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Why Are Lawyers So Damned Depressed? Well, You're A Lawyer. You Figure It
2007-12-14 17:00:00
Jim Calloway, author of Law Practice Tips, writes a compelling commentary on the recent Wall Street Journal piece regarding the high rate of depression amongst lawyers.  He quotes several articles which then reference several studies.  It appears the top three drivers are: the adversarial process; non-stop deadlines; and pressure to meet billable hour requirements. You should read the commentary and the articles because I believe most lawyers can relate on some level. I would like to see a study of depression amongst solos specifically to see if the percentages are the same in this sector as the profession taken as a whole.  There are different issues solos face, for sure.  But they can control the quantity and quality of client they take on which in turn controls deadlines and billables. They can even determine to get rid of the billable hour which many are doing. However, I would like to proffer another perspective on challenges facing all lawyers which ...
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Are Student Loans the Next Mortgage Crisis?
2007-12-13 19:08:00
This article from US News and World Report questions whether student loans could be the next meltdown after the mortgage crisis.There are growing worries that millions of college and graduate students may have borrowed too much, creating a predicament that parallels the current mortgage meltdown. Bond-rating agencies last week noted a troubling uptick in defaults on private educational loans, and the U.S. Department of Education reported that almost 12 percent of all federal loans that came due in 2001 are already in default.And the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project has this to say:The existing counseling requirements for federal loans are ineffective, simply one of many hoops students jump through to get their student aid checks. However, the poor track record of mandatory counseling should not obscure the potential benefits of targeted counseling for student loan borrowers. Early intervention is essential because the costs rapidly pile up once trouble begins. Student loan ...
More About: Loans , Student Loans , Mortgage , Crisis

When Bad Weather Disrupts Your Business Do You Have A Back Up "Client Commu
2007-12-12 23:02:00
It is the beginning of winter and it has struck the midwest with a fury.  And this unexpected ice storm has wreaked havoc on millions of homes, businesses and home based businesses.  Many home based businesses rely upon their cell phones, internet and cable or DSL for communications to clients.  For the majority, it is the sole basis of communications. What happens when your power is down for 10 days during an unexpected emergency?  Or you conduct business communications while traveling via your iphone, blackberry, cell phone, internet and you hit an unserviced area for an extended period of time.  Unfortunately, this has happened to my good friend Grant Griffiths.  First, an unexpected death in the family had him travelling to California in the mountains where internet and cell service were challenging at best.  He did not know this.  How could he.  Then he comes back to Kansas City to be hit with a major ice storm which knocked out pow...
More About: Business , Weather , Back , Back-up , Client

Don't Be A "Go-Getter." Be A "Go-Giver."
2007-12-11 23:45:00
I recently read a life-changing business parable authored by Bob Burg and John David Mann called "The Go-Giver." .   The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. And so one day, desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultantreferred to by his many devotees simply as the Chairman. Over the next week, Pindar introduces Joe to a series of “go-givers:” a restaurateur, a CEO, a financial adviser, a real estate broker, and the “Connector,” who brought them all together. Pindar’s friends share with Joe the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success and teach him how to open himself up to the power of giving. Joe learns that changing his focus from getting to giving—putting others’ interests first...

Legal Process Outsourcing is a Hot Topic - Can Solos Benefit?
2007-12-10 06:02:00
(UPDATE 12/10/07:  This little tidbit via Idealawg on LPO's According to the American Bar Association Journal, there are about 100 LPO companies in India and the legal outsourcing industry there is estimated at $80 million per year. The industry is expected to reach $4 billion by 2015.) Due to the ABA Journal Awards I discovered a blog called Legal Process Outsourcing and its author, the highly animated Rahul Jindal from Delhi, India who has been tracking the legal outsourcing phenomenon since 2005.  I asked him to guest post on this topic.  Regardless your interest in outsourcing specifically to India, Rahul discusses very important issues you would need to know before outsourcing your legal work to anyone. Am I personally endorsing outsourcing to India in lieu of our many talented contract attorneys or law students?  No. However, I understand this is a burgeoning and competitive marketplace and we live in a capitalistic society. Therefore, all options n...
More About: Hot Topic , Topic , Benefit

