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Judge Easterbrook Slights Solos – But Solos Also Spite Themselves

May 18, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Just like comedian Rodney Dangerfield, seems that solo and small lawyers just can’t get no respect from the federal courts. Only the slight to solos by federal judges is no laughing matter not just for us solo and small firm appellate lawyers but more importantly, for our clients. The latest round of elitism and reduced [...]

Read more Courts & Practice 4 comments

My Avvo Talk: 6 Start-Up Tech Trends That Start-Up Lawyers Need to Connect With Clients

May 10, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Six Start-Up Technology Trends That Start Up Lawyers Can Use View more presentations from Carolyn Elefant. I’ve uploaded my slide deck from my talk at Avvocating Avvo presentation (with some glitches in the translation) – and you can see my slides (hopefully in better format) and those by the other speakers at Avvo’s Lawyer-nomics Blog. [...]

Read more Marketing & Making Money 3 comments

Who you calling unethical, Warren Boroson? Please stop picking on solo lawyers!

May 8, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

In an era of  lawyer bashing,NJ Columnist Warren Boroson’s piece Why Every Middle Class Family Needs a Lawyer  could have been an important educational reminder why lawyers still matter.  And while in truth, Boroson’s article makes that case, Boroson does a far greater disservice by advising readers to “avoid solo practitioners” when hiring lawyers. Boroson’s [...]

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Late Nights With Maury [Maurice Sendak]

May 8, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Today’s NYT Obituary pays tribute to Maurice Sendak as the children’s author who “wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche.” Maybe so from a critical perspective, but not for those of us who listened [...]

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Avvocating Conference: A Great Event & A Class Act

May 7, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Last week, I spoke at Avvocating 2012 (my deck will go up tomorrow; also, full disclosure- Avvo paid my travel to the conference) Much to my own surprise, I’d have to rank it as one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. Yes, Avvocating was a marketing conference and didn’t pretend to be anything other [...]

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NY’s New Pro Bono Requirement Discriminates Against Solos And is Unfair to New Lawyers

May 2, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

File this one under what were they thinking. Now, as a condition of gaining admission to the New York Bar, new graduates (and presumably, new admittees from other jurisdictions) must perform 50 hours of pro bono work, reports the New York Law Journal. There’s so much wrong with this proposal that I scarcely know where [...]

Read more MyShingle Solo 14 comments

I Am the Sole Solo on the 2012 Washington D.C. Energy & Natural Resources Superlawyers

May 1, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

  Carolyn Elefant visit superlawyers.com I do not often post about myself or my practice. What you need to know about me can be found here. But for a couple of reasons, I’ve decided to share news of my recent inclusion in Superlawyers (for what that ranking or any other is worth): First, every so [...]

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The Future of Law Wasn’t At Tech Show…

April 6, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Last month, I saw the future of law — and it wasn’t at Tech Show. Rather, it was at a panel on hanging a shingle that I was honored to moderate, held in a sparsely populated classroom at Drexel Law School in Philadelphia the last week in March. The future that I saw at that [...]

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The Start Ups That Give Access to Justice Are Already Here

March 22, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Initially, I was excited when I saw this headline, Meet the startups that are giving everyone affordable access to justice. Great, I thought — an article that finally recognizes what solos — who are, after all, start-up lawyers – are doing to ensure that meaningful access to justice isn’t reserved for deep-pockets. But after a [...]

Read more MyShingle Solo 3 comments

The Solo Lawyer Tax

March 6, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Sometimes, it just plain sucks being a solo. (Yes, you actually read that at MyShingle!) Not only must solos suffer the indignity of getting paid less in cases where they outperform their big firm colleagues, but in many instances, solos also pay more for products and services than larger firms. Call it the solo tax. [...]

Read more Legal Research and Writing 5 comments

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