Seems like this judge overreacted by sentencing an attorney to 60 days in jail for missing a court appearance (notwithstanding that he'd explained his absence) - as reported in this article, Judge Mulls Over Missed Court Date - In Jail (ABA E-report 2/24/06). It's not clear from the article what exactly made this judge so incensed - perhaps she ought to be sentenced to 60 days to reconsider the impact of her sentence.
The Billable Hour, run by Lisa Solomon and her husband, Mark, announces the release of resources on the billable hour, now available here on their website. They invite submissions from others who can offer other resources on the billable hour.
This past month has been crazy-busy, but busy in a good way. Many new opportunities have come my way and I'm optimistic about what's ahead. But I'll be the first to tell you that my practice has not always been this way. I've had slow months when I felt frustrated enough about earning the equivalent of ten dollars an hour that I was ready to throw in the towel or stressed over the fear of malpractice or from dealing with difficult clients.
I admit this all publicly for all of you solos out there who are struggling today. Maybe you started your firm, brimming with enthusiasm, but now a year later, you still can't find a steady stream of business. Maybe you just made what you think is the world's stupidest mistake in a case and you can't sleep at night because you're so afraid of what might happen. I've been in that place (as recently as 2 months ago, in fact!), all of us solos have. Yet we keep it secret, never admit our weaknesses to our colleagues or seek out help. To each other, we all look as if we have the perfect practice, which is almost never the case, all the time.
Continue Reading...I'm not sure where my own personal opinion on the death penalty lies. I've always believed that it's incredibly disparately and arbitrarily applied - I'm just not certain whether the remedy is wholesale elimination of the death penalty or reducing its random application by improving the quality of legal representation provided to indigent defendants.
But now, apparently, Ken Starr has another reason for eliminating the death penalty - because it puts too much strain on biglaw. Here's the exact quote in the Hamilton Spectator (2/22/06):
"Society is not equipped to handle death penalty cases because of resources. Large law firms are not willing at this stage to take these cases on, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, in order to make sure that if the public wants the death penalty, it is not administered with arbitrariness and caprice."
There's a solution, of course, but most large firms don't want to hear it. If large firms targeted their pro bono efforts at representing indigent defendants or providing resources to court appointed lawyers where it matters, i.e., at the trial phase, they wouldn't have to face the burden of taking on costly death penalty cases down the road.
David Swanner, a solo South Carolina Trial Lawyer gives us his tips for starting a practice, which are followed by a discussion of the merits of Mac v. PC.
I've been thinking alot about my colleague Jon Stein's recent post complaining that there are too many bloggers complaining about the practice of law and urging them to focus more on the positives. Like Jon, I don't have much tolerance for complainers (as exemplified by this earlier post). But at the same time, complaining is a necessary part of bringing about change in the profession.
I'm not sure how long Jon has been practicing as an attorney, but I graduated from law school in 1988. Back then, I'd say that 90 percent of my classmates assumed that they'd go on to work at a challenging, intellectually stimulating biglaw job, make partner in seven years and be set for life. Back then, no one ever really complained about the drawbacks of large firm practice, the drudgery for young associates, the sacrifices you make for your family, the lack of experience and training that you actually receive at a large firm, and the seeming randomness, and sometimes even inequities of partnership decisions. Blogging is changing all of that. Blogging, even that of a whiny, complaining nature, exposes the dark underside of biglaw practice that so many lawyers were ashamed to talk about. And more positively, blogs show that there are other career paths, options other than biglaw practice.
If it weren't for the dissatisfaction and complaints of large firm lawyers, blogs like mine and Jon's wouldn't even be here. One reason for our success is the unhappiness in the profession and the desire, the yearning in many biglaw attorneys to really practice law rather than shuffle papers and research loopholes. I'm willing to put up with the complaints, now anyway, because this is just the beginning. Someday, all of this complaining will lead to changes, changes that we're already starting to see.
Peter Olson, Solo in Chicago expresses the sentiments that drove many of us to solo and small firm practice in this post. And Peter offers a follow up link to an article from NALP on achieving work life balance.
Did this lawyer really need to accuse a judge of extortion? Did this young lawyer really need to express sarcasm and disrespect in an email turning down a job offer? And did this hiring attorney need to respond by forwarding her email (apparently without redacting her name) to third parties? Why don't lawyers realize that sometimes they need to be the ones to say stop?
