and thus, for fee services can usually charge a premium when they include them in their data bases.
Ironically, at the same time of Ernie's post, I also noticed that Lexisone is celebrating its fifth anniversary - though there's no mention that the primary reason for Lexisone's birth was that Lexis finally realized that the Internet might enable competitors to provide the same type of legal research service available for free. Now, it looks like Lexisone might be right after all.
Tony DiRomualdo has this interesting article, Why Corporate Culture Counts, at the Wisconsin Technology Network. (7/7/05) that discusses the relationship between corporate culture and values. He identifies examples of companies like Southwest, where positive corporate culture boosts employee morale, giving the company a leg up on competition. But on the other side of the scale, he uses the large law firm as an example of a corporate culture which lacks the ability to tolerate accomodation of family life.
Continue Reading...In the past, we've posted some articles on unbundling of legal services because it offers revenue possibilities to solo and small firm lawyers whose clients may not have the resources to fully fund legal services. Here's another article on unbundling, Law Firms Find Revenues in Unbundling, National Law Journal, July 6, 2005, that reports on the current status of unbundling in various states:
In the past six years, nine states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Wyoming -- have adopted unbundling rules.
Continue Reading...New Hampshire and Utah are in the process of changing their rules. Iowa, Illinois and Ohio are not far behind, while Connecticut is in an earlier exploratory phase, the results of which are unpredictable.
Not all networking needs to be as formal and nervewracking as a singles party. Sometimes, you get to know colleagues in a more relaxed environment through activities like a bar softball softball league, as described in this article, League Creates Connections On and Off the Field, Baltimore Business Journal (7/3/05). The article describes how one solo found an office through participating in the league, while other lawyers have located court reporters or even settled cases on the field. So if your bar doesn't have a league, maybe it's time it did.
We've more news to report about former biglaw attorneys who, like the biglaw attorneys here and here, have put out their shingles. What's unique about all of these new law firms is that they focus on practice areas like securities law, business transactions and communications which have traditionally been within the domain of large firm practitioners. As an energy regulatory attorney who's also been competing with large firms for years, I gladly welcome the company.
Continue Reading...Unfortunately, sometimes even solo and small firm lawyers harbor stereotypes about a home office set-up. But if anyone can put those stereotypes to rest, it would be my fellow blogger and solo, Grant Griffiths, who's just launched this new web log, Home Office Lawyer. These days, home office is more synonymous with high-tech than homely, as evidenced by Grant's focus on paperless systems and the links to other lawyer home office weblogs which look as professional as any high rent, downtown firm. So if think that working from home will hold you back, visit Grant's site. You just might reconsider.
Fellow solo and small firm lawyers: another litigation financing company wants to sell you a service, claiming that it's just what you need. According to this recent press release, LegalFish Bridges the Funding Gap for Plaintiffs and Attorneys in Litigation.:
The purpose of the [Life Funding] program will provide access to non-recourse loans that can help plaintiffs in litigation meet ongoing expenses as they await their trial date, and allow their attorney time to work toward a larger settlement. The term "non-recourse" means that if a plaintiff loses his/her case, they there is no obligation to repay the advance[....]
Continue Reading..."After working with many attorneys, it became apparent that small-to-midsized firms and solo practitioners often required additional funding to finance their litigation expenses on select cases. Our goal is to provide lawyers an advantage over traditional lending sources with a risk-free service." added Shah. (emphasis added)
While many continue to gripe about the second class status of women at biglaw, other women lawyers have taken a different path entirely, not just starting their own practices but finding spare time to start several businesses in one case and embark on a masters running career in another. This article, Lawyers Have A Bent for Business, Paul Levy, Star Tribune (7/4/05) reports on Judith Samson and Jennifer Speas, Minneapolis criminal lawyers in private practice who've started a variety of businesses on the side, while Born to Run, Asbury Park Press, 7/3/05 describes small firm family law attorney Linda Piff who's headed headed to the World Masters Athletics Championships as a sprinter. Seems that this kind of big determination fits better in small practice rather than big.
Sandra Day O'Connor leaves two legacies as she departs the United State Supreme Court. the legacy that will garner the most attention in today's weblogs and tomorrow's history books, of course, is that of her quarter of a century as the nation's first female Supreme Court justice. But Sandra Day O'Connor leaves another equally important and even more inspiring legacy that will likely be overlooked. That is O'Connor's legacy as an attorney who according to today's conventional wisdom, made all the wrong career moves and yet amazingly, wound up at the top of her field.
Continue Reading...I've always laughed at those lawyerswho draft these types of overblown disclaimers, primarily because lawyers should know better. For that reason, you'll find no disclaimers at MyShingle because they don't do any good. You can say that you're not creating an attorney-client relationship ten different ways, but the bottom line is that if it looks like an attorney-client relationship and smells like one, chances are the courts will deem it one.
And that's precisely the result described in this article Caveat Doesn't Negate Privilege, Ninth Circuit Rules, David Hudson, ABA e-report (7/1/05) which reports on a recent Ninth Circuit decision that found that potential plaintiffs' responses to law firm questionaires seeking information on class action claims are covered by attorney client privilege and hence, not discoverable in litigation. The court arrived at this conclusion despite a box for respondents to check, indicating an understanding that filling out the questionaire did not create an attorney-client privilege.
Continue Reading...As I've said before, MyShingle doesn't have a formal policy on announcing seminars and events of interest to solo and small firm lawyers - except that if it's a free event, we'll give it top priority. Here's an upcoming webinar that's not just free - but also by Keith Ferrazi, author of Never Eat Alone, that a number of my favorite fellow bloggers (here, here and here) have put on their must read lists. From what I've gathered, the book addresses ways to build relationships by connecting with others (through meals and presumably other venues) one person at a time. This type of marketing strategy works to the benefit of new solos who have more time than money on their hands, while it can help lessen the isolation that even some of us more senior solos experience. The webinar, entitled Relationships for Success will be held Thursday July 7 9 am-10 am Pacific time (12-1 EST) and you can register here.
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