Ideas & Tips

Back in December, I had the amazing privilege of sharing a panel at Norwestern’s Fourth Annual Judicial Symposium on Civil Justice Issues with Eugene Volokh and Mark Herrmann, co-founder and former blogger at Drug and Device Law (as an aside, Herrmann’s last word as a blogger came in this article on both the pros as…

Back in July, I denounced three Cincinnati, Ohio lawyers who shamelessly served as a front for a foreclosure solutions scam.  The lawyers never met with clients (who were going to lose their homes!) or did any work on their behalf; they merely signed their name to canned pleadings prepared by a so-called foreclosure solutions company for…

Searching for fodder for blog posts, I came across this advertisement posted by a soon to be 70 year old retiring lawyer who is seeking buyers for his law practice located in Syracuse, in Hamilton County, Kansas.  According to the ad there are only two other lawyers in the County, thus allowing for a County-wide…

A few weeks back, I posted about several innovative business models that might work for small law firms.  Along those lines, yesterday’s online issue of  Time Magazine offers eight quick and decidedly twenty-first century tricks to grow a business in a down economy.  I’ve focused on two below. Outsource: Outsourcing is a theme that I’ve…

1.  Lisa Solomon takes on Westlaw – It shouldn’t take a detective to figure out the answer to one single question:  How much will WestlawNext cost? Yet, apparently, it does and so my friend, Lisa Solomon of Legal Research and Writing pro has been investigating.  Lisa hasn’t yet figured out the price, but she’s figured…

I’ve always considered myself a “practical technology user,” adept at mastering the latest and greatest on a strictly need to know basis.  For example, I still can’t program a Tivo or download a movie on my ipod or operate the family Wii because I have no interest in the activities enabled by those technologies.   But…

Julie Tower-Pierce and I are happy to announce that we’ve finally completed our 50 page ebook, The Part Time Shingle:  Why Starting a Part Time Practice Can Be Done and How to Make It Work.  Here’s some of the topics that the e-book covers: -Is starting a part time shingle really feasible? [p. 2-3] -Will…

This week’s news brings a couple of stories of solo and small firm lawyers who may not be practicing law much longer.  First up is Rochester, New York solo Melissa Mahler, who is the subject of  insider trading charges by the SEC.  Back in 2004, when Mahler worked as an associate at Nixon Peabody, she…