Is having the last word really so important that you're willing to risk sanction by the bar or ruining your reputation? Some battles are worth engagement, but most, especially those where you're personally involved, aren't. That's a lesson that I was fortunate enough to have learned long ago in law school, at a time when it didn't matter (maybe some day I'll post the details); I'm always surprised to see that so many of my colleagues haven't.
A couple of years back, we posted about New York's formation of a committee to examine difficulties facing solo practitioners. As this article describes, the Committee's Report has now issued, recommending a variety of chances including improving the efficiency of calendar calls and scheduling conferences which often waste solos' time on waiting and figuring out ways to "to strengthen lawyer professionalism and law office economics support." (I've not yet seen the report which is 95 pages). The report also recognized that many facially neutral policies adversely impact solos - a topic that I've been harping on here at MyShingle for over three years.
While I don't like the sound of the goal of "strengthening lawyer professionalism" (which to me is a code for disciplining more solos or forcing us to pay for and sit through CLE), I'm encouraged by the move to make courts more efficient. At the end of the day, it's really not us solos who suffer by waiting - it's our clients, who lose work time or pay higher fees.
Kevin O'Keefe of Lex Blog has a post on niche blogging, summarizing tips by Darren Rowse on choosing a niche topic. The tips include selecting a topic that interests you, where there's not yet much competition and which will offer enough content. These tips are particularly important these days in starting a law related blog, where many of the larger subjects like federal appeals, Supreme Court, IP (too many to list) and others are well covered by other bloggers.
One great example of a new niche blog is Andrea Goldman's newly created Home Contractor v. Homeowner, focusing on home improvement and construction law. What a home run! With housing pricing increasing, home improvement is becoming more and moe common and it's an area where so many things can go wrong. Legally, home improvement is interesting, allowing for coverage of a wide range of issues like like contracts and consumer law, bankruptcy and real estate.
Harry Whittington has been in the news recently as the victim in a hunting accident involving Vice President Cheney, but before this event, he'd earned a reputation as a famous solo in his own right. As this article from the Austin Statesman describes, Whittington's successful legal battles included ensuring that the state properly spent the proceeds of bond issuances and securing humane prison conditions for the mentally retarded. As Whittington himself described, he wasn't a do-gooder per se, but a lawyer committed to making sure the state followed the law and to protecting people's constitutional rights. And his career also exemplifies just how far a solo can soar.
This article Women Aiming for Partnership Face Persistent Problems (NYLawyer 2/10/06) reported on a New York City Bar Association Symposium, attended by a mostly female crowd of 300 that addressed a persistent question: "When will the legal profession see sex equality throughout its ranks?" According to the article, the Symposium apparently bemoaned what we've heard a million times - law firms' stereotypical attitudes towards women, failure to accomodate family and the disparity between the percentage of women graduating law school (52 percent) and the percentage currently partners at biglaw (17 percent). Yet strikingly absent from the panel of speakers was a single representative from the group of female attorneys who are partners and who practice law on their own terms: the solos! (Nor did a single solo participate in preparation of the report, Best Practices for Women Attorneys that was also discussed at the symposium)
So where were the solo female attorneys?
Continue Reading...It's rather ironic that lawyers at a 1000 person mega-firm, with specialized departments galore, apparently have a more difficult time changing practice areas than solos. At least that's the impression that I gathered from reading this somewhat depressing article, Retooling Strategies by Gail Cutter (NYLJ Feb. 10, 2006), which discusses the difficulties and risks that law firm associates face in transitioning to another practice area.
By contrast, we solos have the luxury of being able to shift into practice areas that appeal to us or which we fall into by accident. As I wrote back in October 2004 in The Accidental Practice, we solos often stumble into new fields and because we answer only to ourselves, we can often pursue these new areas. That was the case with several solos I mentioned in the article, including a general practice solo in Birmingham, Alabama who became a self-taught ERISA and FDCPA and a Baltimore, Maryland small firm attorney who developed a lucrative qui tam practice.
Maybe associates unhappy in their practice area shouldn't be thinking just about changing practice areas - but changing firms as well.
Grant Griffiths wishes for electronic filing in his state courts after learning more about the federal e-filing system (now in place in 87 percent of federal courts) where lawyers automatically receive notice of filings . I can't blame Grant. Particularly for lawyers who practice from home, who may not live near the courts, there's nothing like the convenience of e-filing.
Continue Reading...This article, Batman! There's a Lawyer on the Line! (ABA e-report 2/10/5)
discusses a law firm's use of hotlines, a no-dial phone placed in a high traffic area like a currency exchange. Clients can pick up the phone, reach a hotline and get a call back within an hour. The article doesn't describe the effectiveness of this tool and frankly, I'm not sure what a computer kiosk with IM wouldn't work better.
