Your legal career comes down to a choice between two paths. One feels safe, the other fraught with risk. One requires conformity, the other originality. One leads away from fear, the other straight toward it. Building a successful personal brand requires dancing with the fear.

Social media is trending in much the same way it has in past years: It's an even more reliable tool for nurturing and solidifying relationships. People turn to online social networks for recommendations on all sorts of things, including lawyers. And, yes, even lawyers ask for recommendations for lawyers from other lawyers on social networks. The truth is, despite the skepticism of many lawyers, people have been doing this now for years. But many of you already know this. So, let’s dive right into what I think you ought to know (but might not) about using social media in 2017.

When talking with lawyers about Evernote, I often get the same comment: “I heard it was a good productivity tool so I downloaded Evernote, but I haven’t figured out how to get started with it.” Fortunately, there are some simple ways to jumpstart using Evernote in your law practice.

Legal technology entrepreneur Gary Kinder earned a law degree, but he didn’t go straight into the law. Instead, he taught writing at his alma mater, became a published author himself, and began traveling the country teaching lawyers how to write. It was during this decades-long teaching stint Kinder realized he could leverage his passion for writing and teaching to create software that helps lawyers hone their skills.

Last month, I attended TBD Law, an invitation-only lawyer unconference. The purpose of the event was to take a step back and look at the future of law practice. For me, it was a chance to reflect and strategize about how to be more effective and efficient as a practitioner. Toward the end of the event, we were given a worksheet to write out our schedule for putting our plans into action. At the bottom of it was the prompt “I commit to stop doing these three things” — and three blank lines.

Attorney at Work (www.attorneyatwork.com) announces the release of “Getting Clients: For Lawyers Starting Out or Starting Over,” a new book by legal marketing hall-of-Famer Merrilyn Astin Tarlton. REVIEW COPIES AVAILABLE Review copies and interviews with Merrilyn Astin Tarlton are available upon request. The information below may be used in whole or part with acknowledgment to the […]

A television commercial for Butterfinger candy bars brags that they are “crispety.” Another advertisement claims they are “crunchety.” These descriptions are not words, and Nestle should not be trying to persuade us otherwise. One would think the words “crispy” and “crunchy” are adequate for the job. You may not have bought into these particular word extenders, but perhaps you are pronouncing or adding non-existent syllables in other words.

It starts with a simple request to your iPhone ("Siri, add an appointment to my calendar") or a command to your new Amazon Echo ("Alexa, add toner to my shopping cart"). Before you know it, the Internet of Things has slipped straight from your smart home into life at the office. For today's tech tips, we asked Sharon Nelson, John Simek and Nora Regis how lawyers can be smart — and safe — when using connected devices at work.

Working with a virtual assistant for the first time can seem harrowing, especially when sensitive legal information and documents are involved. Here are a few tips that will help make the arrangement stress-relieving rather than stress-inducing.

This will completely frustrate you Western Civ majors, but your clients don’t care about your law firm’s history. I know it’s tempting to commemorate a big anniversary with a self-congratulatory press release, glossy collateral or detail-heavy web copy. It used to be fairly common. I once covered the 25th anniversary of a Silicon Valley firm. They ordered a giant “25” ice sculpture and the partners posed around it. Other than the debut of New Coke, I cannot remember a more ridiculous media event.