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.
But no matter the cause to the glut of legal grads these days (which has been the subject of manyotherarticles), 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 ⇒
There are people who think “this is the way things have always been done, so no one will question me if I just keep doing it this way.” A lot of this kind of thinking seems to happen in bar associations. In a world of amazing innovation and wonderful new technology, a lot of bar associations are still trudging along well-worn paths. Not all of them, mind you, but many.
To keep us talking, here’s a list of topics. Please add anything you’d like to talk about, serious or not.
If you’re not into the whole face-to-face, audio-visual thing, I’ve started an IRC channel at #lawyerist on irc.synirc.net as an experiment. Join using your IRC client of choice, or use the synIRC webchat client. (Don’t know what IRC is? Come to the Hangout and ask!)
Microsoft would love for you to upgrade your copy of Microsoft Office every single time there’s an update. And frankly, being the geek I am, I usually agree.
But there are situations in which even I admit moving to the latest version of Office (or any other software, for that matter) doesn’t make sense. While you never want to be too far behind the current version, here are a few situations it’s better not to upgrade.
Pennsylvania has an elected judiciary. This year, my local county will elect attorneys to fill two judicial vacancies. Several counties across the state will also be filling more than one vacancy.
Bar associations across the state will give recommendations and endorsements of various candidates, then publish those for the general public. But what about the individual lawyer? Should we help run these campaigns? Donate money? Attempt to educate the public about our peers?
The AmLaw 100 is an annual report on BigLaw financial performance, and the just-released 2013 AmLaw 100 it shows what American Lawyer calls “modest gains” across the top 100 firms, although that cuts two ways. Profitability was up from last year for the top 50 firms, but profits actually dropped for the bottom half. And at least one analyst says that up to 20% — that’s 20 of the country’s biggest firms — are “badly weakened” and approaching the failure point.
We love that you read what’s new on Lawyerist.com, but there are other great places to have running conversations about law practice. Here are some of the other places we tend to hang out.
SoloSmallTech, a Google+ community for discussing technology, and other casual geekchat. (The name comes from Lawyerist’s original name.) This is also where we host our Google+ Hangouts. If you like to talk about your gadgets or you are obsessed with productivity systems, you will be right at home.
Blawgging, another Google+ community for law bloggers. Membership in this community is restricted to actual law bloggers. If you are one, come on in!
Lawyerist.com on LinkedIn. Our LinkedIn group is for general law practice discussion. We keep out the self-promotional posts that tend to proliferate on LinkedIn, and we generally expand on the topics we raise on Lawyerist’s front page.
The LAB, our forum. Just click over from the header to browse the LAB, where you can publish your own posts or pick the brains of other Lawyerist readers. We regularly highlight the best posts in the forum on the front page of Lawyerist.
I’m 30 weeks pregnant. There were no classes in law school (or even chapters in new lawyer books) detailing how to be pregnant at work. Pregnancy websites and books universally recommend “taking it easy,” and that’s about the long and short of the advice. This pregnancy has: (1) made me infinitely grateful that I do not have a job that requires me to be on my feet all day; and (2) given me a crash course in how to be pregnant (but engaged) at work. I thought I might share my experiences.
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