My Shingle

July 2009

When Should You Make “The Big Reveal?”

July 31, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

In dating, it’s known as "the big reveal" – the point in an emerging relationship where both participants put everything out on the table, from old flames to skeletons in the closet to religious preferences and desire for marriage and children.  Deciding when to make the big reveal is tricky.  Disclose too soon and you [...]

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The Other Side of the Story on The Lawyer Who Represented Himself

July 26, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

Last week, I posted here about Denver lawyer, Mark Brennan, harshly criticizing him for representing himself in a before a disciplinary board that is threatening to pull Brennan’s license for doing nothing more than zealously representing his client and achieving an outstanding result.  In the post, I agreed that the Board’s complaint was unjustified, but [...]

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Biglaw Free and the Solo

July 26, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

Update: For more interesting perspectives on Free, check out Ken Adams at Adams Drafting, Doug Cornelius at Compliance Building, Jordan Furlong at Law 21 and Jay Parkhill of Start Up Tool Box. A few weeks back, I read Chris Anderson’s book, Free which is also available free in a variety of formats, including a sponsored [...]

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Good Luck on The Bar Exam: It’s Your First Taste of the Practice of Law

July 23, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

No one could ever accuse the bar exam of testing lawyers on issues that they’re likely to encounter in practice.  After all, how many times do you get a client accused of murder when he accidentally discharged a handgun at the precise moment that a suicidal person happened to leap off the building and fall [...]

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Fee for Advice Sites Pose Traps for the Unwary

July 22, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

Originally, I intended to simply file an approving comment on Simple Justice blogger Scott Greenfield’s cautionary expose about Law Guru, but Scott’s post is so important, that it demands additional circulation.  Scott reports on a new initiative by Law Guru.com to compensate lawyers for answers that they provide in response to questions posed by the [...]

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Why Is This Lawyer Representing Himself At A Disciplinary Proceeding?

July 22, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

  IMPORTANT  – POST UPDATED HERE -The Other Side of the Story By all accounts, Denver lawyer Mark Brennan was treated badly.  Last year, he won a verdict for his client in federal court, only to have it snatched away by the judge, as a sanction for Brennan’s inappropriate and outrageous conduct during the trial.  Though I [...]

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Risking a Law License for $125 A Pop

July 21, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

File this story under “What were they thinking?”  That was my first reaction when I read this disciplinary decision, Cincinnati Bar Association v. Mullaney, in which three lawyers were sanctioned  for partnering up with Foreclosure Solutions, a non-lawyer company which referred the lawyers foreclosure cases (yes, that’s right – cases where folks were about to [...]

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Handling Biglaw Practice Areas on a Budget

July 14, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

With many biglaw attorneys now considering solo practice, I wanted to list a couple of ideas and resources to procure biglaw practice tools on a budget.  For most consumer practice areas, such as family law, bankruptcy, trusts and estates, new solos can find a cornucopia of low cost practice tools, such as pro bono training [...]

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Legal Research for Solos: A Round-Up

July 14, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

Back in the dark ages when I started my firm, the only legal research options available were the library and a $600/month LEXIS subscription service, which actually had a cap on number of searches.  Fast forward fifteen years and Lexis costs have declined considerably, though not as much as one might expect in light of [...]

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Shingular Sensation Eugene Lee Vindicates Discharged Doctor With $500,000 Verdict in Employment Discrimination Case Against Kern County

July 13, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

JADWIN v. COUNTY OF KERN, Docket No. 1:07-CV-00026 (ED Calif) may have been Los Angeles, California employment rights solo Eugene Lee’s first jury trial (indeed, his first trial of any kind).  But the $500,000+ verdict that Lee won for his client, Dr. David Jadwin — who’d been terminated from his position in retaliation for bringing [...]

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