Dave Swanner has some great, defy-the-experts advice on starting a law firm. The essence: Don’t overplan, get a phone line and some business cards, and just do it. Though Dave admits in his comments that this no frills approach may not work for everyone, particularly those with major financial commitments, he’s definitely on to
June 2006
Should you go with a judge or a jury?
Over at Legal Blogwatch, I posted here about a recent analysis by Volokh guest blogger Andy Leipold, who found that criminal defendants stand a
better chance of acquittal before a jury. I thought that the study might help some of my readers who practice criminal law to make more informed decisions about a…
Tips for Family Law Practitioners
Though not every family law case ends up like this one, nonetheless, family law cases are often fraught with more emotion and problems than any other type of case. Clients often come with misinformation about the process and unreasonable expectations about how much the case should cost.
While trends such as collaborative lawyering may…
Rooting for GAL
Solo practice: the most overlooked, underrated law option
With all of the terrific solo blogs, I’m still amazed that people still don’t get solo practice. Among the prime offenders are Ann Israel, who writes the Advice for the Lawlorn column for New York Lawyer and her correspondents. Israel would rather advise folks to leave the practice of law than to give solo practice…
To the Bars: Don’t Make Me Part of Your PR Scam With Mandatory Pro Bono Reporting
Evan Schaeffer posts here that the Illinois Bar is the latest bar to implement a mandatory pro bono reporting requirement whereby lawyers must report pro bono activity annually to the bar. According to Schaeffer, “the Illinois Supreme Court hopes that the new reporting requirement will
serve as a reminder that pro-bono work is important. In…
Ed Poll Stands Up For Solos
Here’s a huge public thanks to Ed Poll, one of today’s preeminent law practice management experts and coaches, for sticking up for solos. In this post, Ed joins the chorus of bloggers speaking out against the New York bar’s recently proposed restrictive advertising rules. And in this post, Ed takes on the…
Who Do These New York Bar Rules Target – Let’s Not Kid Ourselves
I have to confess that when I initially heard about New York’s proposed gag rule on attorney advertising, I suspected that it was just another way to perpetuate the biglaw/smallfirm double standard by targeting forms of advertising like websites and weblogs that have proven especially beneficial for small law firms. And indeed, Dennis Kennedy…
That’s My Client…I Knew Him When…
It’s not often that practice areas like family law, primarily the province of solo and small law firms merit attention from a legal commentator of Dahlia Lithwick‘s stature. But Lithwick tackles issues like the problems with an adversarial family court system and how well you really know your clients in her op-ed piece in…
Telephone Talk
Jim Calloway has a great post on one of the unanswered (pun intended!) questions concerning solo practice: what’s the best system for answering the phone? Jim’s post summarizes the pros and cons of (a) outsourcing to a live answering service (uneven quality and costly); (b) using paid employee (who may be low paid and unmotivated)…