This is one of my favorite scenes from A Civil Action . Billed as a book (and movie) about a class action by an underdog lawyer against a major corporation, A Civil Action is also, somewhat unintentionally, one of the very best books about solo practice, covering the tumults and the triumphs and the dichotomous
A Public Apology: Webinar Cancelled Due to Anymeeting.com’s Terrible Service – But I’m to Blame As Well.
I am so, so sorry that I have had to cancel today’s free webinar on how to launch and lift a 21st Century Practice. The immediate cause of the cancellation is that the Anymeeting.com platform crashed – my assistant, more than 100 participants and I were locked out of the site. I’ll trash the service
Low-end Marketing Tip: Keep Your Digital Footprint Fingerprint Free
Sometimes, the best marketing ideas cost the least amount of money.
Like trotting out a branded powerstrip at a hearing or conference: it’s a way to connect by providing a useful service (a power outlet) and striking up a conversation in the process. Same with a laptop cover— a great icebreaker and potential business
FREE WEBINAR: Launching a 21st Century Practice….Or Lifting the One You Have Now
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-Oscar Wilde
As you’ve probably heard, many futurists believe that the legal profession is dying — and that within a decade, lawyers will go the way of journalists, travel agents and bike couriers into extinction. They urge lawyers to dump the
Even In An Online Age, Bar and Professional Associations Are More Relevant To Marketing Than We’d Like to Admit
Longtime readers of this blog know that I have a love-hate (or more accurately, a friend/frenemy) relationship with bar and professional associations. To be clear, my beef isn’t about the services provided to solos: in the past decade since I’ve started this blog, the bars have stepped up – and I’ve watched as the initially
Iron Tech Lawyer Competition – Report
I left the office on Wednesday afternoon to attend the Iron Tech Lawyer competition at Georgetown Law School. I must confess that after six months of white noise about disruption, rethinking and access to justice as a way to access venture capital, I didn’t have high hopes for the students’ projects, which employ
Tax Day: A Reminder of The Ups and Downs of Solo Practice
With 2012 taxes now complete, I’ve officially marked the last action of the worst year of my practice in a half-decade. While I won’t discuss everything that went wrong, the problem is pretty obvious: more money out, less money in. In my case, an office upgrade and more personnel took a bit of a toll
Office Debate Follow Up: Sustainable Solos, Sustainable Families
This post is a quick follow up to Would You Rent Office Space for $500 or Less? which has generated some useful feedback from other solos weighing in with personal experiences and opinions. While you should read the comments directly, they generally fall into the following clusters of viewpoints:
- 1. Don’t start a firm unless
Would You Rent Office Space If It Only Cost $500/Month – And What Can We Do To Make That Happen?
[Note – this is a long read, and it’s about much more than the home vs. office debate but rather, the importance of affordable office space to the sustainability of solos and long term access to justice]
Fishtown Lawyer Jordan Rushie makes some strong arguments in favor of renting office space when starting
The Problem With Dropbox Isn’t Security and The Limits of ABA Techshow
When it comes to technology, lawyers are no different from the general public — gravitating towards the free and easy, no-brainer products like gmail or dropbox. Yet often, these tools aren’t necessarily optimal security-wise for serving clients. But rather than scold or deride lawyers who use these tools, most of the speakers at this past