My Shingle

January 2006

Tips for Working At Home

January 24, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Home Office Lawyer -Guru Grant Griffith shares these tips from  LifeHack on how to improve productivity working from home.  Tips include setting up a designated work area, setting a schedule and avoid volunteering for too many activities because people assume that when you work at home, you have more free time. Check out the post [...]

Read more Law Practice Management 1 comment

Ethics in Chat Rooms

January 22, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Jon Stein posts a link to an article concerning the ethics of trolling for clients in online chat rooms under California law.  As you might expect, there are no clear cut answers; basically, you ability to ethically solicit clients in a chatroom depends upon the type of chatroom involved and whether participants have an expectation [...]

Read more Ethics & Malpractice Issues 4 comments

A Culture of Unethical Conduct

January 22, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

This article, Did Barnes Firm Lawyer Tell the Whole Truth?, Michael Beebe, 1/22/06 reports on somewhat deceptive advertising by Thomas Goldstein, a lawyer with Cellino and Barnes, who advertised that he was uniquely qualified to handle Vioxx cases in light of his status as a former physician.  Trouble was, the ads didn’t explain why Goldstein [...]

Read more Ethics & Malpractice Issues 1 comment

New Mexico Joins Casemaker

January 22, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

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 [...]

Read more Legal Profession Trends 0 comments

MyShingle Website of the Week

January 19, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Jim Calloway has generously named MyShingle as his website of the week, notwithstanding his perception that I sometimes have a negative view of bar associations.  I’d like to clarify.  Generally, I’ve lauded the bars for programs like these that help solo and small firm practice law.  Likewise, I’m a huge fan of the work that [...]

Read more Law Practice Management 2 comments

Opinionistas Might Be Sexy, But GAL Is Real

January 19, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

The recent outing of formerly anonymous Opinionistas as biglaw associate Melissa Lafsky , close on the heels of the reveal of David Lat as Underneath Their Robes and Jeremy Blachman as Anonymous Lawyer has Orin Kerr wondering whether the trend of blogging anonymously and snagging a book deal might provide a a new career path [...]

Read more Biglaw Practice and Issues 6 comments

Do What You Love

January 19, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Via Stay of Execution and Rob Hyndman comes this link to a great piece by Paul Graham on How to Do What You Love.   Because after all, that advice to “do what you love” is easy, it’s finding what you love and figuring out how to do it that’s a life work.

Read more Finding Your Passion 4 comments

More on Why Niches Are Delicious

January 19, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

As I pointed out in this earlier post, finding a niche can help grow your practice.  And, as Tom Kane pointed out months ago (don’t know how I missed it), a niche can help a solo survive in the big city.  And now, there’s yet another article, Finding a Niche (Jan. 2006) that describes how [...]

Read more Business Models 8 comments

Shingler’s Billable Hour Hits the Big Time

January 17, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Fellow shingler Lisa Solomon’s ‘s company, The Billable Hour, that she runs with her lawyer-husband Mark has hit the bigtime with this press the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.  It’s sure to get lots of reads, as it  mentions the recent  unveiling of formerly anonymous law blogger,  Opinionistas.

Read more Announcements 2 comments

Guest Post: LLC As A Business Structure for Shinglers

January 16, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Fellow shingler Frank Yunes (www.yunes.org), a trusts and estates attorney from Lexington, MA has an idea for a New Year’s Resolution [which I have not been timely in posting - CE] Frank writes: I just finished the process of forming a single-member LLC for my law firm. I wonder how many of us out there [...]

Read more Business Plans 314 comments

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →