My Shingle : MyShingle : Solo and Small Law Firm Management and Marketing

As more lawyers depart large firms to strike out on their own, the ethical issues relating to departing attorneys gains more attention.  Here's another article on the topic, Practicing Ethics:  Switching Jobs, NY Lawyer (5/26/06).   The article focuses on the following three issues:

* When and what can be told to clients? Most lawyers have a long-standing, close professional relationships with their clients. An attorney and his prospective new firm hope these ties translate into decisions to follow the lawyer. What are the lawyer's duties to the client in this situation, and when can she inform the client she is leaving?

* What can be told to partners and employees, and when can they be told?

* What files are available to clients and what files can be taken to the new firm?

If you're currently at a firm, thinking of leaving, you ought to find the answers to these questions (many of which are jurisdiction specific) before you hit the road.  It's hard enough starting a law practice; don't make it tougher by inviting disciplinary complaints against you by your former employer through actions you take when you leave.

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For many lawyers, reaching the top of biglaw is enough.  But not Corliss Scorggins Lawson, former chief of biglaw firm Lord, Bissell & Brook's Atlanta office, who's just left her post to strike out on her own, as reported in  Lord, Bissell's Top Atlanta Attorney Leaves to Start Her Own Shop, Fulton County Daily Report (5/25/06).   From the article

Lawson, 43, caused a splash two years ago when she became the first African-American woman to head a large law firm office. But she resigned from the firm on May 9, ending her career-long tenure at the firm.  She said she's starting her own firm because she wants the freedom to chart her own course -- a desire that seems reflected in her decision to use her given name for the firm, which will open June 1 in the Fayetteville, Ga., historic district, near her home.

Lawson now knows what most of us solos have realized for a while:  biglaw may be a big place, but it's not big enough to fit your name on the door.  Here's to the addition of another distinguished lawyer to shingling.

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Even if you don't deal with corporate counsel as part of your law practice, this article, GCs Vent Their Frustrations About Outside Counsel (Recorder, 5/23/06) is worth reading, because it can help improve your relationship with any clients.  The article lists what corporate counsel don't like about their outside counsel.  Unpopular practices include (1) surprising clients with large bills; failing to call; raising rates (or not cutting back on costs) during economic downturns and sending a large document without some kind of summary. ermine the GC's position in the company.

Take a look at the article and think about whether you're guilty of some of these practices, and what you can do to change.

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Last months, one of our readers, solo Scott P. Schomer of Schomer Law in Torrance, California won an amazing $4.7 million dollar verdict for his client, a grandmother who'd been left homeless after being defrauded of her Beverly Hills home by her former attorney who along with his wife moved into his former client's house after stealing it out from under her.   To win the case, Schomer went up against four attorneys who represented his client's former lawyers.  Details on the case can be viewed here in an article from the Los Angeles Daily Record. 

Schomer was generous enough to submit to an interview with MyShingle by email, which I've posted below. 

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A small firm lawyer, Rob Fisher, has taken the helm at the West Virginia Bar as reported in this article. Based on what he has planned for his state, I sure wish they'd find more like him to lead the ABA.  According to the article, Fisher plans to focus on small firms and solos and to address lawyer malpractice by devising a mentoring program.  He also
wwants to create a handbook on starting a law firm, something I hope that MyShingle can help with.  Also on Fisher's to do list is to create a "lawyer liason" system to elp people find out who does what, encourage small firms to develop succession plans for when they close their practices and consider offering unbundled service.

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There's a discussion at Evan Schaeffer'sIllinois Trial Practice Blog over the feasibility of a fully paperless office.  Evan admits, and many commenters agree, that he has some difficulty relying exclusively on electronic documents, particularly when he's trying to get up to speed on a new, paper-laden matter.   

What do you think?  Do you still print out documents to read them - or are you fully adept at absorbing material on screen?

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According to this article, the South Carolina Bar moved to electronically post disciplines of lawyers on its webstie for 75 years (of course, who knows if the web in its present form will be around by then).  Some lawyers oppose this decision, arguing that it "creates a Scarlet Letter" for anyone who makes a mistake.   But another lawyer argued that technical violations would not show because they don't "go all the way."

While I do believe that the bars often unfairly target solos, on balance, I support the online disclosure system.  I do believe, however, that if the disciplinary action is posted that it should be accompanied by all of the attorney's filings in his or her defense so that clients and other lawyers can arrive at their own judgment of whether the sanction was warranted.  I've heard too many stories from colleagues who've referred cases to other lawyers only to discover that those lawyers had been suspended or disbarred.  Making this information available can also spare lawyers from making negligent referrals.

