My Shingle

From the monthly archives:

August 2006

New Orleans Solos, One Year Later

August 30, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

A year ago, Hurricane Katrina reminded all of us solos of the somber side of solo practice; how everything we’ve worked to build can be wiped out in an instant.  Sad to say, a year later, some solos are still struggling to get back on their feet, as reported in  Uneasy Times for Lawyers in [...]

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You Get the Clients You Market For

August 30, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Via Ernie the Attorney comes this link to a provocative You Tube ad by Florida divorce attorney Steve Miller (posted at Denise Howell’s new fun blog).  After insulting paralegals, overpriced downtown lawyers and court clerks, Miller invites clients who want to escape "the hellhole they call a marriage" to visit his website, pay up and [...]

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New Year

August 30, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Today was my daughters’ first day of school, full of anticipation and excitement.  As for me, I’ll be resuming my longer work days now that they don’t return home until after 4.

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What Makes A Fee Unreasonable?

August 28, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Many lawyers (with this notable exception) believe that the 1/3 contingency fee is reasonable and that any fee agreed to between a willing client and an attorney is also reasonable.  But in this recent story, Attorney’s 9/11 Fee Called "Shocking, Unconscionable" (law.com 8/28/06), lawyer Tom Troiano had a valid retainer agreement that provided for 1/3 [...]

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Real Sisters In Law

August 28, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Sisters don’t have to marry a pair of brothers to become sisters in law to each other.  As this article, Sisters in law:  Siblings Keep legal matters all in the family (Arizona Business Gazette 8/24/06), sisters Hope Kirsch and Lori Kirsch-Goodwin became sisters in law (or sisters at law)  when they decided to hang out [...]

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Small Is The New Big and Chat With Seth Godin

August 23, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

I haven’t yet read Seth Godin’s new book, Small Is the New Big, though of course, I linked to Godin’s article of the same name  when it came out.  Next week, Type Pad will release the August 22 chat with Godin via Podcast.  If any readers participated, I’d love to hear the scoop in the [...]

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Great Advertising for Small Firms

August 23, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

If you want to sell a small business on using your small firm instead of a large, impersonal firm, I can think of no better marketing than this post from Ed Wesemann who describes, bluntly, what small clients really mean to big firms.

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You Can Take It [Biglaw Practice] With You

August 16, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Many large firm lawyers think that if they hang a shingle. they’ll have to throw away their biglaw specialities, like securities regulation or merger practice and trade it in for more general practice fare, like family law or criminal practice.  But at least one solo attorney, Walter James, of the newly created Environmental Crimes Blog [...]

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Finding a Way to Do What You Love, Even If What You Love Is Watching TV

August 13, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

This isn’t a post that directly relates to solo practice, though the lessons that it offers will apply.  Instead, it’s about the serendipitous way that your passions can lead you to a job that truly fits – which is something that many of us have in fact found in solo practice.
Consider this New York Times [...]

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How Continuing Legal Education Can Continue To Help You Make Money?

August 13, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

The problem with having less time to write blog posts also means that I have less time to read them.  Which is a shame, because in just a few days off the aggregator, I miss so much, including the recent, terrific string of postings by Peter Olson of Solo in Chicago.  One neat idea that [...]

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