Evan Schaeffer of Legal Underground examines, from a prospective client’s perspective, what it must be like to hire a lawyer from the Yellow Pages in his most recent podcast installment of Law Related Things That Suck. After listening to Evan, you’ll realize, if you don’t already, that the yellow pages may not be the best
2005
Some Poor Advice on Rainmaking in Law Practice Today
Usually, I like to highlight articles that our audience should read and follow. But here’s one that you really shouldn’t – unless you want to learn what not to do to market a practice. This article from the usually valuable publication, Law Practice Today contains some really poor advice on rainmaking in its monthly Meet…
Lawyers Serving Those Who’ve Served
There’s an interesting practice area desribed in this article, Lawyers Look for Errors in VA Claims, Beth Silver, Twincities.com (3/6/05): Veteran’s Law. As the article reports, two Minneapolis attorneys, Tracy Capistrant and Becca Wong specialize in recovering government checks for the disabled veterans who visit their law office after years of fighting the Veterans…
What’s Your Tagline?
Are you a “Heavy Hitter” – or a lawyer who means business? What about a Tiger? These are just a couple of the slogans mentioned in this brief article here. What’s your slogan – and do you need one?
What NOT to Put In A Retainer Agreement
As we at MyShingle have said many times, a retainer agreement is one of the most important tools that we lawyers have to protect ourselves from unscrupulous or troublesome clients. It should be obvious though that lawyers can’t use the retainer agreement to protect themselves by cutting off their clients’ rights to file a grievance. …
Fabulous Resource from the Texas YLA
Kudos to the Texas Young Lawyers Association for this innovative project, tenminutementor.com, an online library of video presentations on topics like substantive law (mostly Texas, but some, like the talk on Ten Tips for Federal Court, can apply more broadly), ethics, building a firm and personal development. Here’s the Press Release (2/28/05) that further…
Supreme Solos
October marks the Supreme Court’s return to the bench after summer recess. But for the past four years, it’s also marked the Supreme Court group admission of roughly thirty solo attorney from all over the country and members of the ABA’s Solosez listserve. The group event was devised by Maryland solo, Terry Berger who continues…
What’s Worse – A Lying Lawyer or A Stupid, Greedy One?
In this bizarre story, Attorney Punished for False Promises, Adam Kovac, Daily Herald (2/26/05) concerning a disciplinary action brought against attorney Cynthia Sutherin who duped her co-workers into joining what turned out to be a fictitious law firm, I couldn’t help wondering whether the wrong attorney had been charged. After all, if Sutherin’s conduct,…
Change of Pace
Hey readers, I’m dispatching this post from a computer at the Washington College of Law Library of American University in Washington D.C. I’m posting from here just to show that I can but also to make this point. For solo and small firm lawyers, the law library can serve as an antidote to the isolation…
Online Litigation Tips
Via Jim Calloway comes a link to Dave Swanner’s guest post at Legal Underground entitled “Twelve Ways Technology Can Make You A Better Trial Lawyer.” There’s some great advice here for both new and seasoned attorneys who have full time litigation practices or just dabble in trial work from time to time.