Operations

Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending, and presenting a session on niche practice at The Practice, organized by my friend and colleague Brian Tannebaum, this year’s president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL) . Geared towards criminal defense lawyers running a law firm, the Practice touched on all of the…

There’s a bunch of upcoming events that may be of interest. First, – this is a bit of short notice, but the North Carolina Bar Association is offering a FREE (to members) two day start up bootcamp – details available here Second, my colleague Victor Medina is organizing the second Macs in the Law Office…

Look,  I’m no friend of the billable hour.   As others have emphasized far more eloquently, the billable hour measures time, not results and as such, breeds inefficiency.  Worst, for at least two decades, the billable hour fed biglaw’s associate leverage schemes which have since buckled under the weight of bloated fees and left countless young…

Nearly every lawyer has heard of the “of counsel” relationship, yet few understand what it is.  That’s not surprising, because of the many different variations of “of counsel” relationships, from the retired senior partner who stays on with the firm in an “of counsel” capacity to the part-time lawyer who doesn’t generate enough business to…

Professor John Steele offered up an interesting juxtaposition of ethics related cases at the Legal Ethics Forum yesterday.  On the one hand, he links to a Washington Post editorial urging the Supreme Court to show mercy in the Cory Maples case that biglaw firm Sullivan & Cromwell botched by failing to file a timely appeal. …

Bruce Macewen’s blog Adam Smith, Esq. is to big law practice what this blog, on its best days, aspires to be for solos and small firms.  Always substantive, always skeptical (one of a minority of credible law practice management types who didn’t unquestioningly embrace Richard Susskind) and always spot-on (read his series on business models…

Looks like I (along with the other solo practice bloggers) are part of the cool crowd now. Where MyShingle was once the sole solo blog online, now solo and small firm blogs and websites are cropping up everywhere, including the least likely of places: the ABA website and Above the Law! Last month, the ABA…

No need to feel guilty about spending the afternoon working at the coffee shop, or taking a quick breather from an appellate argument prep with reading or writing a couple of blog posts. According to a bunch of new studies summarized in this New York Times article (H/T Volokh), turns out that study techniques like…