Columns

For years I’ve heard the mantra, “It’s all about relationships.” At the risk of casting an unwelcome pall in the middle of the holidays, bear with me while I gore this venerable ox, a quaint vestige of the 25-year seller’s market that ended in ...

Cat got your tongue? Our special two-week holiday series, “Connect the Dots: A Lawyer’s Guide to Networking,” continues today with good tips on starting and sustaining conversations. You’ve heard about the elevator speech, the 30-second ...

A busy travel schedule can be good for business development. Ruth Carter tells how she does it in today's installment of  “Connect the Dots: A Lawyer’s Guide to Networking." Looking over my calendar from 2015, I noticed that I spent ...

Knowing it is against many of our natures to get out there and network, it is easy to see why many solos shirk the cocktail hour at the bar meeting, or slip into the back row of a CLE presentation and out again as soon as the hour is up. But if ...

While lots of things about the holidays are great, holiday travel is stressful. The roads and airports are crowded, the weather is not always cooperative, and the trips are often long. But don’t let holiday travel beat you down. Banish the ...

As the new year approaches, a lot of firms ask their lawyers to prepare annual business or marketing plans. Even without that structure, it makes sense to take a step back to reflect and assess what has worked, what hasn’t and what should be ...

The difference between a thriving law firm and a law firm that fails can come down to one thing: efficiency. If you cling to old habits and fail to use more efficient methods of managing your practice, you risk sacrificing profits. Here are five ...

To find more clients, stop thinking like a lawyer and start thinking like a small business owner: Evaluate your market, identify what you want to sell and advertise yourself effectively. To that end, remember that people who aren’t intimately ...

Recently the lawyers in my new firm decided to be more active on social media, particularly in blogging and on a Facebook page. The partners are looking to me for guidance on how to build their online presence, and I, in turn, am looking to them ...

It’s true, the business of practicing law is changing. And what it means to do a lawyer’s work is changing right along with it. From time to time at Attorney at Work, we tip our hat to one of the many “enterprising lawyers” leading the charge. ...