My Shingle

February 2007

Solo At 75

February 26, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

I was about to post on  this article from the Washington Post on former federal judge and biglaw partner Stanley Sporkin, who’s just started his own law firm, but I saw that Susan Cartier Liebel beat me to the scoop. Though Sporkin expressed enthusiasm about his new venture, I wonder whether seventy five year old [...]

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Technolawyer Ad: A Tip for Solo Law Firms, But Is This Fair Advertising

February 26, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Via Denise Howell comes word of this well done ad by Neil Squillante of Technolawyer.  The ad, entitled "When Google Fails You," is set up with  a new solo is looking for reviews on case management, but has no luck on Google, so he follows a lead to the Technolawyer archives.  However, as Denise points [...]

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Don’t Slash and Burn, Just Slash

February 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Used to be that career advice tended towards the absolute.  Women at biglaw were basically advised that if they weren’t willing to work 80 hour weeks after having kids that they’d have no future at the firm.  So many left entirely, not recognizing the possibility for a happy medium.  And on the listserves that I [...]

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Attention: RFP FOR PRO BONO SERVICE BY SMALL LAW FIRM. Honestly, do you think a large firm would respond?

February 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Imagine that your law firm issues the following Request for Proposals: Busy solo practitioner seeking large firm to partner on pro bono matters for small, walk in clients with no funds to retain an attorney at full rates.  Firm must turn these clients down in the absence of pro bono support.  Matters include messy family [...]

Read more Biglaw Practice and Issues 4 comments

Is Small the New Big: A Reprisal, Two Years Later

February 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

If you hang around the blogosphere long enough, you’ll bump against the same themes but with a different spin.  Back in June 2005, I first posted on whether small is the new big, applying some of the themes from Seth Godin’s book of the same name.  This week the discussion on small as the new [...]

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A Handbook on the Risks of e-Lawyering

February 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at my beat at Legal Blogwatch, I posted a link to a free online handbook created by Chubb Insurance on the Risks of e-Lawyering.  The handbook, available here offers lots of tips to avoid running afoul of ethics rules in the age of technology, such as how to guard against inadvertently creating an attorney-client [...]

Read more Ethics & Malpractice Issues 1 comment

Share Your PowerPoint Online: A Cool New Tool

February 21, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

A decade ago, back in the dark ages of the Internet, I’d often put presentations that I delivered at conferences into HTML so that I could readily display them on my website (check out this old chestnut on using the Internet for legal research, circa 1997 – it predated Google!).  Posting a PowerPoint presentation online [...]

Read more Tech & Web 38 comments

A Solo Who Inspired

February 21, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Many people dream of starting a law firm to make money or achieve work-life balance, but for me, it’s always been about immortality:  finding a way to leave my own little, but indelible mark on the law.  I’m still working hard on that goal, but if you want to get a sense of the heights [...]

Read more Celebrating Solos 3 comments

Real Life Marketing and Client Service Lessons, Courtesy of Jet Blue

February 21, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Even after practicing law for 18 years, underneath my general air of confidence and my excess precaution with much of what I do lies a deep fear that at any minute, I could screw up in a major, big time way.  But now, courtesy of Jet Blue, there’s a lesson from the school of real [...]

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GAL – I Knew Him When….And So Did Many Others

February 14, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Finally, Enrico Schaefer has revealed himself as the Greatest American Lawyer.  I’ve known Enrico for a while now, ever since he sent me an email in the early days of My Shingle before he launched his successful law firm and blog.  And in April 2005, I met Enrico at the first LexThink conference and had [...]

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