Used to be that large firm incompetence was another dirty little secret in the bar. I don't mean to imply that large firm lawyers are less competent than solos, because that's not the case. My point is that incompetence and unethical conduct runs evenly throughout the bar, from top to bottom, with any lawyers capable of misteps. And now, the rest of the bar and clients are starting to realize this, as evidenced by this article, Lawyer vs. Lawyer Becoming Common Corporate Strategy.
The article suggests that conflict of interest and corporate scandals like Enron explain the increased trend in legal malpractice claims against large firms. And the article also notes that disciplinary boards are less likely to go after large firms, thereby opening the door for malpractice as the only option.
But on top of these factors, with the money that large firms charge - upwards of $600-$800 an hour for top attorneys, they can't expect to remain immune from suits. And there's yet another reason that explains this trend. I think that like doctors who lack a "good bedside manner" are more vulnerable to lawsuits, so are attorneys. For attorneys lack of good bedside manner means poor client service - a problem that is significant enough to have spawned several blogs on that topic (see, e.g., In Search of Perfect Client Service, What About Clients, Non-billable Hour and others) Lawyers need to realize that there's a greater cost to poor service than simply loss of the client. It can mean increased exposure for malpractice suits as well.
You know the indignities that you sometimes put up with as a solo, particularly when you work at home? The comments like "wow, must be nice to do whatever you want all day long" or the implication that you are available to babysit or take a trip spur of the moment? Sometimes, they're enough to make you feel like you really don't have a job.
Well today, I had payback for all of those comments. My daughter Elana (far left, with my adorable baby niece Leila in the middle and my younger daughter Mira at right) asked me today, somewhat intentionally, if she would make a good lawyer (we had just finished another one of those annoying may/must debates - me: you must do homework neatly, her: no, the teacher does not say must, only try). I responded that yes, Elana, you will make a good lawyer if that is what you want to be and then Elana asked where she would work if she were a lawyer. So I began by saying that she could work at a firm, at the government, at which point, Elana cut me off and said "Mommy, why can't I have my own firm like you?" Which made my day.
Allison Shields has a great article about the importance of mission statements in the February 2006 issue of GP Solo. Allison explains why you should have a mission statement and sets out steps on how to write one. She adds that everything you do in your practice must be based on and measured against the mission statement.
For me, the mission statement is not just a proclamation to the public of who you are. More importantly, the mission statement is a beacon, the light that guides you through the dark spots, the dull work, the annoying clients, the nasty judges and other hazards of the practice of law that might make you want to hang up your shingle. The day I opened my law firm, I was determined to provide high quality legal services at reasonable rates to give all clients, deep pocket or not, a competitive alternative and in so doing, improve the quality of the legal profession. I know that if I leave the law or put myself out of business by handling too many pro bono matters that a real alternative to the $600/hour biglaw firms will disappear and the needs of some clients will go unmet. May not be the flashiest mission but it's worked for me for thirteen years.
Meanwhile readers, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to define your mission!
You'd think being vice president and corporate counsel for a large corporation is a pretty good job. But it wasn't working for Jonathan Mannand so he went From In House to His House (Perri Capell, WSJ 2/06). Not only did Mann leave his job to start his own shop, but he also moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Yet six months later, Mann already has a decent portfolio of corporate clients and no regrets. And while the article reports that he's only making 75 percent of his former $200 K salary, that's not bad six months into the game. Let's revisit Mann in six years...
Via Larry Bodine and Patrick Lamb comes a post on an article in the February 2006 issue of American Lawyer entitled "Selling By Doing." Here's the money quote on how a company decided on its outside counsel:
We needed to hire outside counsel; we looked at a dozen firms, narrowed it to three, and invited them for 90 minute presentations. The first two were very good; they had solid expertise and industry knowledge and they had done their homework.
Then came firm three. They said, 'We have 90 minutes with you . We can either do a standard capabilities presentation--which we're very happy to do--or we can try something different. We suggest that we get started on the job, right now--as if you had already given us the contract--and begin the job, right here, right now. After 85 minutes, we'll stop and you'll have firsthand experience of exactly how it feels to work with us.'
Can you make this technique work for you?
Diane Levin hosts Blawg Review 43 at her terrific Mediation Blog (take a look at her posts while you pay a visit to the site). And if you're not reading Blawg Reviews regularly, read Diane's advice on why you should.