"Tip of the Week" - Do You Have Integrity?
2007-12-09 06:02:00
If you peruse marketing blogs you will often see statements such as, 'all things being equal, people buy from those they know like and trust.'  It is true but what exactly creates trust?  I've thought long and hard about what inspires others to 'trust' another in a vendor/vendee relationship.  And the answer is both simple and complex.  It comes down to the vendor's integrity.  But 'integrity' is also another word which is loosely bandied about in advertising and self-promotion and its meaning has become diluted.  What is integrity?  (And my apologies in advance to whoever wrote this exact turn of phrase because I copied it into my post ages ago and lost the link.  If it's you...please tell me and I will glady give credit!)The root of the word "integrity" is "integer." If you remember your math, an integer is a whole number. So integrity has to do with wholeness. It means your whole life is unified; it means what...
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Do You Really Know Why Your Law School Ranks Where It Does?
2007-12-07 06:02:00
Law School Groupie, a soon-to-be law student blogging about the process, resurrects a New York Times archival piece exposing the real truth about law school rankings and how law schools can distort the rankings through tricks and maneuverings which mislead students.  Groupie analyzed the NYT piece so well I will give him or her the honors.  You can read the blog post here. Or if you want to go right to the New York Times piece it is called The $8.78 Million Dollar Maneuver. Some highlights:I had no idea that U.S. News & World Reports' (USNWR) rankings had anything to do with the school's expenditure per student, but this NYT article breaks it down for us.These student expenditures affect only 1.5 percent of a school's U.S. News ranking, but this is a competition where fractions of a point matter.The University of Illinois College of Law provides students with access to Westlaw and LexisNexis, paying $75,000 to $100,000 for those services. But when reporting to the ...
More About: Law School , Ranks

No Practical Training at Your Law School? Blame the ABA. Guest Blogger -
2007-12-07 06:02:00
Long time Build A Solo Practice reader, Edward Weist, is a solo in Massachussetts and a Harvard Law School graduate. He wrote such a terrific comment to my frequent challenges to law schools not offering practical training, I asked him if I could use his commentary as a guest post and he graciously agreed. It’s one thing to point out—as this blawg and others have done—that the U.S. News ranking system doesn’t tell prospective law students much about whether any law school will actually prepare them to practice, rather than merely learn, law.  I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for prospective customers to drive real change in law school curricula.  There are huge institutional constraints limiting the ability of the legal academy to provide any real introduction to the world their students—whether bound for BigLaw or a home office upon graduation—will enter upon graduation.  It will take more than agitation from applicants to drive real change.  A...
More About: Blogger , Training , Guest

Millions of Americans Thinking of Leaving U.S. Part II
2007-12-03 06:02:00
(Warning:  This is a long post.) In a follow up to my original post (and the numerous comments made) to "Millions of American's Thinking of Leaving U.S." the author of the original Agora Financial piece continued the discussion because his readers had similar reactions as you did:"Incredulous" is the word that best describes the reaction of people when they hear Adams' conclusions. ......(people) greeted the poll results with skepticism. They asked, "How did he get this data? Who did they interview?" "It's happening," Adams insisted, when asked about this new wave of emigration. "And we really can't say exactly why." While Adams' survey includes destinations all over the world, the survey's findings corroborate Adams' first-hand observations in Panama. Adams says the recent American immigrants to Panama are different from previous ones. Ten years ago, the typical American ex-pat in Panama was likely to be a retiree ...
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"Tip of the Week" - PC Pitstop Erase
2007-12-02 06:02:00
    PC Pitstop Erase PC Pitstop Erase is a free privacy scanner that shows you information that your PC remembers: web sites you've visited, cookies that can store personal information, and files you have recently viewed or edited. Erase is also a paid tracks cleaner, which removes the sensitive personal data you wish to keep private or information that some can use to steal your identity. I recently discovered this program which helps to 'erase' personal data stored in my computer saved in Windows.  It even gets rid of the data stored in Windows...even after DELETED...because Windows still saves it.  For me, this type of program is more valuable on my laptop, something which could easily be lost or stolen because it is removed from my office.  And given lawyers store confidential data on their computers, this is one more program to consider in your arsenal of weapons against cybertheft and insuring your clients' confidentiality.  Although not free...
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Solo With An Eye For Detail Helps 200 Stay in Their Homes for the Holidays
2007-11-29 02:02:00
This is simply a great story.  This would have been a great story whether the lawyer was a solo or not. But I find it interesting the reporter makes a point of saying the attorney was a solo...as if solos are, well, less detail-oriented? Regardless, this alert solo caught a miscalculation by the clerks office which would have put 200 families out of their homes on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Because of his eye for important details, these families were saved from removal from their homes during the holiday season. Is there an unconscious bias working here or is it simply a professional description, defining lawyers as either with BigLaw or small firm or solo?  I'm not sure.  But my first gut reaction was it was a prejudice. "Look!  A solo actually caught an important detail!"  I could be wrong, let's hope so.  But I'd like your opinion as sometimes my glasses get a little foggy on these matters.
More About: Holidays , Solo , Homes , Stay , The Holidays

