Archive for March 2012
Don’t Let Not Having An Office Deter You From Your Dream of Starting A Practice
After reading the recent posts and ensuing discussion on the perennial question of home office versus rental office over at Lawyerist and Above the Law , feels like it’s deja- Foonberg all over again. Because just like Foonberg, both Tannebaum at ATL and most of commenters on Josh Camson’s Lawyerist post uniformly maintain that Renting…
Read MoreCash Mobs Put the Hype in Hyper Local Lawyering
This past summer, I twice spoke about how hyper-local lawyering can save solos from the demise-by-automation predicted by Richard Susskind in the End of Lawyers. The long arm of technology may be powerful but it lacks the dexterity to crack local markets as effectively as personal relationships. Plus, lawyers have traditionally acted as pillars of…
Read MoreTake My Advice: Look Before You Advise
A lawyer’s advice may be his stock in trade, to quote a famous solo, Abraham Lincoln. But today, the reverse is apparently true: “legaladvice” is nothing more than a trade name (and a generic one at best) for aspiring lawyerpreneurs to stock up on.At least, that seems to be the view held by two lawyer-preneurs…
Read MoreIs It Really Sayonara to Biglaw This Time?…
It’s been at least eight years and counting since I first started documenting the Biglaw to Small Law trend. Seven years of preaching over and over and over again, about the benefits that solo and small firms can bring to big firm clients, from lower costs to fewer conflicts to more personalized service to superior quality…
Read MoreMyShingle Follow Ups: Tech Choices & Business Cards
I’m looking forward to the 2012 ABA Tech Show where I’ll be covering various sessions relevant to solos, including cloud choices for solos and how solos can build a virtual team. If you have any other sessions that you’d like me to summarize on Friday or Saturday (I’ve got a conflict Thursday), please let me…
Read MoreThe Start Ups That Give Access to Justice Are Already Here
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 MoreBook Review: The Freelance Lawyering Manual
I wrote the foreword for Kimberly Alderman’s new book, the Freelance Lawyering Manual in the hopes that law firms on one hand, and unemployed attorneys and re-entering parents on the other will take a fresh look at freelance lawyering in the 21st century. Unlike most things in law — and life, freelance lawyering, represents a…
Read MoreThe Solo Lawyer Tax
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.…
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