Operations

Many large firms assume, wrongly, that solo and small firm lawyers don’t handle complex issues.  Truth is, many of us do.  But unlike biglaw which has the luxury of researching and strategizing about these issues in a vacuum, we solo and small firm clients do all that, plus tend to our clients’ needs. Consider the…

[Post has been edited] I’ll be teaching a course on how to use web 2.0, social media and other collaborative technologies to Build Your Own Bar Association through Solo Practice University.   From what I can tell, I’ll be a bit of a heretic on the faculty:  not only did I love law school but I…

I’ve finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers which argues that a variety of factors, such as luck, era of birth or family support account as much for success as sheer talent.  After all, what explains the break out success of certain individuals with innate talent in comparison to the mediocre performance of those equally endowed?  If…

UPDATE – ENCORE TELECONFERENCE from Biglaw to Yourlaw – JANUARY 9, 2009 (Thursday) at 3 pm EST. Sign up below.  IF YOU HAVE  ALREADY SIGNED UP YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE INFORMATION ON THE CALL VIA EMAIL. Given that 1762 lawyers lost their jobs in 2008 according to the Law Shucks Layoff Tracker, I decided to release a new e-book entitled From Biglaw to Yourlaw. You’ve always believed starting a firm was a…

And so, another biglaw firm — this time, 150 year-old New York based Thacher, Profitt — comes tumbling down.  But though the names may change (think Heller, Ehrman, Thelen and Brobeck.com) the circumstances are virtually identical: Step 1:  Each firm suffers some kind of economic crisis. Step 2:  Rainmaking partners panic and begin to jump…

For the past few decades, biglaw had a good thing going:  a seemingly sustainable pyramid scheme.  Large firms hired top talent and fed their appetites and egos with top salaries and assurances that these new associates constituted the cream of the legal caste system.   Then, the firms turned around and billed the heck out of…

For some time, I’ve been wanting to weigh in on the debate over at Simple Justice about lawyer marketing, such as its role in educating the public, whether the focus on marketing has overtaken the importance of honing our craft as lawyers and the extent to which we permit marketing to pervade everything we do…

Long before work life balance (WLB) became acronymized and before young lawyers began fleeing law firms in droves, Lawyer Avenue Press (and its imprint, Decision Books), the company that published Solo by Choice served as a voice for a life in the law, with titles such as The Guide to Contract Lawyering or What Can…