Let's Vote For the Solo Option. Your Vote Matters
2007-11-28 22:24:00
The beauty pagent has begun and Build A Solo Practice is a finalist in the Lawyer's Took Kit category.  Normally, I'm not big on these types of things. However, once I thought about it I realized this 'award' is important, not for me, but for all solos out there.  If more solos let the ABA know how valuable the solo option is through voting on the blawgs which spread the word, encourage and educate those with an entrepreneurial spirit, well, maybe we can make a difference in how solos are regarded in the profession.  So, if you believe my blawg promotes this mission, then vote for Build A Solo Practice, LLC.  Thanks.  You Can Vote Here.  (A hat tip to all those nominated for the great work they have done and will continue to do.)
More About: Matters

I'm on the Cover of Fortune....(Well, I Should Be.)
2007-11-28 17:57:00
(This was just way too much fun to pass up.)  But truthfully, I feel I should be...not because I have the traditional fortune in terms of gold ingots in my Prada bag and mansions in three countries.  But because I have a different type of fortune and I feel like one of the richest people on the planet.  I am self-employed, have created a work environment where I pick and choose my clients and when I work or not. My income is of my choosing depending upon how smart and/or hard I work. And, yes, I have my business and marketing plan, too.  Without it, life is just disorganized, fanciful dreaming and mindless wandering.  Without a business plan, well, some people get lucky.  But most often they don't.  And without an intelligent and inspired business and marketing plan, great ideas (and talented lawyers) wither on the vine. So, can you picture yourself on this cover?  What do you need to do to get there?  Is it time to get started? ...
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Millions of Americans Thinking Of Leaving U.S.
2007-11-26 06:02:00
From Agora Financial:Here’s an interesting trend: 1.5 million U.S. households are preparing to move out of the U.S. A poll by Zogby Intl. of 115,000 Americans estimated that: 1.6 million U.S. households have already made the decision to leave;1.8 million are seriously considering and likely to leave; 7.7 million are somewhat serious about leaving and may do so; 3.0 million are seriously considering purchase of non-U.S. property; 10.0 million are somewhat serious about purchase of non-U.S. property. “We are not talking about the next major deployment of National Guard units to the Middle East,” comments Mike Muehleck in Strategic Investment. “In fact, none of the emigrants are government workers or corporate employees leaving for temporary overseas assignments. This is a group of malcontents and adventurers. They consist entirely of private citizens and their families packing up and leaving the USA at their own initiative. “Why do people leave home for strange foreign l...
More About: Millions , Thinking , Leaving

"Tip of the Week" - The Art of Selecting the Proper Business Entity
2007-11-25 06:02:00
The Illinois Business Law Journal, a publication of the students of the University of Illinois College of Law, has put together a very succinct and useful piece comparing and contrasting the various business entities one may establish as an entrepreneur.  As I've stated before, I prefer the LLC for a myriad of reasons. V. Limited Liability Company: Legal Description, Liability, Tax Benefits A limited liability company (LLC) is called so because the owners, also called members, are only subject to limited liability for the debts and actions of the company. [17] While the members will not be liable for the mistakes of the company, they will be held liable for any individual mistakes the member makes. [18] Registering the company as an LLC also has tax benefits. [19] "LLCs are a 'pass through' tax entity, which means company profits are passed through the business and taxed solely on the member's individual tax returns." [20] Additionally, the members of an LLC repo...
More About: Week , Prop , Sine , Rope

Happy Thanksgiving! - Give Yourself A Break
2007-11-20 22:37:00
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is all about sharing time with family.  No gifts, just food and drink and fun. I cook from scratch for at least 17 - 20 people. I gladly inherited this tradition from my mother who inherited it from her mother, my Nana.  As little kids we would travel to her old hunting lodge in upstate New York and have this huge banquet in her dining hall.  The smell of fresh baked foods (she was an awesome baker) including apple and pumpkin pie made from apples and pumpkins grown on her property are memories I will always treasure. And we would get such stomach aches from drinking grape juice made from the grapes she grew, too, because we never wanted to mix it with water. So, in between baking breads, contriving appetizers and making my famous roquefort potato soup (my own Thanksgiving tradition) plus putting together this feast with military style precision, it is time for me to sign off for a few days. And for all you Home Offi...
More About: Thanksgiving , Break , Happy , Give , Hank

