This article Women Aiming for Partnership Face Persistent Problems (NYLawyer 2/10/06) reported on a New York City Bar Association Symposium, attended by a mostly female crowd of 300 that addressed a persistent question: “When will the legal profession see sex equality throughout its ranks?” According to the article, the Symposium apparently bemoaned what we’ve heard
Future Trends
Electronic Filing Changing the Practice of Law
Grant Griffiths wishes for electronic filing in his state courts after learning more about the federal e-filing system (now in place in 87 percent of federal courts) where lawyers automatically receive notice of filings . I can’t blame Grant. Particularly for lawyers who practice from home, who may not live near the courts, there’s nothing…
NH Limits on Small Claims Court Won’t Help Lawyers
David Giacalone of f/k/a writes this post about a New Hampshire bill that would reduce the jurisdictional limit in small claims court in New Hampshire from $5000 to $2500. Lest anyone think that this kind of legislation is a lawyers-relief bill in disguise, I can assure you that it is not. A case valued at…
IOLTA Pioneer (and Shingler) With A Killer App
Remember back in the dotcom days, when everyone’s goal was to develop that killer app, a computer program that is so useful that people will invest in a particular machine or hardware simply to run that program? In law, a killer app is harder to come by, yet Henry Zapruder, who died earlier…
New Mexico Joins Casemaker
Casemaker, a free legal research service included in participating state bar membership fees is a trend we’ve been following for a long time. As this article fom bizjournals.com (1/20/06) reports, New Mexico is the 23d state to join the Casemaker consortium.
New Mexico Bar joins legal research consortium, hich according to the article, now serves…
A Problem We Solos Don’t Have
This article, Long Law Firm Names Grow Short and Snappy (Sascha Pfeiffer, Boston Globe), 9/28/05 reports on an issue that doesn’t affect us solos at all: how to reduce the number of names in a firm’s moniker. According to the article, some firms are reducing multiple names to a mere letter – like Orrick,…
More on Katrina Related Small Firm Impacts
As a follow up to this earlier post, it’s been three weeks since Katrina and solo and small firm practitioners are starting to contemplate the consequences and plan for the future. This article, Many Small Law Firms May be Gone, Adrian Angelette, reports on small firms’ biggest problem – loss of clients. From…
What They Don’t Teach At Harvard Law School
The Harvard Law School newspaper put out a career guide which included all kinds of articles like Why Not to Be A Government Lawyer (as a former FERC attorney, I’ve got to agree with that one), the downside of biglaw and careers in public interest. Sorely missing from the list of possibilities is the one…
More Katrina News
Following up on this last post, there’s another article, Small Law Firms Hit Hard by Katrin (Fulton County Daily Report – 9/8/05) on the impact of Katrina on small firms. From the article:"I’m worried about the ones that don’t have friends. Some of the solos and real small outfits might not know other folks in…
Is Pittsburgh the Pits for Law Firm Associates?
Will we soon see a wave of new solo practice opening in the Pittsburgh area? Perhaps, if there’s any truth to the recent survey by The Vault which found that associates at Pittsburgh law firms have the least job satisfaction (Tribune-Review, August 17, 2005). So Pittsburgh associates – maybe it’s time to shingle.