Ideas & Tips

Seems that ATL Editor David Lat is concealing a dirty little secret underneath his robes.  As you know, by day, David toils as a mild-mannered blogger exposing the secrets of, and dishing out biting commentary on AmLaw 100 firms.  But after hours, he busts out his secret inner scholar and transforms into a veritable Volokh,…

For solo and small firm lawyers who routinely battle big law, there’s often a temptation to play the solo card. In other words, to seek special dispensation from court rules and practices in light of solos’ more limited time and resources. Some lawyers believe that playing the solo card is justified as a way to…

Legal excellence knows no color or gender, reads the tagline for the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF). Unfortunately, NAMWOLF’s egalitarian notion of legal excellence doesn’t extend to size: shockingly, NAMWOLF bars women and minority owned solo and two-attorney practices from even applying for membership . For an organization that professes…

Ten days ago, in an effort to reply quickly to a struggling solo who’d contacted me for advice, I reached out to readers to crowdsource a response. The post touched off 40 comments, some offering sound advice to a solo in these circumstances, others not so much. The comments also spawned several sub-discussions on what’s…

[Update 9/23–Readers – thank you for your response.  We’ve collected an enormous amount of information, some very helpful, some of it obvious and some of it (diving in full force to cases by copying pleadings stood out to me as inadvisable and potential career killer but there are others). I’ve got to read through everything…

Ever since I moved to this space, I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting to publish the online guide that houses all of this site’s content in one enormous place. At the same time, I realize that I’ve also got some gaps in content – areas that need some bulking up, and the online guide lets me…

  Update – Note: If you send handwritten notes or even emails to thank referrals, feel free to include that in the thank you category – and if you’re using notes or cards, please share the name of the vendor as well!  It’s only fitting that a post seeking input on referral and thank you…

Today is my birthday and as a present to myself, I’ve finally relaunched and supplemented the free materials originally posted on drop.io before it abruptly shut down in December (one of the drawbacks of a free service). These materials represent the first phase of a broader suite of offerings (also free) that I’ll roll out…