Detroit Mercy School of Law Says, "We Care What the Students Want" and Appa
2007-11-19 23:38:00
On the heels of my last post, soon to be lawyer Sarah at Learning Curve introduces us to the following article:You may find this Detroit News article interesting regarding the University of Detroit Mercy 's recent implementation of a new curriculum at their law school. You can also view info about the new curriculum on their website. And my very eloquent friend, Chuck Newton, has written a terrific explanatory piece as follow up which takes the conversation further.  This type of story, this proactive approach by a law school which has openly turned its back on US News gives me hope. Is this the law school I described in my previous post? Someone has to break free from the pack...decide to ground themselves in common sense, care about what their students want while still meeting their doctrinal obligations.  And in turn this law school has discovered it is what potential employers want, too. But the added bonus, if you don't want to work for another, you are equippe...
More About: Students , School , Care

Law Students Want One Thing - U.S. News & World Report Wants Another -
2007-11-18 17:45:00
According to a recent study: (As reported by ABA Journal On Line)Law students care about factors that aren’t considered or aren’t influential in the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, according to a survey by The National Jurist. The top factors named by law students were quality of teaching, bar passage rate, placement rate at nine months, practical skills training and faculty-student relations. But U.S. News doesn’t consider quality of teaching, practical skills training or faculty-student relations, while bar passage rate and placement have low importance in the U.S. News rankings. In U.S. News, reputation among law professors and deans accounts for 25 percent of a law school’s rank, while reputation by judges and lawyers accounts for 15 percent. That is followed by placement rate at nine months after graduation (14 percent), median LSAT scores (12.5 percent) and undergrad GPA (10 percent). The National Jurist quoted a study by Theodore Seto, a tax law p...
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"Tip of the Week" - YouSendIt.com
2007-11-18 05:59:00
This is another little gem of a service I picked up from the tech gurus at the 2nd Annual Solo and Small Firm Convention in Philadelphia last month.  YouSendIt.com is the answer for those who need to e-mail oversized attachments and don't want them bounced through conventional e-mail. Send and Receive Files up to 2 GB Each On-Demand File Delivery Tracking and Secure Delivery Send Multiple Files at Once With an account at YouSendIt.com (there is a free 14 day trial) you can upload your oversized files and e-mail them securely.  They will notify the recipient there is a file waiting for them which they can then retrieve and download. It's that simple. There are three levels of service based upon your wants and needs. Check it out.
More About: Week

Build A Solo Practice Blog Turns 1 Year Old - I Have a Present For You!
2007-11-15 03:11:00
I was wracking my brains trying to find a way first, to fathom I've been blogging one year and second, to celebrate in a meaningful way.  So this celebration is three-fold. First, I realized it was time to have an extreme blog makeover.  What do you think? Second, I've decided to re-post my very first post to see if I have stayed true to my mission: This Blog 's Reason For Being The purpose of this blog is very simple: to encourage you to start your own law practice, whether right out of law school or twenty years after Big Law. Opening your own law practice today is not technically hard or expensive. However, it is psychologically daunting because we have been brainwashed from the minute we enter law school to believe we shouldn't and/or can't possibly do it.  And if we voice a desire to strike out on our own our closest circle acts like frogs hovering over a pit. The naysayers, however well intended, are projecting their personal fears upon you.  You ne...
More About: Practice , Solo , Present , Build

Move Over, Gen X - The New Wave of Lawyer(?) Has Arrived
2007-11-14 02:54:00
(UPDATE: 11/18/07 There is a new blog called Learning Curve, a very hardworking, soon to be lawyer who just missed being a Millenial.  She continues this discussion of Millenials on her blog confirming some of discussion on Sixty Minutes through her own experiences in the law office where she is currently employed:Moving on to what in the world is the millennial generation, it gets even worse! There are several great video clips from the 60 Minutes episode. As I watched them, I was reminded of a woman I interviewed a few months ago. She was approximately 24 years old, which puts her in the millennial generation. She had been in the waiting room for about 5 minutes and when I went to get her, she was on her cell phone. As if that wasn't bad enough, she continued her conversation as we walked down the hallway into my office. When she sat down, she half-heartedly apologized for being on the phone and then asked if phone calls during work hours were a problem! Mind you, we hadn't...
More About: Lawyer , Move , New Wave , Wave

