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Big Law/Small Law

Free Teleseminar December 15: From Big Law to Your Law, 3 Years Later

December 8, 2011 by Carolyn Elefant

Three years ago, before the bottom fell out of big law, I offered one of my most successful free teleseminars ever, From Big Law to Your Law. Back at the end of 2008, most folks thought that the downturn (just 1742 layoffs) was just another market correction of the variety we’d seen in the early [...]

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Solos Take on the World!

April 3, 2011 by Carolyn Elefant

If you think that global practice is the exclusive domain of behemoth law firms, think again. These days, there’s more opportunities for solos to go global than ever before, as I write in my piece, at The Xemplar, entitledA Whole New World for Solos that begins like this: While many large, national U.S. firms are [...]

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Memo to SmallLaw: You Don’t Own Small Law!

February 28, 2011 by Carolyn Elefant

This morning, I learned that Technolawyer.com through biglaw bully firm, Fish & Richardson, is demanding that the Lawyerist blog take down a recent post using the term small law, charging that this usage creates confusion with Technolawyer’s trademarked term SmallLaw.  Though as a courtesy, I’ve attempted to make contact with Neil Squillante of Technolawyer prior [...]

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I Am Not An Entrepreneur…My Answer to the Most Important Question for Solo Lawyers

February 25, 2011 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at his new gig at Above the Law, my blogging colleague and law firm founder/owner Jay Shepherd poses the penultimate question to prospective shinglers:  Do you want to run a business, or do you want to practice law? For Jay, there’s only one right answer: if you want to start a law firm, you’ve [...]

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Solos Can Provide Cover to DLA Piper Clients Who Can’t Pay Its $200k Cover

February 8, 2011 by Carolyn Elefant

So, last week’s big blogosphere news was that the DLAPiper, the world’s largest law firm has announced a mandatory minimum $200,000 annual cover charge for clients. New clients unwilling to commit to spending $200,000 annually on fees won’t be served, while existing clients who don’t meet the minimum billings requirement may be asked to leave. [...]

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Why It Matters That Solos Aren’t the Main Event

September 20, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Bruce Macewen’s blog Adam Smith, Esq. is to big law practice what this blog, on its best days, aspires to be for solos and small firms.  Always substantive, always skeptical (one of a minority of credible law practice management types who didn’t unquestioningly embrace Richard Susskind) and always spot-on (read his series on business models [...]

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Biglaw to Yourlaw: A Trend, But Nothing New

August 25, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Earlier this month, both Slate and Crains New York carried articles describing the recent trend of biglaw attorneys starting their own practices. Summarizing these articles, an Above the Law post called the biglaw to yourlaw move a “new trend.” Not. Well, not if you’re a regular reader of this blog, anyway. I’ve been documenting the [...]

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Can Outsourcing Innovation Make Biglaw Firms Heros?

May 12, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

I’ve been enthralled by the concept of large firms outsourcing innovation to small fry ever since I first posted about the topic in 2008.  As I describe (very rapidly!) in myIgniteLaw presentation, outsourcing innovation is a win-win for both sides of the bar:  the big firm gets the benefit of a new practice area at a [...]

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Thank You, Justice Scalia for Remembering Who Pays (the Client!) for the Vanity Footnote

March 14, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

If you’re a solo or small firm lawyer who litigates against biglaw, you’re probably familiar with the vanity footnote — that smug, yet entirely superfluous annotation to legislative history, obscure law review article, treatise or string citation included in many large firm briefs.  Though intended to corroborate a case cited in the text or flaunt [...]

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