Ideas & Tips

This past Sunday, I attended Lex Think, organized by fellow bloggers Matt Homann, Dennis Kennedy and Sherry Fowler.  I’d heard the conference described as a conference about nothing but in the end, it turned out to be about everything, from attorney-client relations, billable hour versus alternative billing and keeping the passion in one’s practice.  Events…

New shingler Scheherazade Fowler (who’s in great company with other blogger-turned solos Dennis Kennedy, Kevin Heller and Howard Bashman, to name a distinguished few) publicly ponders whether she should keep her Massachusetts bar status active when she’s set up shop in Maine.  No question, regardless of cost, a solo should never, ever, ever let go…

As I’ve always understood, one of the premises underlying the Socratic Method is that much of the knowledge of a subject (like law) lies within us and can be teased out through questioning and dialogue.  So too, many of us already hold within us the basics for  starting or running a law practice as Jim…

Kudos to the Texas Young Lawyers Association for this innovative project, tenminutementor.com, an online library of video presentations on topics like substantive law (mostly Texas, but some, like the talk on Ten Tips for Federal Court, can apply more broadly), ethics, building a firm and personal development.  Here’s the Press Release (2/28/05) that further describes…

In this bizarre story, Attorney Punished for False Promises, Adam Kovac, Daily Herald (2/26/05) concerning a disciplinary action brought against attorney Cynthia Sutherin who duped her co-workers into joining what turned out to be a fictitious law firm, I couldn’t help wondering whether the wrong attorney had been charged.  After all, if  Sutherin’s conduct, i.e.,…

I’m finding that it takes a strong stomach to blog about lawyers’ ethics transgressions.  Even though I’m careful and try to do the right thing with every action I take, I often feel as if I’m just a breathe away from tipping over to the other side.  Maybe it would start with a small act…

One of our readers writes: I graduated law school last year and am finishing up another graduate degree…and am taking the bar this summer.  For law students with little “real world” legal training (some law clerking), any advice on going solo out of law school? I read on your site about attorneys getting $40/hr court…

As many of my readers know, I often find that the sanctions meted out by bar disciplinary committees to be either redundant or heavy-handed, such as punishing an attorney where he’s already been ordered to pay monetary sanctions by the court or sactioning an attorney for failing to apologize for an overly harsh criticism of…