Your firm makes you a partner based on potential—a belief that everything the partners have observed indicates you have the characteristics to be successful. You've got what it takes! But making partner is one thing. Staying partner is quite another. By now you know the metrics required for continued success in your firm (or if you don't, you should). You know what impacts profitability in your unique practice area. You know what partners expect of each other in terms of revenue, effort, service to the firm, and service to the community and the profession. They are all contributions that owners make in the business on an ongoing basis. But what if you're not cutting it? ...

We've been talking a lot these past few weeks about how much it costs to start a solo practice from scratch. We've had some terrific responses, including litigator John Snyder's checklist. This got us wondering, if you had the chance to pick all new technology, might you choose a Mac this time? We asked Brett Burney, who runs Macs in Law, for a primer on setting up a Mac law office. ...

You might think the gift of the gab is an essential skill for a successful lawyer. And it's true that knowing how to think fast on your feet and verbalize points quickly and understandably can be important qualities. But it can be just as important to learn when to simply keep your mouth shut. A lawyer who never learns how to bite his or her tongue may have a very short and unsuccessful career.

"What you need is a mentor!" Everyone keeps telling you to find a mentor. But if you knew how to get one, you would probably already have one, right? When you look at the people around you, it may be that you already have a mentor—you just haven’t attached that word to the relationship. But if you really can’t name the person in your life who plays that role, it’s time to find one—or more!

Creating legal documents can be something like playing with Legos. How so, you might ask? Well, typically lawyers assemble new and individualized documents—contracts, briefs, opinions—by plugging together existing sentences and paragraphs from a kit of previously prepared precedents (i.e., the building blocks).

Most lawyers are wary of sending confidential client information via email. They understand that email isn’t 100 percent secure and many go to great lengths to set up cloud exchange systems where they can more securely transmit client documents. When it comes to their own websites, however, many lawyers are rather lax—after all, client information isn’t stored online so what is there to worry about? Here are some basic but critical steps you can take to protect your site—and make sure that the only one gaining access to your online home is you. ...

In a previous post, How Much Does It Cost to Start a New Solo Firm?, Ruth Carter, Carolyn Elefant, Stephanie Kimbro, Debbie Foster, Donna Seyle & Greg Siskind told us how much they think it would cost a new lawyer to start up a solo practice today ... from scratch. Manhattan litigator John H. Snyder recently left large-firm practice to do just that—and he fields plenty of questions from peers on this particular topic. So we were particularly interested in what he advises ...

The Allied Command in World War II spent more than two years preparing for D-Day. When asked about the plan—which resulted in the successful Allied invasion of occupied France—General Dwight D. Eisenhower commented, “The plans were useless, but the planning was indispensable.” I think about that quote often when strategizing about my own firm—and when I'm talking with lawyers who complain their firms are headed in the wrong direction, yet who are unwilling to step back and lead. It’s not that these lawyers are lazy. Far from it. They are working like mad to make their practices succeed. And that’s precisely the problem. ...

Google+ is Google’s effort to create a social media community. It seems like a lot of people have a Google+ account but don’t really use it. There is, though, one aspect of Google+ that differentiates it from the other social media sites and it is Google Hangouts. It’s my favorite part of Google+ and it has become […]

Let’s face it—redacting documents has never been a lot of fun. In terms of something to look forward to, it probably falls just above getting a root canal. But with new technology, there are ways to make it easier, if not more enjoyable. Using these tools, you can dispatch even large-scale redaction projects with a minimum of pain and drama. Try these strategies for making redaction a bit easier.