Some things I haven’t had time to write about from the last few weeks:

• Synkron Syncs Files and Folders Across Platforms | Lifehacker
• GIMP Tricks Everyone Should Know | Lifehacker
• THIS is Why Solos Must Learn Technology and Think Globally | Build a Solo Practice, LLC
• Zotero: The Next-Generation Research Tool | Futurelawyer
• First Look: Microsoft Office Heads Online with Next Release | Lifehacker
• RSS and Sliced Bread. Tough To Explain. Never Go Back | Technology Evangelist
• Strategic Design: 6 Steps For Building Successful Websites | Smashing Magazine
• Value Billing Q&A | Legal Ease Blog
• YouMail Replaces, Transcribes Your Voicemail | Lifehacker

I confess, I am actually looking forward to Windows 7. When Vista came out, I jumped ship to Ubuntu. I was tired of boring, clumsy old XP, and Vista’s system requirements were ridiculous. But Microsoft has apparently dialed back the system requirements, so that most circa-2007 computers should have no problem running it.

That alone makes me interested, but one look at the interface shows that Microsoft is once again taking the best elements from other operating systems. The new taskbar is a near copy of Apple’s OSX Dock, and the new, easy-to-use wi-fi network manager is also a near-copy of Ubuntu’s network manager applet.

I don’t have any problem with that, and I really am looking forward to seeing if Windows 7 lives up to the hype. (Although Vista won’t be hard to improve on.)

A blog is probably the most effective way to drive potential clients to your (virtual) door. Well-written, attractive, and well-configured blogs consistently appear at the top of search engine results, and often result in earned media exposure for the blogger.

What is a blog?

A blog is just a frequently-updated website. It is a simple, easy way of publishing content to the web. Many of the websites you visit every day (CNN and the New York Times, for example) probably have the bones of a blog, but you may not even know it.

Earn great search engine results

Picture your ideal potential client. When faced with a legal problem or a need for legal advice, how will your potential ideal client find a lawyer?

Only a tiny percentage—11% or less—of middle-class Americans use the phone book. Most start with Google.

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I am getting ready to launch Comp Wonk, a blog about Minnesota workers’ compensation, on November 1. A friend of mine who represents injured workers will be writing the blog, and I am looking forward to getting it up and running.

If you have questions about work comp, check out Comp Wonk starting November 1st.

Like you, I get many solicitations to join bar associations and sections and attend CLE seminars. County bar, state bar, ABA – one could easily make a full-time job out of bar activities. Now I’ve learned that there is a bar association that exists almost entirely in cyberspace: the Second Life Bar Association.

Second Life, as more thoroughly described in a California Lawyer article, is a virtual world (some would call it a game) in which you create an “avatar” for yourself with a unique name and looks you design and venture forth to chat with others, play games, create and sell virtual products, and heavens knows what else.  Members are under no obligation to look or act like their real life selves; escapism and role playing seem to be a big draw for Second Life. Some people, on the other hand, just want to be themselves.

Which brings us to the lawyers, a handful of whom have decided it would be cool to form a bar association in the virtual world. (more…)

This has nothing to do with law practice, firm technology, or ethics, except peripherally, but it is pretty cool, nonetheless.

The Smithsonian recently posted a series of photographs from the Scopes monkey trial—the first major evolution case, which involved Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan (shown below) on opposite sides of the courtroom.

Now go and add Inherit the Wind to your Netflix queue.

Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes Trial Photographs | Flickr (via BoingBoing)

Lawyers have a terrible habit of Overusing Capitalization. This goes for pleadings, discovery requests, briefs, you name it. Exuberant capitalization is the “cop talk” of legal writing.

For those prone to over-capitalization, the Evanston Township, Illinois, high school has a great primer on capitalization. Litigators capitalize some other words, like Plaintiff and Defendant, by convention, but many get carried away.

Capitalize the name of a document only when you are referring to a specific document. “complaint,” “counterclaim,” “third-party complaint,” and similar terms are sufficiently generic that you never need to capitalize them.

For any delicate questions of capitalization, as well as other fine points of legal style, Bryan Garner’s Redbook is an excellent legal writer’s reference.

Kudos to LexisNexis for its efforts to reduce paper waste! At a moot court orientation session at the University of Minnesota Law School this morning, the LexisNexis rep showed up and—this blew me away—did not hand out a single sheet of paper.

The Westlaw rep, meanwhile, made a huge book available. Mercifully, they did not pass out copies to everyone this year. I took one the first year I taught moot court, and it went right into the recycling bin.

“Green” is becoming as lame a word as “extreme,” but I still like to see companies reducing waste. Especially the paper garbage they churn out. Score one for LexisNexis.

Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

The first attorney who responded was Jennifer R. Lewis Kannegieter, who started her own practice last November. She has a blog loosely focused on family law, estate planning, probate, and similar topics, and you can find her on Facebook and mypractice.

Since Kannegieter’s practice is relatively new, she is still feeling her way when it comes to marketing, trying a few different approaches and waiting to see how they work out. She views her website and blog as one of the most important parts of her early marketing plan, and focuses on raising her profile through online and offline networking through personal relationships.

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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My good friend and financial advisor, David Benning, recently loaned me The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to do About It, by Michael E. Gerber. David is a small business owner, like me, and he said The E-Myth Revisited had changed the way he approached developing his business.

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