Matt Homann of Non Billable Hour is asking all of us lawyers to share our resolutions for 2006 as part of his “Resolutions for Lawyers” blog series. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to submit, but I do have plenty of ideas. Which in itself makes me grateful because there was a time in
What Would You Be Doing If You Hadn’t Started A Law Firm?
As most of my readers know, I started my law firm twelve years ago, after five years of practicing as an energy attorney, first for the government and then as an associate with a boutique practice. My firm unceremoniously gave me notice and six months to find a new job, saying that I wasn’t partnership
An Angry Brief Won’t Win You Anything But A Sanction
Debra Koven’s ranting appellate brief (see excerpts at 5-8) isn’t something that as a lawyer, I’d ever write and as a judge I’d ever want to read. Among other things, Koven accused opposing counsel of suborning perjury and claimed in her brief that “the fix was in.” As a result, the court ordered a $2000
A Really Nice Thing – And A Blog To Check
I’ve been having a lousy week, with one matter continuing to generate all kinds of knotty issues. So it was a real pick-me-up to get a call from the editors over at Lawyer and Business Executives in the News to inform me that I’d been selected Person of the Week. And even though as
Biglaw’s Got the View But Not Much Worthwhile to Do
Yet another article, Smaller Can Be Beautiful for Some Lawyers, (bizjournal, 11/2005) on biglaw attorneys leaving their firms for smaller – or in this case, mid-sized pastures. But what I found so sad about this piece is the reason that some folks stay on at biglaw: not because they prefer the work but rather,
US AGs Decide to Shingle
It’s not just biglaw attorneys who are hanging shingles these days. This article, AUSAs to Start New Trial Firm, Justin Scheck, the Recorder 11/23/2005 reports on a pair of former US Attorneys who’ll be hanging a shingle in Northern California and foregoing biglaw practice. The reason? These guys want to be trial lawyers.
Big Companies Starting To Pin Point Small Firms
Finally – it’s happening. Big companies are started to wonder why they should pay $600 an hour to fly their regular biglaw counsel from New York or L.A. out to Buffalo or Kalamazoo to litigate a case, when they can just as well retain local counsel for a fraction of the price – and better
Announcing “The Billable Hour” Timepieces
As Thanksgiving and winter holidays approach, like me, many of you are
probably scrambling to find the perfect gift for lawyer-friends and
colleagues who’ve helped you throughout the year. This year, you don’t
need to waste any more billable hours looking for gifts because fellow
solo Lisa Solomon and her
attorney husband Mark have come
I Finally Hung Those Shingles!
Readers, I apologize. I long ago promised to include a side link to any solo or small firm who asked and I’ve been a bit late in following through. But tonight, I went through the old emails and hung up those shingles (it may take a little time for them to appear at the site,
Why Getting Back in the Box Isn’t Such A Bad Thing
In these fast moving, high tech times where it seems that everything’s about buzz and hype, no one wants to be caught thinking inside the box. But as Douglass Rushkoff explains in this essay Get Back in the Box (Fast Company 11/2005), more companies should think about climbing back in the box and returning