How to Recognize the Dunning-Kruger Effect in Your Law Practice

Somewhere in the law school experience, students are taught to fake it until they make it. It often carries over into law practice when they take new cases on the path to becoming competent. Professional rules explain that. But...

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Should Clients Brag on Social After Winning Big Money?

While your client might want to go a little crazy when you get them a good cash settlement or judgment, it might not be the worst idea to counsel your client against flashing a bankroll the size of a...

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Lawyer Gets Creative With Settlement in NFL Cheerleaders Case

Sara Blackwell is a lawyer who truly knows the value of a case. She has offered to settle her case against the National Football League for $1 on behalf of former NFL cheerleaders. But that's not where the money...

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Etymology of Great Legal Words: Quash!

While the language of lawyering is often inaccessible, anachronistic, and borderline gobbledygook, some legal words stand out for being fun to say, and even easy to understand, like quash. And though we all know generally what the word means,...

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When Paying Clients Want to Litigate Despite Bad Value

When you have a client throwing good money after bad, the only blood they'll be able to squeeze out of that turnip is yours. That's how that saying goes, right? If you discover that your client's case lacks real...

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Should Your Firm Create a Legal Tech Summer Associates Program?

BigLaw generally leads the way in adapting legal tech, but any law firm can teach aspiring lawyers a thing or two about it. Consider Reed Smith, a global law firm with more than 1,800 attorneys. The firm is offering...

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How to Respond When a Judge Comments on Your Appearance

For many attorneys, there is very little concern that a judge will comment on your attire, hair, or overall style. However, it does happen, and unfortunately, more often than not, it will happen behind your back. When it does...

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Contempt Is 'Well Deserved,' ACLU Says of Kansas Official

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach "can't be trusted" and deserves to be punished. That's what the American Civil Liberties Union said, not holding back its contempt for the state official. But the ACLU is not the only one...

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How to Make Solo Business Travel Fun and Productive

When it comes to making business travel more fun, who better to ask than a pilot? After all, pilots have their privileges. They may not disclose all of them, but First Class and the VIP lounge are givens. Absent...

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Can Law Firms Sell Products And Commoditized Services?

If a law firm creates an actual physical product, like an easy to use legal guide for non-lawyers, can the law firm sell that guide? Or perhaps more apropos for today, if a law firm buys a program or...

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More Than 50,000 Reasons Not to Take Fees on the Side

Carllene Placide had a good gig, but that deal expired. She was a partner at Dorsey & Whitney, a big law firm, pulling down a base salary of $225,000 a year. Apparently dissatisfied with her non-equity status, she started...

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If You Make a Material Error, You Must Tell Current Clients

First, the bad news: you have to inform current clients when you make material errors. The good news is, you don't have to tell former clients. That's the gist of a recent ethics opinion from the American Bar Association....

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When Must You Absolutely File an Appeal?

While any attorney that's really thought out their fee agreement knows, filing an appeal costs extra and requires a new agreement. However, sometimes after a loss, you may need to file the notice of appeal while the client sorts...

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Is It a Good Idea to Record Client Communications?

Wouldn't it just be weird if Michael Cohen's recordings become President Trump's undoing? Cosmicly weird because tape recordings are what brought down President Nixon. He refused to give up recordings of conversations with co-conspirators in the Watergate scandal, and...

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Do Jurors Care About Your Attire?

Jury trials can often feel like you're right back in high school trying to win a popularity contest based on proving your nemesis wrong before a group of your peers. And while you might think you benefit by looking...

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Coerce Clients Into Sex, Get 80 Years in Prison

If a juror passes out during a graphic video in your case, it's probably a bad sign. At least, Mark Benavides should have known that his case wasn't going well when it happened to him. The former San Antonio lawyer...

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Should Lawyers Ever Use Memes in Online Marketing?

If you're in charge of your firm's marketing, and that includes social media marketing, as it should, you've probably seen quite a few memes. And if you don't know what a meme is, or haven't used one, you should...

