Columns

It's a given that you need to delegate or outsource some tasks if you want to grow as a firm. There are only so many hours in a day, and if you try to do absolutely everything yourself, it will mean limited revenues and likely unbearable hours ...

It started with the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone. Capital letters appeared in places they never appeared before. Grammar rules call for capitalizing proper names, but now the correct reference to some brands calls for capitalizing in the middle ...

The 80/20 rule is so ubiquitous that many of us have lost touch with its origins. Input/output? Sales leads/conversions? Clients/revenue? Greens/grains? Sharing my day/your day? Conceived by Vincent Pareto, the 80/20 rule, also known as the ...

Despite widespread recognition that the legal services business is undergoing the greatest change in its history, the industry still clings to a definition of relationships that doesn’t map to today’s reality. Different times and circumstances, ...

Change is exciting … and overwhelming. When faced with change, you must manage all the transitions that flow from it. You can feel adrift, and sometimes alone, as you re-evaluate your circumstances, or decisions, or even your entire ...

Not long ago, I was asked to make a presentation at a state bar's Law Practice Management Committee luncheon. Topic? Getting clients, of course. When we opened things up for questions, a gentleman in the back said, “You make it sound like the ...

Self-employed lawyers rely heavily on their ability to propel their businesses forward — more so than lawyers employed by others or partners of large firms. Fail to keep the engines going and your practice will close. Too much propulsion, ...

Figuring out what to write about on my blogs is a challenge I face every week, especially with our firm's patent blog. (I practice intellectual property, but not patent law.) I worry that my posts won’t be helpful or interesting enough to be ...

You’re an unstoppable legal machine. You churn through a hundred pages of briefs and legal research every day. You’re running two phones, a tablet, a laptop and a portable fax machine off a light pole at the airport. Your inbox is an email ...

I once defended a product liability case where the client was adamant that the product always be called a “personal watercraft.” It most definitely was not, he insisted, a Jet-Ski. The issue was the use of a trademark to refer to a similar ...