At a recent seminar on using the iPad in law practice, I was asked: “If you were trying a lawsuit on a desert island and you could only take three apps with you, what apps would you take?" Interesting question. Ultimately, though, I copped out on the answer. Rather than name just three apps, I described three categories of apps I would want. After all, there are several great apps in each category, and I wouldn't want any of my fellow Robinson Crusoes to be limited to the three I happen to like the best. So here goes—my apps recommendations for a desert island trial. ... READ MORE

Initially, it was just awkward. This stranger's butt was inches from my face. Undulating. Back and forth. I could hear the loose change in his front pocket clanking against itself. He was a large man, but not large enough to block my view of his hands as he dug furiously through an old Eddie Bauer backpack. He took another step back. His rear pockets inches from my face, my discomfort turned to curiosity. What treasure was hidden in the base of his ratty knapsack? With a final thrust, he stood up with the valuable prize in hand: headphones.

It's International Women's Day today. And, while it's true that the annual celebration has its roots in the 1908 American Socialist Party's National Women's Day, the event has grown far beyond its original geography and ideological underpinnings to become a global celebration with no political connection. Now, thousands of events throughout the world inspire women and celebrate their achievements.

You've heard it from just about anywhere technology advice gets spread: Document assembly systems save time, boost productivity, reduce errors—and all while helping to eliminate reinventing the wheel when drafting documents. Sounds fabulous. But are real-life lawyers actually adopting document assembly in their practices? For insights into that—and, better still, tips on how to get the benefits without taking a wallop to the wallet—here’s the scoop from some folks in the know. ... READ MORE

Is this client profitable? How do you really know? Profitability has for too long been measured based solely on metrics like hours worked, revenue and realization. Although those metrics are components of an overall client profitability picture, they do not tell the whole story. Client profitability in its simplest form is how much revenue a firm receives versus the cost it incurs to produce that revenue. But it is really influenced by many variables. ... READ MORE

Working for yourself is awesome. Working by yourself is awesome, too. You get to set your own hours, you can wear whatever you want—and you get to run your business your way. But no one warns you when you open a solo practice—especially if you choose to work from home—how lonely it’s going to be. I opened my solo practice at the beginning of 2012. It’s a virtual office, so I have a business center where I book conference rooms as needed to meet with clients, and a mail service for my business address. I can work wherever I want, but confidentiality issues and my need for quiet force me to work at home most of the time. For the most part, I love it. My commute is the 30-second walk from bedroom to office. ... READ MORE

In my previous post, I talked about the importance of capturing your sparks of genius in one centralized repository so you can organize, review and then act on them. Now let's look at three lesser-known ways to do that with the ultimate capture tool: Evernote. The first marries the analog world with the digital world, using paper notebooks; the second is a fantastic service for transcribing audio notes; and the third is my favorite app for entering information—fast!

"Why Your Blog Sucks and What to Do About It" is Sam Glover's topic at the upcoming Lawyernomics 2013 conference. We talked with Sam last week to get a preview, and to learn a bit more about how wrong lawyer blogs can be. If you blog, or if you're thinking about it, he has some mind-rattling thoughts for you. And he's not just a-woofin'. Sam has driven the site Lawyerist.com to become one of the legal online world's heavy-hitters—while continuing to practice law! Five Reasons Your Blog Sucks (Probably). While Sam has a whole lot more to say (there are, apparently, many ways a blog can suck), for today's Friday Five we snipped these five reasons. ... READ MORE

Many clients behave like their lawyers are doctors. They only visit us when they face serious problems that require an expensive and time-consuming fix. They are unhappy when they walk in, mad that they are there in the first place, mad that they didn’t come sooner—and mad when you tell them what it will cost for you to fix their legal problem. What does it mean when you experience this situation with a client? Well, it’s likely the client is telling you that lawyers suck. ... READ MORE

If your practice involves large deals and larger documents, then you know the drafting havoc that word processing can create. Clearly, we save time when we start with legacy documents, copy and paste from other matters, and have each party make their own revisions to the deal documents. But we can also end up with documents with terms that are undefined or defined more than once, defined terms that are not used, and terms or phrases used inconsistently (unintentionally) within a document or across several related documents. EagleEye, an add-in to Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 designed for lawyers, does not eliminate the need for proofreading, but I believe it can help speed up that process in three important ways ... READ MORE