I’ll be catching a flight out to the West Coast tomorrow, headed for the
Blogher conference where I’ll be on one of the panels. This is all very new for someone like me who attends conferences predominated by lawyers. At Blogher, while I’ll be in the gender majority, seems that I may be in the
Operations
Need Help Compiling Top Ten Reasons to Shingle
Hello, readers! I’d like to put together a Top Ten List for my sidebar of reasons that lawyers should consider hanging out a shingle. GAL posted something similar here, a list of the benefits of being an independent practitioner. For me, the reasons for going solo include autonomy, flexibility to achieve balance with family, an…
Free Legal Research For Louisiana
Ernie the Attorney reports that the Louisiana Bar is offering Fastcase, a legal research service, free to its members. Louisiana thus joins the twenty other bar associations that offer Casemaker, another free research service. What I noticed about Fastcase is that it includes access to district court decisions dating back to the 1950’s. This impressed…
Starting A Firm May Be the Only Escape from Biglaw Culture
Tony DiRomualdo has this interesting article, Why Corporate Culture Counts, at the Wisconsin Technology Network. (7/7/05) that discusses the relationship between corporate culture and values. He identifies examples of companies like Southwest, where positive corporate culture boosts employee morale, giving the company a leg up on competition. But on the other side of the…
More Biglaw Attorneys Starting Solo Biglaw Practices
We’ve more news to report about former biglaw attorneys who, like the biglaw attorneys here and here, have put out their shingles. What’s unique about all of these new law firms is that they focus on practice areas like securities law, business transactions and communications which have traditionally been within the domain of large…
There’s No Place [to Practice] Like Home
Unfortunately, sometimes even solo and small firm lawyers harbor stereotypes about a home office set-up. But if anyone can put those stereotypes to rest, it would be my fellow blogger and solo, Grant Griffiths, who’s just launched this new web log, Home Office Lawyer. These days, home office is more synonymous with high-tech than homely,…
Solos and Small Firms Should Cautious When It Comes to Litigation Financing
Fellow solo and small firm lawyers: another litigation financing company wants to sell you a service, claiming that it’s just what you need. According to this recent press release, LegalFish Bridges the Funding Gap for Plaintiffs and Attorneys in Litigation.:
The purpose of the [Life Funding] program will provide access to non-recourse loans that…
Free Seminar on Building Relationships for Success
As I’ve said before, MyShingle doesn’t have a formal policy on announcing seminars and events of interest to solo and small firm lawyers – except that if it’s a free event, we’ll give it top priority. Here’s an upcoming webinar that’s not just free – but also by Keith Ferrazi, author of Never Eat Alone,…
I’m A Smiling Lawyer – Are You?
I’ve always been a smiling lawyer. During the later round of my first year moot court competition (where I made it, out of 80 students, to the finals!), one of the judges told me that he appreciated my smile when I started my argument and since then, I’ve always smiled in court, to juries and…
What’s the Hourly Cost of Running Your Office?
Have you ever sat down and calculated how much it costs per hour to run your law office? I haven’t (though I know what my overhead and expenses are from my tax returns, just haven’t reduced them to an hourly rate). Yet it seems that most of us ought to know that number off the…