Do Your LinkedIn Endorsements Matter?

LinkedIn endorsements aren't the hardest kinds of endorsements to get. Your mother, your neighbor, even total strangers can endorse you for all sorts of skills, from complex civil litigation to organizing company softball teams. While colleagues can provide detailed recommendations,...

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The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep to Your Practice

"I need to finish this brief by tomorrow. I can get by on a few hours of sleep." Except not really. Getting a good night's sleep can affect your performance as a lawyer -- and your practice. It's easy for...

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Overworked? 7 Tips on How to Get Part-Time Help, Legally

Feeling swamped with extra work, but not enough to justify hiring full time assistance? Part-time employees can be a great way to spread out your workload, whether you're hiring contract attorneys, interns, or support staff. Part-time employees, like any new...

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What to Do When Opposing Counsel Won't Play Nice

We've written before about how lawyers do (or at least, should) extend each other professional courtesies. These small actions, like not objecting to reasonable discovery requests or scheduling depositions at convenient times and places, amount to treating opposing counsel with...

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5 Tips for Using Microsoft Outlook More Effectively

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Outlook is here for the long haul. Like cockroaches, Twinkies, and the leather jacket, it was here before we got here and it will keep going long after we're gone. Rather than rage, rage...

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5 Ways to Get Professional Development On Your Own

Keeping abreast of legal developments, picking up some management skills, learning about new legal tech or marketing strategies -- these are just some of the benefits of making sure you have continuous professional development. After all, in an industry...

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No Selfies Allowed: 5 Tips for Taking a Great LinkedIn Photo

There's a reason LinkedIn urges you to upload a photo. For better or worse, how we look deeply affects others' perceptions of our strength, intelligence and trustworthiness, according to a round up of the relevant neuroscience done by Entrepreneur...

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When Should You Hire A Marketer? 5 Times an Expert Will Help

People tend to think marketing is simple: a jingle, a camcorder and voila -- you're a veritable Don Draper, ready to sell yourself to the world. If only it was so easy. In fact, marketing, like law, requires a...

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Female Lawyers Work Harder Than Men for Less Pay: Study

Good news, women who get paid a fraction of what men get paid! You're also working harder for that fraction of pay! That's what the women's equality movement was all about, right? A survey of four Harvard Law School alumni...

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Going Solo? 3 Questions to Ask Before Hanging Your Shingle

These days, pretty much any lawyer with a laptop, a cell phone, and a bar membership can start her own solo practice. There's no need for the wood-paneled offices or stacks of legal reporters. Solo practice can offer you...

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Reevaluate Your Marketing Plan: 3 Questions to Ask

Spring is here and with it come new beginnings. Baby birds are chirping, tulips are sprouting, and -- marketing plans are getting reevaluated? Yep, the season of regrowth and regeneration is a great time to turn a sharp eye...

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Headline News: Tips for Speaking to the Press

If you're an expert in your field, or if you're representing a noteworthy client, you should expect to get contacted by the press at some point. A reporter may want background information on tenant's rights or healthcare law, or...

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Is It Ever a Good Idea to Provide Free Legal Work?

Clients gripe all the time about how expensive lawyers are, and the rise of Google means that everyone's a lawyer, which only makes matters worse ("why am I paying you $300 an hour when I can look up the statutes...

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Gone Fishing: Tips to Help Perfect Your Out of Office Message

You've earned that vacation -- or stubborn head cold -- so let the world know about it. Or at least let them know that you won't be around to check your messages. When you're out of the office for...

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How to Set a Stress-Free Mood in Your Office for Clients

Clients who come into a law office generally aren't in the best of moods. Either they've just been sued -- in which case, they're stressed out -- or they're contemplating suing someone, which means something stressful has just happened to...

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Increase Client Satisfaction, Retention With Off the Clock Contact

Many lawyers underestimate the importance of keeping in touch with clients off the clock. Being proactive in client communications and contact may be the key to client satisfaction -- and retention. Making your clients feel like a priority is one...

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How Much Should You Give to Judicial Election Campaigns?

The Supreme Court's decision in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar upheld restrictions on judicial campaigns, and while it didn't address the propriety of electing judges, Chief Justice Roberts did acknowledge that the practice of judges asking lawyers around town for donations...

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Do Lawyers Need a Disclaimer on Their Twitter Accounts?

When does a tweet of 140 characters or less require a disclaimer? More often than you might think. While a solid social media policy is a good way to avoid online complications and potential ethics breaches, if you're a lawyer...

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Are You Burnt Out? 5 Signs You Might Be at the End of Your Rope

Staying late, working weekends, worrying over your performance -- all of this can quickly lead to burnout. For lawyers, burnout is so common that there are whole industries devoted to helping us quit the profession. But how can you be...

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5 Awesome Mom Lawyers

You did get your mother a gift for Mother's Day, right? Well, you've got limited time: It's Sunday, and if you wait too long, the florists will be out of flowers and you'll have to buy a Whitman's Sampler from...

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3 Ways to Keep Your Clients From Being Poached

Competition for clients is fierce. Whether you're a solo practitioner or an attorney at a large firm, client retention matters. After all, you didn't put all that work into marketing, networking and outreach to see your clients poached by...

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Tips for Marketing Your Firm to In-House Counsel

FindLaw has a blog for in-house counsel and a blog for solos and small firms. But what would happen if they collided, like a comic book crossover? That's what this particular article is about: Marketing yourself to in-house counsel. Mind...

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Your Email Sign Off Matters, So Make it Better With These Tips

You might not give a lot of thought to how you sign off on your emails, but your "Sincerely," or "peace" can have a big impact on how you are perceived. There are plenty of lists out there giving...

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The Scopes 'Monkey' Trial, 90 Years Later

Ninety years ago today, John T. Scopes, a substitute teacher in Datyon, Tennessee, was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution, in violation of a recently passed state law. His case, the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, was the first "trial...

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Ethical Dilemma of the Week: Accounting Mistakes and Client Funds

There aren't many lawyers who went into law because a career in theoretical mathematics would have been just too easy. In fact, many of us can probably get away with counting on our fingers much of the time --...

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How Lawyers Can Avoid The Dark Side

For Star Wars Day (May the Fourth -- get it?), we're focusing on The Dark Side of the Force and how lawyers shouldn't be tempted by it. Sure, it comes with cooler costumes and Force Lightning, but at the end...

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3 Major Marketing Disasters -- and What You Can Learn From Them

There's plenty of bad advertising out there. Sometimes, though, bad spills over and becomes an outright disaster. The annals of advertising are full of campaigns gone wrong. Very, very wrong. In the spirit of learning from others' mistakes, here's...

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