Daily Dispatch

As you edit your work product, pay special attention to instances where a stronger verb could replace a verb and its direct object. Besides being less persuasive, weak verbs plus explanatory words lengthen your writing [not, “make it longer”].

Let me tell you a story about a brainy brief writer. She was smart, hardworking and loved practicing law. But she had few clients of her own. This made her beholden to others at her firm. Over the years, she came to believe she could never be a ...

Few would argue lawyers’ ethical responsibility to communicate with clients using email. It’s fast, secure, cheap and provides a digital paper trail. Or that lawyers have a duty to safeguard clients’ private information, which means ...

A personal brand is the thing that sells you when you’re not there to sell yourself. Here’s a primer on lawyer branding. To borrow a phrase from Charles Dickens, for young lawyers in today’s legal market, it’s both the best of times and ...

In "Why Lawyers Really Struggle with Work-Life Balance," I listed six steps to building a practice that runs smoothly and allows you to have a life: 1) acquire better management skills; 2) implement better technology; 3) create and install ...

When awards season and Chambers nominations roll around, some firms find themselves scrambling to cobble together nomination applications. It’s understandable. I’ve been on both sides: crafting nominations, judging entries and writing copy about ...

To save time and labor in writing emails, consider composing templates or boilerplates that can easily be inserted into new emails and email messages you respond to. That’s the premise and promise of Ant Text, an add-in for Outlook and Outlook ...

When it comes to their skill in the courtroom, or their mastery when engaging clients, lawyers are mostly a confident bunch. When the conversation switches to marketing, however, that happy feeling is often replaced with anxiety, aversion or ...

In the years it takes before your lawyering skills develop to where you can produce work product that clients will pay for, you cost your firm a lot more than you generate. That’s expected, but it doesn’t mean that in the interim you can’t ...

Lawyers are essentially professional writers. Last year, I saw my friend and New York Times best-selling author Scott Sigler speak at Phoenix Comicon about how he managed to be a prolific writer and handle the business side of being a ...