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Signs You Aren't Paying Your Paralegals Enough

Jeff Foxworthy may know nothing about paralegal pay, but he knows more than a fifth grader. He also knows signs that you might be a redneck. So what does that have to do with paying paralegals? Only this: there...

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Lawyers: Need to Focus? Put That Smartphone Away

With all that power to compute and show you delightful cat pictures and videos, you may not want to believe it, but your smartphone hinders your ability to think. At least according to the recent research published in the...

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Is the Older Generation Holding the Legal Professional Back?

Caroyln Elefant, the popular attorney-blogger, says it is time for old-school lawyers to step aside. Suggesting the legal profession take a cue from the Hebrew exodus, Elefant points out that Moses had to stay behind when his people reached...

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When Clients Are Defiant, What Can You Do?

While you may be able to let loose the likes of Terrible Terry Tate when your associates or staff members are defiant, when clients are uncooperative, your options are much more limited. Basically, you have a couple options when...

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New Law: All Third-Party Litigation Funding Must Be Disclosed in Wisconsin

Constraints on litigation funding just got real in Wisconsin, and will make the legal business a little trickier everywhere else. Wisconsin now requires attorneys to disclose any third-party litigation funding deals to clients and "to the other parties" in...

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FBI Seizes Trump-Cohen Attorney-Client Privileged Docs

Given the controversy surrounding President Trump, the Mueller probe, Stormy Daniels, an unsigned settlement agreement, $130,000, and Michael Cohen, the recent FBI raid on Cohen's office seemed inevitable, or at least like one of the major plot turns in...

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What Do You Do When Courthouse Supporters Misbehave?

Picture this: You're walking up to the courthouse for day one of a highly publicized case, and as you get close, you see protesters surrounding the courthouse steps. But as you get even closer, you see that the protesters...

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#MeToo and Another BigLaw Partner Goes Out the Door

It's not so surprising that sexual harassment is a problem at many law firms, especially where the old boys' clubs exist. With the #MeToo movement in full swing, it's practically a given that more high-profile cases will come out....

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What Can Law Firms Do to Help Lonely Lawyers?

An energized, self-motivated workforce is a dream for any business. Happy employees are more productive employees, and if law firms want their attorneys to be more productive, they might want to fight the lawyer loneliness problem. While it may...

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Lawyer Claims Ignorance Over 7 Year Old Suspension, Loses

After being suspended for 7 years and not even knowing it, a New York attorney is fighting a rather steep uphill battle to get back his license to practice. Most attorneys are likely most curious about the very rational...

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Firm Disqualified for Conflict, Remarks to Newspaper

Note to self: Don't criticize a client in the press. Second note to self: Do a better conflict-check next time. That's the sticky-note version of what happened at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in FMS Investment Corp. v. The United...

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Tips to Get Client Referrals Without Seeming Desperate

Did you ever ask someone for a favor, then wait a long, pregnant moment when you just knew Rosemary's baby was going to appear? No? Then consider yourself lucky -- especially if you don't know that movie. Spoiler alert:...

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Pros and Cons of Pleading in the Alternative

Pleading in the alternative has long been an accepted practice for both plaintiffs and defendants. Although courts may be quick to knock out causes of action for being duplicative, many practitioners don't hesitate to plead almost every viable alternative...

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Lawyers: Don't Tell Bad Judges They're Bad

Words to the wise: don't tell bad judges they're bad. It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It's not going to end well, even if you do get in a few digs. Attorney John Carter learned that lesson...

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What to Do If You Can't Depose Your Opponent

With few exceptions, everybody is subject to being deposed. Even the President of the United States is not above lawful discovery, as President Trump may learn. If not, then President Nixon is an example. But when an elusive deponent...

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Anger in the Court: How to Keep Calm and Litigate On

For trial attorneys and litigators, losing your cool in the courtroom is highly inadvisable. As we learned from Tom Cruise in 1992, as well as countless other media representations, both real and fictional, demanding the truth from a witness...

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Should Your Firm Nix Facebook From Lawyer Marketing Plan?

Should your law firm nix its Facebook account? "It's a very good question," which is what professors often say when they don't have a ready answer. So since the teacher is not here, let's look at what others have...

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