Category Archives: Solo & Small Firm

The boutique exodus

I was talking the other day with a partner in a large national firm. For a variety of reasons, including the nature of his practice area, his annual billings have been declining for a couple of years now, and he’s been contacted about it by some of the senior people in the firm. He’s been [...]
Also posted in Big Firms | 3 Comments

The lamp and the laser

When you set up a home office, as I’ve recently been doing, you begin to notice lighting in a way you hadn’t before. It quickly becomes apparent that fixed overhead lights and large floor lamps, no matter how bright they might be, don’t illuminate desks and laptops very well. For close-range work, helping you navigate [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Marketing | 5 Comments

Solo Practice University guest lecture

After all these years, I’m going back to law school. I’m happy to announce I’m making my first appearance as a Guest Lecturer at Solo Practice University on Tuesday, January 12 at noon ET. After having numerous great conversations with SPU founder Susan Cartier Liebel by phone and email over the years, it’ll be tremendous [...]
Also posted in Law21 | 1 Comment

The hyperlocal lawyer

You’ve seen plenty of references to the decline of traditional news media here, usually in the context of similar struggles in the legal marketplace. Instead of dwelling on that industry’s problems, however, here’s what looks like one of its future successes, and how it might have potentially profound applications to the law. It’s the rise [...]
Also posted in Clients | 3 Comments

Size and the legal media

My newest column has been posted at Slaw, Canada’s best legal website. As always, you can read it there, or read it here.
Also posted in Big Firms, Publishing | 2 Comments

The firms of the future

“Does the future belong to virtual law firms?” That question was posed by an American Lawyer article earlier this week that focused on Virtual Law Partners, a growing firm nominally based in Silicon Valley but in fact operating, well, wherever its lawyers are. Virtual firms — two others, FSB Legal Counsel and Rimon Law Group, [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Innovation | 3 Comments

Free and the GP

Like Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell before him, Chris Anderson is becoming known for books that identify and name an evolving trend that connects business and society. You’ve probably read or head about his newest book Free: the Future of a Radical Price. It’s generating a tremendous amount of heat around the idea that the [...]
Also posted in Competition, Innovation | 8 Comments

The new leverage

Bad news on the economic front continues to pile up — you don’t need the links from me — and the legal profession is finding its ride increasingly bumpy as a result. Wachovia’s legal specialty group reports that partners in large law firms are bringing in less revenue for the first time since approximately the [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Clients, Talent | 6 Comments

We are all solos

Law firms ask a lot from their lawyers: work hard for long hours, respond immediately to clients and colleagues, accept and promote the firm’s culture, support overall firm profitability, and so forth. But law firms give a lot back, too: steady income and predictable bonuses, centralized resources, shared overhead costs, exposure to clients, and general [...]
Also posted in Marketing | 6 Comments

How David beat Goliath

Reading to my three-year-old from her new book Bible Stories for Toddlers last night, I was struck by something about the story of David and Goliath that I hadn’t fully appreciated before. David is often held up as a symbol of bravery in the face of insurmountable odds, as well as the power of divine [...]
Posted in Solo & Small Firm | 2 Comments

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