My Shingle

July 2007

What Solos Can Learn From The Recent Obesity Study

July 26, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

As you’ve probably heard on the news by now, turns out that obesity isn’t exclusively hereditary; it’s also socially contagious (US News, 7/25/07). A recent study to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that if you’re close friends with people who are obese, you’re more likely to gain weight yourself either [...]

Read more Encouragement 7 comments

Building Relationships as a Way to Market

July 25, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

At my Legal Blogwatch beat, I posted here about marketing through building relationships with other lawyers and prospective and existing clients. As I discuss, one tool that is faciliating relationship building is Face Book – so maybe it’s time that you got yourself an account.

Read more Marketing & Making Money 3 comments

The ABA Gets It Right

July 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Under the leadership of reasonably new ABA Journal editor Ed Abrams, the ABA has finally provided a really useful product with the newly launched, online ABA Journal. The site makes ABA Journal articles and legal news available, and also contains one of the best topical blawg directories that I’ve ever seen. I realize that the [...]

Read more Articles 152 comments

The Problem With the Billable Hour…Or the Problem With Lawyers?

July 24, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Novelist and lawyer Scott Turow takes aim at the billable hour in this provocative piece, The Billable Hour Must Die, featured as (of all places!) the cover story of this month’s ABA Journal (more on the redesign in another post). Turow acknowleges the usual litany of criticisms of the billable hour: the toll that the [...]

Read more Business Models 14 comments

The Three Year Rule – er, Guidepost

July 8, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

When it comes to building a law practice, I don’t like to use the word “rule,” because for every rule – e.g., “You must never work for free” or “You must commit to building a firm full time,” there are always plenty of exceptions. Still, based on others’ experience, you can glean certain guideposts or [...]

Read more Growing Your Practice 3 comments

Building an Innovative Law Firm: A How To With An Innovative Power Point

July 8, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

I haven’t been checking in to Matt Homann’s Non-Billable Hour site recently, which is a shame, because I nearly missed this amazing presentation on Building An Innovative Law Firm. Matt makes the presentation available using Slideshare, a very cool tool that I recommended back here back in February that allows you to embed a Power [...]

Read more Tech Resources 1 comment

The Other Side of Solo Practice

July 6, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

It’s difficult to fully respond to an article like this one, The Snark: Flying solothat discusses the drawbacks of solo practice because I can’t decide whether the author is trying to be funny or is truly pathetic, and pathetically uninformed. Basically, the article is intended to discourage unhappy associates from making the mistake of starting [...]

Read more Big Law/Small Law 12 comments