My Shingle

February 2012

Guest Post: Six Month Solo

February 29, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

The following is a guest post by Carl, a New Jersey Divorce Attorney who six months ago hung a shingle. Perhaps some of you remember my guest post on “the first week of going solo.” It’s hard to believe I wrote that only six months ago. At the time, Carolyn suggested that perhaps I could [...]

Read more Encouragement 3 comments

Advice on Giving Legal Advice

February 23, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

When does educational marketing cross the line into legal advice? In an era of increased consumer hunger for information online and the rise of crowdsourced advice sites, understanding what types of communications constitute legal advice is a critical matter — and one which Brian Tannebaum addresses at My Law License. Brian’s post has also generated [...]

Read more Client Relations 19 comments

Online, things are seldom what they seem…

February 21, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

This past Saturday, I drove a brand-new Mercedes to the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA) Hanging a Shingle Day. Though I may have looked plenty fancy, the car cost me just twenty bucks a day to rent (our family van is out of commission right now and I didn’t want to leave my husband car-less). [...]

Read more MyShingle Solo 10 comments

Andrea McCarren, the Death of the First Amendment and When Our Jobs Collide With Our Kids

February 16, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

So the big news on my Bethesda Chevy Chase High (BCC) School PTSA Listserve is that local television journalist, Andrea McCarren has withdrawn from coverage of underage drinking in Montgomery County, Maryland following a backlash which included criticism of the reports on the television station’s website and bullying and threats against McCarren’s children attend BCC [...]

Read more Parents Who Practice 2 comments

Five Things Lawyers and Bloggers Can Learn from Scott Greenfield

February 15, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

I know that there’s nothing more that my colleague, co-defendant and  blogger-in-abeyance  Scott Greenfield would have hated than becoming the metaphorical subject of a formulaic blog post along the lines of Top Lessons Lawyers Can Learn from Zappos, food bloggers,  the Muppets or some other seemingly irrelevant analogy.  Well, sorry my friend but now that you’re [...]

Read more MyShingle Solo 4 comments

It’s Never Too Late to Start a Solo Practice

February 15, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Solo practice isn’t just for the young or the new attorney. Many seasoned veterans who’ve spent their entire career at a government position or a large law firm secretly harbor dreams about starting their own practice. Others who have devoted their career to a firm now find themselves out on the street with few options except [...]

Read more Biglaw to Solo 4 comments

Twitter and Other People’s Privacy

February 14, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

This Saturday, February 18, 2012, I’ll be attending the Maryland State Bar Association’s Hanging a Shingle program. I’m participating not as a speaker (not asked) or as a way to promote my books, Solo by Choice or Social Media for Lawyers or this blog (I can’t, since the MSBA endorses neither), but simply as a [...]

Read more MyShingle Solo 3 comments

Make Your Own Groupon: Sell One, Donate One

February 10, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

While some may disagree, I stand by my original opinion that Groupon isn’t a great way for lawyers to market legal services. As I noted in the comments, a business model that requires any provider to share 50 percent of already deeply discount services doesn’t strike me as a viable business or marketing model, irrespective [...]

Read more New Marketing Ideas 2 comments

Third Verse, Same as the First – Outsourcing Marketing = Outsourcing Ethics

February 8, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Eric Turkewitz said it first, years ago, and still, no one’s listening. Most recently, a fairly new South Carolina attorney disobeyed the legal profession’s equivalent of the law of gravity, outsourcing marketing = outsourcing ethics. And just as ignoring the gravity or pretending that it doesn’t exist will send anyone but a fantasy character tumbling, [...]

Read more Ethics & Malpractice Issues 4 comments

Be the Lawyer Who Sits on the Toilet Seat

February 6, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

During the last week of my dad’s life, my sisters, mom and I experienced the best and worst of the medical profession. The lowest point came mid-way through my father’s last week, when my mother and I were accosted in the public lounge outside the intensive care unit (ICU) by one of the doctors who [...]

Read more Client Service 7 comments

← Previous Entries