David Maister and one of my internet buddies, Wendy Leibowitz coauthored this post on proscrastination and offer tips on ways to avoid avoidance. They identify surfing the internet as an avoidance habit and suggest that if you can stop that habit for just ten minutes, you can begin to get yourself back on track. These tips are especially important for work alone solos because we've got no one but ourselves (and our deadlines) to keep us accountable.
For me, blogging - both reading and writing them - is my own personal work-day time sink. It's just too easy to immerse, following links deeper and deeper into the "blog fog," with no way out. My new rule, effective as of two months ago, is simply not to blog during the work day. I'll blog at night (as I am now) or after my daughters are home from school when I can't really work. And as long as I can discipline myself to this schedule (I briefly fell off the wagon last week when I hadn't been able to post for a while), I do find that I get more work done.
First Washington D.C., now the Pennsylvania legal press are reporting on the increasing trend of Young Attorneys Who Go Solo (Hope Cantwell, The Legal Intelligencer
February 6, 2006). No more comment, except read and be inspired, again.
For most lawyers, what's just as important as the billable hour is the non-billable hours, how we spend our time outside of the law, what makes us passionate or simply, what makes us laugh. Mark and Lisa Solomon, the married lawyer duo behind the The Billable Hour get this - and they're offering a free newsletter, The Timesheet - that will help you find a work/life balance, find a place for humor and learn more about other issues that we often pass by day to day on the job. Visit The Billable Hour to sign up for the newsletter or to buy one of the company's clever timepieces for lawyers.
As an energy regulatory attorney who knew of Enron when it was just another IPP (independent power producer) pushing for deregulation, I've followed the company's rise and fall, up through this last chapter, the Lay and Skilling Enron trials. My favorite source of news and commentary is from the Houston Chronicle's Enron Legal Commentary Blog. It's a truly amazing resource, not just for those with an interest in the trial, but also, presumably for the lawyers involved in the case. Think about it - imagine you are handling a trial and every day when you came back from court, you'd have feedback on your performance, your witnesses and the judge's rulings as well as advice and tips from top legal analysts - all for free! From what I can tell, that's pretty much what the Enron Legal Commentary Blog is providing for the lawyers in the case. For example, consider this post on why people plead guilty when they're not. Skilling's and Lay's defense attorneys could wrap that argument up in their closing to refute the credibility of every government witness who cut a deal to testify against their former superiors.
Of course, the irony is that neither the government prosecutors nor Ramsey and Petrocelli (who represent Lay and Skilling) need the advice; they're all hand-picked, experienced and well compensated for their work. Now, if you could get some legal bloggers to sit in on the run of the mill criminal trials with younger, greener attorneys that go through the court system every day - maybe that would help change some of the outcomes.
This article, New York State Bar Urges Attorney Ad Guidelines (John Caher, NYLJ, 2/2/06) reports on the New York State Bar Association's House of Delegates' report calling on the Administrative Board of the Courts to create statewide, uniform screening protocols for advertising. Curiously, the campaign to re-visit regulation of attorney ads is lead by biglaw attorneys, Bernice Leber of Arent, Fox who chaired the NYSBA task force on advertising and State Bar President A. Vincent Buzard, a partner at Harris Beach. Why are attorneys who don't place ads or represent clients who come to them through ads leading the charge to revise rules on advertising?
It would be nice if everyone in this country could find law firms the way that biglaw clients do - either by conducting their own RFP or getting references from others. But the fact remains that many litigants still hire attorneys after seeing television ads, radio ads - and more recently, websites and weblogs. When we curtail advertising or require attorneys to jump through more hoops before they can advertise, we limit the public's ability to find and hire a lawyer - and in so doing, we limit access to law.
Continue Reading...Jim Calloway has a terrific round up post on the ethics of lawyers accessing meta data. Jim starts by explaining what meta data is (it's basically data about data, embedded in your documents) and how to access it. He then cites the various views on meta data, on the one hand, the Florida Bar's initial opinion that mining meta is unethical and comments from the blogosphere that take an opposing view (in fact, apparently Jim's home state isn't adverse to using meta data, Jim point out that "[mining meta data] is unethical in Florida and we're teaching it in Oklahoma [at a course on e-discovery].
From what I can tell, lawyers, at least in my neck of the woods, have caught on to this problem. I do check meta data in documents (I can admit that since I don't practice in Florida) - and I've noticed that documents that I've received in the past few months have been cleansed. Based on this, it seems that Jim's sensible approach of "focus[ing] on not sending out metadata rather than enacting new ethical rules" is already working.
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