Why Defendants Call Demands Extortion

For plaintiff lawyers, it's a common and annoying refrain, every civil defendant thinks and feels like every demand letter is basically extortion. Yes, whenever a person or business has to pay up or face litigation and associated public condemnation,...

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Marie Kondo for Lawyers: Tidying Up Your Clients

Are you locked into the KonMari method madness yet? Do you evaluate all your possessions in both your personal and professional life to see if each one sparks joy, or should be replaced or relinquished? If so, it may be...

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Litigation Funding: Can I Get Some of That?

Litigation funding is a way to finance your cases, but it may not be your way. If you signed on a client to right a wrong, litigation funders are not really interested. They are in it for the money,...

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Mueller Report Done, Now What?

At the close of business Friday afternoon on the East Coast, Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr. Yes, THE Mueller report, after 22-months, and a whole lot of political drama, is done. Early...

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Can Micro-Influencers Help Promote Your Firm?

Micro-influencers are online personalities who are not as popular as cat videos, yet have dedicated fans. That comparison may be mixing species, but you can't ignore 69 million views for a cat flipping head-over-heels. The point is, it's not...

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Is It Time to Hire a Well-Being Specialist for Your Law Firm?

If law firm morale is slumping three months into the year, it's too late for a New Year's Eve party to cheer things up. Spring break might give people a chance to recharge, but it takes more to create...

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Marie Kondo for Lawyers: Tidying Up Your Law Office

If you're a living, breathing, person with a place to live and access to the internet, then the probability is high that you've at least heard of Marie Kondo and her magic of helping people tidy up. There's even a...

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Proper Semicolon Usage for Lawyers

When it comes to punctuation, few marks are as dreaded or confused as the semicolon. It's more than comma, but less than period. Not surprisingly, even lawyers stumble over how and when to use them. Fortunately, if you're one of...

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3 Better Ways to Welcome New Associates

For the most part, new associates are excited about starting jobs at law firms. After all, they are going to make real lawyer money. And they can't wait to get into the courtroom or the boardroom. But then reality...

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Top 3 Tips for When Document Formatting Drives You Crazy

We've all been there ... it's late, you're trying to get your pleading finalized and ready for efiling, when all of a sudden, your formatting snaps out of place. And unfortunately, the age old remedy of just whacking your...

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Missouri Legislating Against Joinder in Mass Torts

For mass tort plaintiffs, seeking relief in St. Louis, Missouri may soon no longer be a viable option. Although seen as a plaintiff-friendly venue, particularly given the recent massive multi-billion dollar award against Johnson & Johnson, the state's senate...

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Federal Judiciary Adopts New Ethics Rules

The United States judiciary adopted new ethics rules, forbidding sexual harassment, unlawful discrimination, and "egregious and hostile" treatment of workers in the federal courts. The rules evolved from complaints about Judge Alex Kozinski, who resigned from the U.S. Ninth...

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Should You Ever Use an Exclamation Mark in a Pleading?

Even if you love exclamation marks as much as Elaine from Seinfeld, when drafting a pleading, there's really only one time when using one is appropriate. And no, it's not when you really need to put opposing counsel on blast. Much...

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How to Kill Your Opponent With Laughter

Stand-up comedians say they are killing it when audiences laugh; lawyers just want to kill in their arena. It's the nature of the beast, the law of the jungle. Lawyers are trained to attack, but laughter could be their most...

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Minnesota Judge Orders Snow to Stop, and It Worked

While the order itself may look authentic, one Minnesota state court judge is bound to have news station anchors and weather-reporters chuckling for years to come with his recent Order to Enjoin "Minnesota Meteorologists, Old Man Winter, and Mr. Snow"...

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How Perfect Can Your Law Firm Be?

Being perfect is a relative term, of course. "Perfect form" in tennis, for example, may define how a player strokes the ball. In law practice, "perfect writing" may be a brief without blemish. Some law firms, however, may put...

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How to Celebrate RBG's Birthday

For law firms and lawyers, celebrating Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's birthday is becoming more than just a fun trend, though it most certainly is that. This year, several different groups are planning to celebrate in a few different ways....

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Is Your Firm Making or Repeating History?

Lawyers often ask themselves what their legal legacy will be. After all, not every lawyer will set new precedent with a novel case; heck, some won't ever even argue a case in court. But that doesn't mean that you...

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Tips to Improve Your Creative Thinking in the Office

Thinking outside the box is not what it used to be. The idea suggests that you can find solutions to problems by going outside your usual boundaries. But the saying apparently came from a puzzle-maker in the 1960s, so...

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International Women's Day 2019: Celebrating 2018's Milestones

On March 8, 2019, across the globe, the world will be celebrating International Women's Day. And this year is a big one for celebrating, especially for the U.S. legal community, as it has continued to make history. Not only...

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R. Kelly and the Case for Not Letting Clients Speak to the Media

R. Kelly took the wrong page from Roger Stone's playbook. Kelly ranted on television about sex abuse charges against him, following a pattern that put Roger Stone in the news recently. A judge threatened to jail Stone for airing...

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Stone Cold Denial of Roger Stone's 'Motion to Clarify' Gag Order

The Roger Stone case is certainly the center of quite a bit of media fanfare, and for those in the legal community, it's starting to get even more interesting as Stone's lawyers appear to be scrambling over surprises. Most...

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3 Tips for Expanding Into Elder Law

Over the next decade, elder law is expected to start booming. Given the fact that the average age of the population is increasing as the younger Baby Boomers are now entering their golden years, some practitioners might be wondering...

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Protip: Don't Call a Judge a 'Succubus'

Lawyers know better than to call a judge a ... succubus? If you didn't know, a succubus is a mythical female demon that has sex with men in their sleep. But even if you didn't know that, you know...

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How Law Firms Can Stop Striking Out on Diversity

When it comes to diversity within law firms, the numbers may be getting better, but are still nowhere near ideal. Unfortunately for those firms that don't get a passing grade when it comes to diversity, more and more clients...

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Can DNA Tests Tell Identical Twins Apart?

The twins paradox is an issue in physics, and a problem in DNA testing. In the physics paradox, one twin zooms into space at light speed and comes back younger than his twin. That's awkward. In DNA testing, identical...

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Innocence Project Taking a Bite Out of Bite Mark Evidence

While CSI-style forensics make for compelling TV and really damning evidence in a courtroom, the truth is, forensics aren't always accurate. Sure, DNA evidence is pretty much rock-solid, but things like hair and fingerprints even have been discredited, right...

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Cohen Review: When Your Career Is Over, Should You Burn It Down?

Michael Cohen wasn't squeamish in his testimony against President Trump; the former attorney dragged the skeletons out of the closet and stomped on them. If there were any more dead bodies in the Trump Organization, it would be a...

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