If you’re a regular reader, you know that I’ve often griped about 21st century advancements like attorney bidding sites or listing sites not because I’m trying to defend lawyers’ turf, but rather, because I’m skeptical as to whether these sites really expand access to law in a meaningful way. As I’ve written here, many
Doing work that you love in your law practice when it doesn’t pay the bills.
Starting and running your own law firm allows you the autonomy to pick and choose the kinds of cases you want to handle. But what happens when there’s no apparent market for the work that you love or where a market exists but the work isn’t financially viable?
A lack of market refers to a
Logos on Spec, Revisited
More than three years ago, I wrote one of my most popular and widely-circulated blog posts, Would You Work on Spec? Why Should Your Logo Designer. My post listed several disadvantages to design contest sites like 99Designs (potentially poor quality submissions and possibility of stolen work), but mainly, I griped that it was hypocritical
Could 3-D Printing offer a new dimension for law firm business and marketing?
At a time when law firms are replacing conventional printers with scanners to facilitate a move to a paperless practice and the cloud, three-dimensional printers might seem like a step backwards. To the contrary, though, they’re rapidly becoming mainstream as the costs of 3D printing are declining faster than anyone could have predicted with home-based
Techno-powered Ethical Oversight for Lawyers – What Do You Think?
Last month, Docracy , a slick form-sharing platform launched a Terms of Service (TOS) tracker that monitors the TOS at over 900 social media sites. Docracy’s new tool (which you can subscribe via RSS feed ) is indispensable whether you’re a lawyer reliant on sites like Facebook or Twitter to market your practice or who
The Age of the Poly-platformy
Once upon a time, a law firm committed to a practice management system for life. Whether TimeMatters, Amicus, Abacus, Needles or a paper-based numerical filing system set up by a law firm secretary, most firms opted for a single system, invested heavily in consultants to customize as needed and continued using the system for the
LegalForce: Forcing Law to Be Accessible
For me, the above LegalForce brand concept — a scales of justice anthropomorphized — encapsulates all that excites me about the launch of the exciting new LegalForce business model conceived by lawyer/entrepreneur Raj Abhyanker that I attended last night in Palo Alto, California.
For so long, images of the scales of justices have served as
The Dangers of the 19th Century Retainer Agreement
OK, maybe this Engagement Agreement sample, extracted from a Start Up Law Firm Toolkit published by Lawyers Mutual North Carolina isn’t as outdated as the Pony Express. Still, the engagement letter provision below, which seeks express client authorization for use of any modern day method of communication is so antiquated and short-sighted made me