Sometimes you just don’t have access to the Internet. Whether you're traveling in a plane, or in a remote (or sometimes not so remote) area that has no WiFi, 3G or 4G coverage, or simply because your cable or T1 line is down due to weather or some other outage, on occasion you will have some forced downtime because you can’t access your cloud-based documents, send emails, or pull up a client’s contact information from a cloud-based provider. In fact, it is likely to happen at the most inopportune moment. Fortunately, there are ways to access online information locally....

Uh oh. You’re at the start of a meeting or a client presentation and it takes a sharp left turn. Perhaps you misjudged your audience or suddenly you realize you are horrifyingly off topic. Or, more commonly, you may have inadvertently hit a hot button and a heated argument erupts. Whatever the cause, there is one sure solution: Hit the metaphorical reset button ...

Some of the best new ideas are actually born of old ideas. Or, at least, ideas others have used—with a tweak or two. Who would have thought, for example, that those obnoxious Myspace pages created by a bunch of kids at the turn of the century would spark one of the biggest transformations in how business is done: social media for grown-ups in forms like LinkedIn and Viadeo? There's much to be learned from other professions ...

In this excerpt from his book The View from the First Chair, veteran California defense lawyer Martin L. Grayson offers a crash course on the importance of courthouse demeanor, with tips for always (always) presenting your best professional image. Martin is also featured in LawyerAvenue Press’s new “How to Litigate” video series—and you can watch his “Courthouse Demeanor” […]

I have had the pleasure of being a public performer for 22 years as a gymnast, a classically trained singer, a flash mob performer and, more recently, a speaker on legal topics. Despite all of my experience, I still get nervous. Before most performances you will find me pacing back stage asking myself, “Why is this fun for me?” ... And then I got the advice that changed everything ...

Legal puberty is real. I am not referring to one of those laws in the South regarding 12-year-olds getting married and when you can buy alcohol. I mean that, just as in your real life, you'll go through certain developmental stages in your career—including puberty—in your life as a lawyer. The phases are similar, quite distinct and universal.

Attorney at Work has been after me for a post about Klout. Try as I might, the drafts are snarky. I simply can't get past my mantra: Until Klout replaces my credit score, I pay it little attention. I say "little attention" because rarely a day goes by where I don't see a tweet along the the lines of "I just gave so-and-so +K in fill-in-the-blank" or "I just received +K for fill-in-the-blank." As if on autopilot, I click on my profile in HootSuite so my eyes can take in my current Klout score. At one point, I experimented and added my LinkedIn profile and Google+ profile. My score went up. Fascinating. For all of 30 seconds. Still hasn't replaced my credit score, thus requires little attention. Oh. Wait. Perhaps I should backup for a second and explain Klout so you can better judge its uselessness ... er ... usefulness ...er ... draw your own conclusions.

Are you, too, remembering Maurice Sendak this week? Perhaps reliving the deliciously scary times you spent Where the Wild Things Are? Recalling bedtimes when you snuggled with your little one and a well-worn copy of In the Night Kitchen? Then this Friday Five is for you! We declare today “Wild Rumpus Day” at Attorney at Work, and invite […]

Seems like you're always under the gun, doesn't it? Time pressure is the very nature of a lawyer's life. But now you've found that your new iPad makes your load lighter, let's make it quicker, too. Get beyond the basic 101-level of iPad use, and you can apply all kinds of micro-efficiencies to speed things up. Just as Microsoft Office and other programs have shortcuts, there are shortcuts for the iPad2 and iPad as well. ...

No doubt you've heard about those lawyers who scan everything that crosses their desks, efficiently coding and filing each receipt or treatise like a lean, mean legal document management machine. It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Truth is, you love the idea of becoming a paperless, even semi- paperless firm, but you have no idea what to do once you scan that first piece of paper. Where do you put it? How do you find it when you need it? And how do you get your partners to go along? Well, you're in good company. So when we heard about Steve Irons' "Scanbition" seminars, we asked him for a few tips to help lawyers make the move to firm-wide scanning. ...