Future & Trends

Yesterday, the ABA released Opinion 498 on Virtual Law Practice.  A year into the pandemic, the ABA opinion attempts to make virtual practice seem like a big scary monster that lawyers should avoid if possible or approach with so much fear that they’re doomed to failure from the start. What a wasted opportunity.  Because if…

Earlier this month, the ABA Commission on racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession released the ABA’s first ever Report ever on diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. After presumably thousands of dollars and hours, the Report reached the unshocking and obvious conclusion that…big law is overwhelming white and male. Imagine that! Yes, known…

Ever since 2010 when Nicole Black and I published the book Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, social media for lawyers in some ways has become a victim of its own success. What I mean is that once lawyers began to recognize that social media could help attract clients, they glommed on to it…

Yesterday, the ABA Journal reported that the pay gap between male and female partners at big law continues to widen. According to the article, in 2010, female partners earned 24 percent less than their male counterparts whereas in 2018, female partners earned 35 percent less.  Why am I not surprised? Some attribute male/female pay gaps…

Back in March, when the coronavirus over took the country, shuttering courts and sending lawyers packing from their office to remote work, virtual conferences and webinars began popping up all over the place. In fact, you couldn’t spend a second on social media without being bombarded with a notification of a free webinar on COVID-19…

My longtime blogging colleague and  co-defendant  Eric Turkewitz recently expressed some hope that the corona virus crisis would serve as a catalyst for needed reforms to New York’s antiquated judicial system.  As Turkewitz wrote long ago in 2008, in-person motions practice, status calls and waiting time wastes $10 million in time for a single court…

On the dawn of a new decade in the legal profession, I should be excited about the future.  As Bob Ambrogi optimistically writes,  there is much to celebrate from a surge in startups, the upending of the WEXIS duopoly, and a push towards regulatory reforms to allow for outside ownership of law firms.  Social media,…