Inspiration & Encouragement

I’m only just now getting around to commenting on this recent Notes from the Breadline post by Roxana St. Thomas at Above the Law on the drawbacks of solo practice.  Essentially, St. Thomas focuses on the tougher aspects of going solo, from the potential costs associated with office space to figuring out how to choose…

After twenty years of practice, I can do an appeal from start to finish with my eyes closed.  I’m intimately familiar with the Three-Bears like requirements for timely filing (too early can render the petition incurably premature; too late and the petition misses the unforgiving statutory deadlines and gets unceremoniously bounced) to the arguments –…

If you are a lawyer at a large firm, I know that you are terrified right now.   The carnage at AmLaw 200 is growing:  858 layoffs last week alone, according to Lawshucks.com, for a total of 1528 for the month and 3290 since January 2008.  And even if you’re just a law student, we…

(reposted from That Lawyer Dude) I couldn’t wait for my first case. I was a brand new “Lawyer” in Hofstra University’s brand new Criminal Defense Clinic (we hadn’t taken the bar yet but we worked under a student practice order while supervised by an admitted attorney). I was getting a case load, a client or…

I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which explores those factors that contribute to extraordinary success.  Though I’m not quite finished with the book, I’ve already found so many nuggets that help explain why some lawyers who start a law firm experience wild success while others flounder.  I’ll share some of these reasons after I’ve finished…

Law may be governed by precedent, but oh how soon we forget.  Once upon, the behemoth law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom was just a trio of fellows named Marshall, John and Les who had the crazy idea to hang out their own shingle.  Yet now, forty years later, as the economy tanks and…

One thing that you probably don’t know about me is that when it comes to driving, I’m hopelessly and completely directionally impaired.  On foot or bike, I can navigate easily virtually anywhere under the sun, but somehow, finding my way to a new location while driving at high speeds and trying to avoid an accident…

As I’ve written before, too often in solo practice, we’re our own worst enemy.   For example, as I wrote here, we’ll reject an idea out of hand because it hasn’t been done before or because the challenges, at least on the surface, appear insurmountable.   Even worse, we’ll paralyze ourselves with regrets about clients turned down,…