My Shingle

Work Life Balance

Been on Vacation — and Off the Grid!

August 11, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Sorry for the silence here at My Shingle – I’ve been on a long awaited vacation this week (and here’s the proof!). I know that many bloggers often leave a stock of blog posts to auto-post while they’re away, but I prefer real time postings (anything else is too much like a newspaper article to [...]

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Yes, You Can Solo Part Time

June 29, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Conventional wisdom used to be that if you’re going to succeed as a solo, you need to jump in with both feet. But the one rule of solo practice is that there are no rules, only millions of exceptions. And here’s one of those exceptions: Danielle Colyer, a teacher by day, busy real estate attorney [...]

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Does work-life balance mean we need to settle for a B+?

March 16, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

My colleague and fellow solo blogger, Jill Pugh Employment Law Blog tipped me off to an interesting new resource, Ms-JD to address the growing number of women leaving the legal profession or failing to reach the upper echelons of the profession. The site seems promising, though thus far, there’s little mention of the law firm [...]

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Partners in love and law

March 16, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

We all know the song, Lawyers in Love, but did you ever wonder what happens to lawyers in love? With many of the dual lawyer couples whom I knew from the law school, once the couple had children, the woman either left the law or went on to an alternative career like teaching, while the [...]

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Quality of Life Tips

April 25, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

The ABA GP Section just posted a list of quality of life resources that offer information on work-family balance, de-stressing and some silling “time wasters.”  In the three years that I’ve been blogging MyShingle, I’ve noticed a proliferation in work balance resources, but not much improvement on the part of lawyers to strike a better [...]

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Wisdom from a Chicago Solo

February 19, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Peter Olson, Solo in Chicago expresses the sentiments that drove many of us to solo and small firm practice in this post. And Peter offers a follow up link to an article from NALP on achieving work life balance.

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The Blackberry: A Short Leash or Liberation?

December 28, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

It’s interesting how mobile technologies, like the cell phone or Blackberry, pager or laptop can serve as a leash or as liberation, depending on context.  This article, Blackberry:  High tech Ball and Chain for Lawyers, Boston Globe (12/22/05) reveals that law firm Burns & Levinson uses Blackberries to keep lawyers on a tight leash, always [...]

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Yes, You Can Be A Part Time Shingler

December 11, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

Solo Wannabee wonders whether you can start a law practice part time.  Surprisingly, the conventional wisdom on this question is no, that solo practice demands full time commitment to make it and that client demands are full time.  But that’s not my view.  As I’ve said before, there are as many right ways to hang [...]

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What Business Expenses Are Too High For You?

September 3, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

Matt Homann of Non Billable Hour has run his cost benefit analysis and gives us his conclusions here: Poor health and strained family relations are both “business expenses” I’m unwilling to pay. Are you willing to pay that price?

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Starting A Firm May Be the Only Escape from Biglaw Culture

July 7, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

Tony DiRomualdo has this interesting article, Why Corporate Culture Counts, at the Wisconsin Technology Network. (7/7/05) that discusses the relationship between corporate culture and values.  He identifies examples of companies like Southwest, where positive corporate culture boosts employee morale, giving the company a leg up on competition.  But on the other side of the scale, [...]

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