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Great story in this Amy Joyce column from today's Washington Post, entitled Job Connections Start as Social Connections.  Joyce describes how a blind date spawned by match.com went awry romantically, but worked out professionally for the guy when his date helped him to score a job at her company.  The lesson - you never know where any connection you make will lead so don't minimize the importance of social connections to your business. 

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Joining a previous and long ago post on housecalls is this piece, Swtiching to House Calls, Hope Viner Samborn (ABA Journal 5/2006).  These days, house calls are viewed not just as convenient for clients but as a way to avoid having an office.  From the article:

Solo practitioner Laura S. Petelle gives new meaning to the moniker in-house counsel--she always meets clients in their homes, businesses or public places. Petelle travels throughout a three-county area around Peoria, Ill. She sits in kitchens or living rooms with families, writing notes while discussing estate planning. Breaks are common for homework, after-school snacks and playing with dogs. And it's common for her to be asked to stay for dinner.  She is one of a new breed of solos who have abandoned a traditional office, instead traveling to clients wherever they may be. Cell phones and portable computers keep them in touch and make this practice model possible.

It's interesting how technology is allowing us to return to the traditional practices of our predecessors.

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Did you ever visit a weblog, only to puzzle over the main point of it?  As more and more weblogs are given practice specific names (e.g., California Estate Planning Practice Blog), that's less of an issue.  Still, as Kevin O'Keefe points out in this post, it's worth your time to offer readers an easy to find about page that has information about both you and the subject of your weblog.  Here's where you can find out about me.

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Ah, Mothers' Day.  A time when my daughters leave me free to blog uninterrupted. (though I guess I should worry a little when my younger daughter's mother day note reads like this:  My mom likes to hug me.  She always works on her computer).   Today, I've rounded up a couple of articles of interest to mother-lawyers.

First up is Do mothers make better leaders than women without children? originally printed in USA Today (5/12/06).  For the record, I don't buy that women with kids are any better or worse leaders; it simply depends on the person.  Anyway, one interesting tidbit in the article for lawyer-moms was the descripton of how Jennifer Wolfe, founder of the largest woman owned law firm in Ohio got her start:

are notorious for long hours and inflexible schedules, so when Jennifer Wolfe was bedridden with pregnancy complications three years ago with her son Jack, she wrote a business plan that led to the largest female-owned firm in Ohio. Seven of the firm's 10 attorneys are women.

One of her lawyers, Jennifer Livingston, works entirely from home, where she cares for her 19-month-old son, Mason, and is expecting her second child in October. Jeanette Dannenfelser is a trial attorney who works Monday through Thursday to spend more time with her 1-year-old son, Aidan, adopted from Kazakhstan four months ago.

Wolfe, whose husband is the firm's operations manager, said she has had to "pick up Jack, face cooking dinner and doing laundry, and deal with temper tantrums and potty training. I don't know how you couldn't go through a transformation."

She has installed a system that lets her lawyers more easily cover for each other. Yet, flexibility is not a free pass, and Wolfe said she expects no complaining if they are needed on a Sunday.

In another piece, Stay networked to return to work (May 14, 2006), there's advice on
how to keep your foot in the door even if you decide to stay home full time. For lawyers, that advice includes keeping bar membership current and possibly working on pro bono matters or keeping up with other lawyers.

And finally, thank you, David Giacalone for remember us lawyer-mother-bloggers.  To be honest, I always feel a little silly celebrating Mothers' Day; it seems strange to be honored for the one thing in my life that's so far brought only pleasure and fulfillment and not a single regret (wish I could say the same about my legal career!).  But enough of these thoughts -  Happy Mothers' Day to moms and lawyers everywhere!

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A few weeks ago, I posted here on the dangers of getting too close to a client.  That issue came to mind again in reading this article Killer Charisma by Glenn Frankel (Washington Post Magazine 5/13/06) which ponders why advocates for Roger Keith Coleman, who was executed for the murder of his sister-in-law, continued to believe in his innocence until posthumus DNA testing proved otherwise.

The article is a lengthy, but fascinating read.  It focuses on Jim McCloskey, an investigator who worked to exonerate Coleman, but it also discusses the legal representation provided pro bono over the course of eight years by Kathleen Behan of Arnold and Porter. 

For those who don't recall the newsheadlines or Coleman's presence on the cover of Time magazine, the Coleman case involved post-verdict challenge to a capital conviction of Coleman for rape and murder of his sister in law.  The Coleman case was regarded as a potential test case which would put forward the issue of whether proof of innocence was ground for overturning a death penalty conviction.  And from the accounts that I recall from the press, it did indeed appear that Coleman had been wrongly convicted. 

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Apparently, competition for Supreme Court cases has now grown so intense that biglaw firms are trying to poach criminal cases from small fry defense lawyers.  That's the distinct impression that I came away with after reading Will Defense Lawyers Accept Help on High Court Criminal Cases?

