When I’m asked how solo and small firm lawyers can compete with Legal Zoom, my view is that free is the best revenge. Now that legal forms are digitized, it’s only a matter of time before they’re available free everywhere. If forms are free, companies like Legal Zoom have nothing left to sell —
Coolest Business Plan /Brainstorm Tool Ever!
For those who are regular readers, you know that I don’t believe in business plans. In my own case, when I started my firm, even my best predictions suggested that I’d go belly up in three months and had I memorialized my reality in a business plan, I’d never have had the nerve to
Blawger Hall of Fame
What do you do with someone who’s blogged nearly a decade and been nominated for ABA Top 100 Blawg Contest for six years straight without ever coming remotely close to winning the category? Stick her along with nine other guys (and yes, they really all are guys) in the Blawg 100 Hall of Fame. That’s
Growing Solo: The Rise of the Dynamic Law Practice
These workplace trends described by Smart Company are worth a read because they apply with equal force to law firms. Most interesting to me is the concept of “dynamic staffing,” where groups of employees are formed from within and outside a company to help on a particular project. The concept of dynamic staffing is a
The $75/hour law firm
No, not joking. Just a few days after my two part series on the viability of a $99/hour firm, I came across this $75/hour business model, the Justice Cafe in Fulton County Georgia, offering a la carte family law service to walk in clients. Lawyers staffing the Justice Cafe will work on contract
How Low Can (or Should) You Go: Part II
Following yesterday’s post exploring the viability of the $99/hour lawyer as a business model, discussion (if you can call an exchange of 140 character blurbs and bursts real discussion) ensued on Twitter. I wanted to use this post to summarize my view of the argument and also clarify the context of my post.
Billing Like It’s 1989: The $99/Hour Lawyer
Call it a new kind of legal limbo as law firms take a turn on the conga line to see just how low they can go. Only this form of limbo isn’t a game, but serious business. Large firms are quoting suicide rates to keep business reports Lawyerist while solos and nonlawyer networks are exploring
College of Law Practice Management
This past weekend, I was excited and honored to be inducted as a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management . I spent some time with my buddy Ed Poll who’s been hammering the point that law is a business before many of today’s futurists were even born. Ever insightful, Ed asked one of
Is Price Transparency Always A Good Thing for Prospective Clients?
As Matt Homann points out, price transparency is coming soon already here in both the medical and legal profession. Of course, it goes without saying that most lawyers dislike the idea of putting price on their website either for fear that competitors will undercut them or concern that clients will be deterred by a
A Bit of A Break & Crowdsourcing Request
Just a quick note to let you know that I’m taking a brief break. Between an out of town hearing last week, Jewish holidays, my younger daughter’s upcoming bat-mitzvah this weekend, a touch of writing block and most critically, a terrible cold, I just can’t muster the energy to post. I’ll be back up and