A Lawyer in Every Stop & Shop?
2007-11-13 06:27:00
In part four of Richard Susskind's series on the Law Firm of the Future he discusses the impact of non-lawyer investors in law firms and the reality the majority of potential clients wants to commoditize the law: (this excerpt is a reaction to a seminar on the subject.)I discovered that the value of the market for consumer-based legal services in England was thought to be over £10 billion. I learned of market research that reported 60 per cent of citizens would prefer to obtain legal services from common high street brands (supermarkets and banks, for example) than from solicitors in private practice. It was concluded that at least £6 billion worth of consumer-based legal services were up for grabs. Only a very few of the delegates were lawyers. Most were representatives of these high street behemoths whose remit now seems to know no boundaries. These individuals were not committed to the ways of the past. They were talking about call centres, outsourcing to India, online legal...
More About: Lawyer , Shop , Stop

"Tip of the Week" - Read 'The Future of Reputation' by Daniel J. Solove
2007-11-11 05:59:00
I"ve had the opportunity to read Daniel J. Solove's 'The Future of Reputation - Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet' and I have to say, it is both fascinating and sobering. To give you an idea of the content, I will reprint the publisher's blurb:"What information about you is available on the Internet?  What if it's wrong and humiliating, or true but regrettable?  Will it ever go away?" Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication.  But there's a dark side to the story.  A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search.  A permanent chronicle of our private lives - often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false - will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who care...
More About: Read , The Future , Week

Every Once In A Great While....I Agree With Larry Bodine. Do You?
2007-11-09 13:56:00
Today Larry Bodine called it like it is in his post "Good Law Schools Make For Bad Marketers":"Peter Darling observes in the Business Development blog that "if you go to a hot school, you will get a much better job out of the gate, if "better" means big firm, big city, high salary. However, you will also have a harder time, I think, learning to market yourself." Good law schools make for bad legal marketing, he says.  I'll go further: ALL law schools are useless when it comes to legal marketing. "Even at elite schools, Darling says, when students are ejected out into big firms, first of all, they often have no idea how the "soft" part of a career functions -- interpersonal relationships, strategy, networking, etc. They're not used to being treated as cogs in a much bigger machine. And finally, they have absolutely no idea of how to market themselves, or, fatally, why it matters. They've always done well. They've always m...
More About: Great

I Normally Don't Do This....But I Feel Compelled
2007-11-08 21:04:00
One of the most precious things about the holidays is the chance to spend time with family. As we are painfully aware many, such as our soldiers over in Iraq, will not get to to do so. Regardless your position...
More About: Feel , Normal

Will Lawyers As We Know Them Exist in 100 Years?
2007-11-06 14:05:00
Hat tip to Stephanie West Allen at Idealawg for presenting this Times Online Article, " Legal Profession is on the Brink of Fundamental Change." the introduction to this new book. This is not a tabloid piece but a provocative and...
More About: Lawyers , Years , Exist

Even a Solo Needs a Crisis Management Plan - Guest Post, Paramjit Mahli
2007-11-05 06:02:00
Why Solo s Need a Crisis Management Plan - Guest Blogger, Paramjit Mahli “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin In my final guest blog post for Susan, I’m going to discuss crisis communications, what it is...
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"Tip of the Week" - 100 Calculators for all Aspects of Your Business Life
2007-11-04 05:02:00
I found this amazing list from Bootstrappers which has 100 calculators for every aspect of your life to help with Business Operations, Loans, Debt Management, Taxes, Investments, Personnel, Personal Finance and Miscellaneous. You will want to bookmark this post and...
More About: Life , Week , Aspects , Calculators

Outsourcing Document Review to India Going Mainstream? Why Not Outsource t
2007-11-02 05:02:00
Over at Cal Law Legal Pad is an article discussing, once again, outsourcing to India . This time the work is document review. The going rate: $25.00 - $35.00 per hour. Well, it seems to me if Big Law is starting...
More About: Outsourcing , Review , Document , Going

Going Solo; Confessions and Inspirations - Kira Fonteneau
2007-11-01 05:02:00
I wanted to introduce you to a fascinating young attorney, Kira Fonteneau, of Birmingham, Alabama, who authors Brilliant Color, a blog about diversity, the law and the legal profession. Her firm website has the thoughtful and thought-provoking branding, "It's a...
More About: Confessions , Solo , Going , Goin , Fess