The article reports that this past term, the Supreme Court heard argument on 22 criminal cases - and according to observers in the defense bar, some of the cases were not argued or briefed particularly well.  Whereas once, the purported lack of quality did not matter as much because the the states attorney generals office were also less qualified, the article describes that now, most states have high quality, professional solicitors offices with ample appellate experience.

Most of the lawyers quoted in the article who criticize the small fry's performance are biglaw attorneys who sit on the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) board and no doubt are chomping at the bit to log more time before the court.  The NACDL attorneys claim that small firm attorneys have rebuffed them when they call with offers of assistance.  But NACDL isn't just offering assistance; though the article doesn't say it, I am guessing that in most cases, NACDL lawyers essentially want to take the case on themselves, stealing it from the small firm attorney.

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I always thought that at one of the top priorities of a bar association is to help the public find access to competent representation.  Well, access to law is a goal of the New Jersey Bar, but one that's secondary to other matters like generating revenues or preserving the local bars' turf.  At least, that's the impression that I came away with after reading this law.com article, NJ Bars Wary As State Bar Advances Online Lawyer Listings (5/10/06).

According to the article, the New Jersey Bar Association has proposed to set up a website that would list attorneys by name and phone number and for $100 extra, include a link to the attorney's firm website.  You'd think that lawyers would welcome this type of visibility, but apparently, the county bars fear that the plan will detract from the referral services that they run.  Specifically, county bar representatives are concerned that consumers seeking attorneys will simply go to the New Jersey website and click to find a lawyer on their own (oh, the horror of autonomy!) instead of calling the county bar and paying a referral fee to set up a meeting.

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Fellow blogger Allison Shields of Legalease Consulting wrote this article in this month's ABA Law Practice Management magazine on ten ways to get motivated.  Suffice it to say that the article worked well enough to get me to put up this post!

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I probably should not use my weblog this way, but as owner, I will take license to announce that I am a candidate for the DC Bar's Law Practice Management Steering Committee.   Please vote for me if you are a member of the DC Bar.  I already have three blockbuster programs that I have been wanting to implement for years through MyShingle, but the DC Bar may give me a better platform.  I'm not willing to post these ideas publicly, but I'll give you a heads up if you send me an email.

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New Jersey law blog has this  post about a New Jersey ethics decision on "lawyer shopping."   As the post describes, lawyer shopping is a practice whereby a client (most frequently, a divorce client) will visit and interview several prospective attorneys for the exclusive purpose of potentially conflicting them from representing the spouse in litigation.  The New Jersey Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics recently ruled that an attorney who advises his/her client to contact other lawyers for the purpose of denying their spouse from obtaining representation by counsel of his or her choice constitutes conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

When I first read about this decision, I wondered whether an advisory decision was really necessary?  After all, to my mind, it seems inherently unethical for a lawyer to counsel a client to go out and interview other attorneys given that the client already had representation.  In essence, this kind of directive would require the client to lie - and that kind of advice couldn't possibly be ethical. 

I still feel that way, but there must be another side to the story - or why would you need an ethics decision?  So readers, I ask - have you ever advised a client to visit other attorneys to conflict them from representing the opposition?  And what's your take - is this ethical?

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Evan Schaeffer has these comments on the Florida Bar's Ethics Committee proposed advisory opinion on metadata.  The opinion instructs attorneys to safeguard metadata in documents, but at the same time, directs lawyers who receive documents not to view metadata if not intended for them.  Evan wonders why Florida doesn't put the onus on the transmitting lawyers to protect their documents and instead, imposes a burden on the recipient not to read that information.   

By taking the burden off transmitting lawyers to protect documents, the Florida bar ultimately sets their clients up for greater problems.  What happens, for example ,when a Florida attorney transmits a document out of state?  Surely, the Florida bar can't sanction a New York attorney for reading the Florida attorney's metadata.  If Florida attorneys aren't encouraged to secure their documents, their clients will suffer in the long run in cases where the Florida Bar has no control over the lawyer who receives the document at the other end.

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Maybe, we can't all be as happy as this lawyer.   But we shouldn't give up on finding happiness in our profession and this week, a couple of bloggers have some suggestions on how to make that happen.  First up, Dave Swanner offers a post, Do You Enjoy Practicing Law? where he gives som ideas on how you might change what you don't like about your practice.  He suggests reducing the number of cases you handle, working towards making more money or changing the kinds of cases you typically handle.  Perhaps all easier said than done, but the point is that you ought to try those approaches before junking your career.

Greatest American Lawyer also has this advice that biglaw attorneys might consider to lift that spirit:  Stand out from other firms, don't be a lawyer.  "Blow off that mega firm.  Jump out of that partnership." 

Do any of these work for you?

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