My Shingle

June 2006

Who Do These New York Bar Rules Target – Let’s Not Kid Ourselves

June 17, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

I have to confess that when I initially heard about New York’s proposed gag rule on attorney advertising, I suspected that it was just another way to perpetuate the biglaw/smallfirm double standard by targeting forms of advertising like websites and weblogs that have proven especially beneficial for small law firms.  And indeed, Dennis Kennedy fears [...]

Read more Big Law/Small Law 18 comments

That’s My Client…I Knew Him When…

June 17, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

It’s not often that practice areas like family law, primarily the province of solo and small law firms merit attention from a legal commentator of Dahlia Lithwick‘s stature.  But Lithwick tackles issues like the problems with an adversarial family court system and how well you really know your clients in her op-ed piece in the [...]

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Telephone Talk

June 17, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Jim Calloway has a great post on one of the unanswered (pun intended!) questions concerning solo practice:  what’s the best system for answering the phone?  Jim’s post summarizes the pros and cons of (a) outsourcing to a live answering service (uneven quality and costly); (b) using paid employee (who may be low paid and unmotivated) [...]

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Take an Expert’s Advice on Price

June 16, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

I may be a solo who runs an established blog for other solos.  I’m an expert on my own practice and what works for me.  But I’m the first to admit that what works for me may not be optimal for others.  So if you want to get a broader perspective on matters like pricing [...]

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Can Solo Practice Make You Open Your Mouth?

June 15, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Each week, the ABA e-report has been featuring some of the runner up entries in its Ross Essay Contest.  One of this week’s essays, Opening My Mouth by Elizabeth Streit caught my eye.  Streit doesn’t write about solo practice; she’s a government litigator.  But what she’s written about how government practice transformed her life as [...]

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Have an Octopus Carry Your Files

June 15, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

I don’t usually post about products that I’ve not tested personally.  But this new file carrying strap, The Octopus which creator Jessica Hirsch brought to my attention, looks so neat and elegant that it seemed worth mentioning.  Basically, the Octopus is a more sophisticated version of a book strap, which is how some of my [...]

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New Women’s Firm Provides Family Friendly Service

June 15, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

This short blurb from the Nashville Business Journal (6/12/06) announces the formation of an all female law firm, the Harpeth Law Group, comprised of Kristi Dearwood, Caitlin Noe Moon and Christina Ferrell Daugherty.  The announcement states that the firm “is billing itself as a provider of “family-friendly” legal services.”  And according to the website, the [...]

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Hey Biglaw – A Reprisal

June 13, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Yesterday brought two Supreme Court decisions granting last minute relief to two death row prisoners.  And equally important, at least one of the cases brought vindication to solo practitioners who handle death row appeals.  Clarence Hill, defendant in Hill v. McDonough (holding that a defendant can bring a Section 1983 challenge to lethal injection even [...]

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Three Friday Freebies for Solos

June 9, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Here are three, terrific freebies for solos that have come through my email in the past week or so.  They are: 1.  Lisa Solomon of Question of Law and The Billable Hour has posted the free webinar that she organized a few weeks back, Blogging for Lawyers, featuring Grant Griffiths.  And state tuned for when [...]

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Judges Applying the Biglaw/Solo Double Standard

June 8, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Sure, I don’t like when the state bar grievance committees apply a double standard between biglaw and solos when it comes to lawyer discipline or ethics rules on networking.  And I understand when many ABA honchos are completely out of touch with solos’ abilities or that biglaw attorneys on the NACDL Board who want to [...]

Read more Big Law/Small Law 2 comments

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