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best-law-firm-websites-nominations-2013

It’s time for our 4th annual Best Law Firm Websites. (Here are the results from 2010, 2011, and 2012.) Nominate your picks for best website right here, in the comments. All we need is a link to the website, although you’re welcome to add a note explaining why you think your law firm website nomination is the best (or explain why other nominations are the worst).

We will close nominations (and the comments) on June 15th. Our panel of experts will comb through the nominations to pick the 10 best, post them, and then you get to vote on the winner.

UPDATE: No nominating your own website, or websites you’ve designed. The goal is to find the best law firm websites, not to find the biggest self-promoter. If nobody is willing to nominate your website, we’re not going to consider it, either.

(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jodimullen/7182159418/)

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Teaching a CLE

I’m teaching a CLE with a colleague today, and I’m excited about both the topic and the presentation. Teaching a CLE, however, can be a lot of work. I have heard  more senior attorneys wonder if the non-billable work (creating the materials, the powerpoint, and the presentation) is worth it. Will the CLE help their reputation? Their business? I have no idea, but I can speak first hand to benefits new attorneys can reap when they jump into the CLE-teaching arena.

Keep Reading ⇒

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critical-decision-advice-attorney

Last week I dispelled some prevalent myths about solo attorneys.

Here’s another myth worth examining: young lawyers should take every piece of advice and immediately act on it.

Seeking input from other attorneys is a good idea. But blindly following external advice is a terrible idea.

Sometimes the best advice is to ignore everyone else and do what you think needs to be done.

Keep Reading ⇒

social-media-follow-lawyerist

Can’t get enough of Lawyerist? Good news! You can find Lawyerist (and our contributors) on Twitter. We also hang out in a few places on Google+:

Check out Niki’s Cloud Computing for Lawyers and Gyi’s Legal Marketing, too.

Also, please welcome Megan Zavieh to Lawyerist. She’s already written a few posts as a guest. They were pretty darn good, so we invited her to keep on writing. Megan handles ethics complaints for lawyers, and you’d probably call her practice a virtual one. So she’s got some interesting things to write about.

Megan’s posts will go up Wednesdays around 11, starting this week.

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memento01

Having trouble organizing notes and to-do lists in a way that helps you complete tasks? Before you get another freaky tattoo, check out Workflowy.

It just may be the world’s best tool for taking notes and making lists.

Here’s why I believe WorkFlowy will soon be one of your favorite productivity tools too.

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thoughts_on-cube-farming

I’m posting this on a Saturday, and if you’re working today, especially in a cubicle, this post is dedicated to you.

I work for a big bank and I am a lawyer. And I work in a cubicle. My boss manages 5 lawyers, and he works in a cubicle. That’s just how it is. There are, I believe, quite a few people at the bank who earn double what I earn that work in cubicles too. So I’m not saying I’m being singled out.

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law-school-business-skills

Yesterday, I sat in on the ABA Young Lawyers Division council meeting in Minneapolis. The council was considering a resolution to recommend to the ABA House of Delegates that would require law schools to teach business skills to law students.

Better-equipping law students to practice law ought to be the job of law schools, after all. But, I can’t help thinking, what makes anyone think law schools would be any good at teaching business skills?

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lady-gaga-bad-romance

Billable hours have been back in the news over the past month thanks to a dispute between DLA Piper and one of their clients over legal bills. The client refused to pay the bill, claiming DLA Piper overstaffed its files and performed unnecessary work. Emails from former DLA Piper attorneys (“Churn that bill, baby!”) surfaced during discovery, underscoring the problem. DLA Piper called the emails “unprofessional” and “an offensive and inexcusable attempt at humor,” but said that the billing was appropriate for the work performed.

Keep Reading ⇒

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ChiliCookoff2012

You need to make yourself indispensable at your job.

In case you hadn’t heard, the legal job market’s still hurting. Barely half of all 2012 grads have long-term, full-time legal jobs. Yikes. You mean you didn’t go to law school so you could ask someone if they wanted whipped cream on that Frappuccino?

But no matter the cause to the glut of legal grads these days (which has been the subject of many other articles), if you’re already out there with a JD Sheepskin and one of the coveted law jobs, you’re probably past the point of caring why it’s happening. Instead, you’re probably wanting to make sure you keep that job — or if you’re a solo make sure you keep the lights on.

In order to keep your job, you need to make sure your firm has clients. Take an active role and start building your own book of business. I want to share some things that have worked for my neighborhood practice.

And I promise at the end, I’ll tell you what the picture at the top of this post is about. Keep Reading ⇒

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Jumbo Monitor

In a paperless practice, screen size is critical. Don’t skimp on the screen real estate. You have two choices: jumbo monitors or multi-monitor setups. I’ve opted for the jumbo monitor. Here’s why:

Multi-monitors are great for segregating programs to different screens. They look very cool. But if you are reading this, you are an attorney, not a day-trader. You will spend the majority of your time at your computer doing two things: reading and writing. Most of what you do falls in one of those two categories. And for those purposes, jumbo monitors excel. Keep Reading ⇒