The ABA’s National Solo & Small Firm Conference, held October 20-23 in Denver, offered a huge range of CLE (more than 50 hours’ worth) for busy lawyers. For this week’s Five, we asked Jim Calloway, director of the Oklahoma Bar’s Management Assistance Program, to report back on the sessions that particularly sparked his interest. As […]

It’s 3 a.m. on a wet Sunday morning and Micheal O’Shea is a worried man. Fifteen minutes ago he was breathalyzed by the road traffic police on the drive home from his sister’s 40th birthday party and, well, he might have had one or two too many. He walks into his den, switches on his computer […]

Part of making Microsoft Office work better for you involves tweaking key settings. Trouble is, finding which settings can make your life a little easier is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Here are four you should consider checking.

Who are these "enterprising lawyers"? Actually, they are easy to spot. Look for the more engaged and happier lawyers in the crowd. Deeply invested in the power of the work they do for their clients, they have ample interests beyond the practice of law as well. And they seem to have more energy for getting things done than anyone in the crowd. You probably know one or two—you may even be one yourself! Meet Stephanie Kimbro—a solo with an eye on the future who, quite literally, wrote the book on virtual law practice.

Time to go look at yourself in the professional mirror—that is to say, to go read your online biography. Whether you’re a sole practitioner or a lawyer in a large firm, there’s one page on your website that’s entirely about you. Its purpose is to get clients to retain you. Is it doing its job? This is what visitors should find when they read your online biography ...

It's true. Our devices sure have improved our productivity: dictating, navigating and researching on the fly with our smartphones and wowing folks in meetings with iPad touch screens. But let's be perfectly clear: It's the nifty non-essentials that have us hooked. The gadgets, the games, the shopping (accessories!) and especially the socializing. So today we indulge all things digital and web-geeky. Lucky us, it was a big week for that.

If you’re one of those people who signed on for LinkedIn, filled in the basic info about your work and education and now can’t figure out why nothing magical is happening, this is for you. Like much social media, you get as much as you give with LinkedIn. Unlike some social media, though, LinkedIn delivers some […]

I was sitting in the middle of, quite possibly, the biggest trial of my firm’s history. The liability was golden. It was just a matter of how much we were going to win. To be specific, I was sitting in the middle of the courtroom. Literally the middle. Between the jury and the counsels’ tables. […]

Ever notice that nearly every discussion of career alternatives for unemployed or dissatisfied JDs includes something like, “... just look at John Grisham!” Ah, yes, the life of a writer of fiction. The fame. The fortune. The movie stars! While surely there are more realistic career options, today we're putting our cynicism in a drawer and devoting this Friday Five to, yes, resources for the fledgling fiction writers among us.

There's a scene in the movie "Men in Black" when Will Smith's character tries unsuccessfully to get the attention of his bosses, and finally succeeds when he bellows “Hey, Old Guys!” That's a familiar scene around my firm. No, I don't mean we have to scream at each other. But it does seem true most of us "old guys" don't want to pay attention to what's staring us in the face.