Improvements Coming for NY Solos and Their Clients

A couple of years back, we posted about  New York’s formation of a committee to examine difficulties facing solo practitioners.  As this article describes, the Committee’s Report has now issued, recommending a variety of chances including improving the efficiency of calendar calls and scheduling conferences which often waste solos’ time on waiting and figuring out ways to "to strengthen lawyer professionalism and law office economics support." (I’ve not yet seen the report which is 95 pages).  The report also recognized that many facially neutral policies adversely impact solos – a topic that I’ve been harping on here at MyShingle for over three years. 

While I don’t like the sound of the goal of "strengthening lawyer professionalism" (which to me is a code for disciplining more solos or forcing us to pay for and sit through CLE), I’m encouraged by the move to make courts more efficient.  At the end of the day,  it’s really not us solos who suffer by waiting – it’s our clients, who lose work time or pay higher fees.