My Shingle

August 2010

What If Your Retainer Agreement Could Look Like This?

August 18, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Credit Card Agreement After reading this post at the Public Citizens Law & Policy Blog (H/T Legal Blogwatch) about simplicity guru Alan Siegel’s efforts to cleanse the gobbledygook from consumer agreements, my first thought was that if Siegel succeeds, then Minneapolis, Minnesota solo lawyer and bloggerGraham Martinwill have to find another topic to replace his [...]

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One, Two, Free: Excerpts from My Plenary on Free

August 17, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

I was honored to deliver a plenary talk on the second day of the most excellent Minnesota Solo & Small Firm Strategic Solutions Conference. Though I know that lots of people prefer talks that offer straight-up marketing advice, I took a slightly different tactic, with a presentation entitled “One, Two, Free: Endless Challenges and Unlimited [...]

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ABA Annual Conference: Big on Fear, Short on Fervor

August 17, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Lawyers Practicing in Darwinian Times! Legal Profession in Turmoil! These doomsday headlines weren’t plucked from some over-the-top law blog. Rather, they’re the titles of the plenaries by the ABA’s former top honcho, Carolyn Lamm and invited guest speaker, Harvard Law professor David Wilkes at last week’s ABA’s come-to-Jesus meeting Annual Convention. I realize that that [...]

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Small Firms With Biglaw Tech

August 16, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Like most firms of its size (400 lawyers), Ohio-based firm Thompson Hine employs technology to serve clients. In fact, Thompson Hine uses its investment in technology as a selling point, with a dedicated section of the firm’s website devoted to a description of how the firm employs technology to support the firm’s lawyers and serve [...]

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The Defense for Starting A Criminal Law Practice Out of Law School

August 13, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

I’ll admit that I’ve always had mixed feelings on the question of whether to solo straight out of law school. As I explained in this early post, from my perspective, it made sense for new grads with no work history and with significant student loan debt to take a paying job if only for a [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy 14 comments

Solo Tech on the Road In Solos in The Heartland (Thanks, RocketMatter!)

August 4, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

In part of my ongoing series on how today’s solos are using technology, I thought I’d share this video where my Solos in the Heartland/Solo Corp travel companion Lisa Solomon and I have been making the most of mobile technology to stay productive on our six and a half hour drive from Minneapolis, Minnesota to [...]

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At the Minnesota Conference – Solos in the Heartland – Thanks RocketMatter

August 2, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Here are the first three videos from the Solos in the Heartland Tour, with Question of Law . Thank you to our sponsor, Rocket Matter which is supporting the project. The ABA Legal Rebels site is covering the trip here. Here are the first three embedded videos. We’ll be curating them at a separate platform [...]

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