Communications Skills

"Another end-of-year chore. What should we send out? Does anybody even care?" Those thoughts come to mind whenever it’s time to start thinking about sending a holiday card. It doesn’t have to be this way. What have your clients heard from you ...

You don’t have to be afraid of ghosts this Halloween. In fact, you might consider these five thoughts about working with one. 1. Why would I want to work with a ghostwriter? Most lawyers tend to write, well, like lawyers. A ...

First, let’s get some terms straight. These days, journalism schools are teaching students that a "press release" should be called a "news release." Last time I heard, television, radio, cable and the Web don’t use printing presses. So starting ...

“Your Honor, this is a motion to vacate the most recent order and request for rehearing. Unfortunately, our failure to appear was caused by a calendaring error in our office.” How embarrassing. Yet, “calendaring” or “docketing” (depending on ...

What's the secret to being a great interview? Typically, of course, you have to deliver a real, relevant story “of high consumer interest” to get the news media to pay any attention to you at all. But what if the media does come to you? Let's ...

"One of the only": the ambiguous phrase that keeps popping up. I don't know what this means — and neither do your readers. A recent newspaper story about Martha Stewart’s sale of her brand quoted a branding maven: “When [Stewart] started, she ...

Although it isn’t something I freely admit to my friends outside the legal world, I can share with you how much fun I routinely have on Oyez.org, the Supreme Court media site. If you haven’t checked out this site yet, do so immediately! ... ...

Guest blogging? You are probably saying to yourself that you write enough as it is, and you couldn’t possibly take on another assignment. (And I feel your pain!) You spend most days creating documents and responding to clients, other lawyers and ...

Even the best writer can sometimes confuse words that sound almost the same — call them sound-alikes. A prior post reviewed many of the ...

Before you fire those agreements off to your client in an email, there are some key questions to ask.