Communications Skills

It's true, writing is a lawyer’s primary tool and a great source of pride and identity. But isn’t it also true that once in a while a teensy-weensy wisp of doubt creeps in? In the grip of writer's block, you fixate on memories of those ...

That article or white paper opportunity that seemed like a great way to enhance your reputation three months ago starts to spark panic attacks as the deadline looms. You know what you want to say, and have a file-folder full of notes and ...

"William Melater" (you can call him "Bill") is a young associate who's agreed to blog from time to time about life on the lower rungs of the legal profession as "The Dis-Associate," including—occasionally—what irritates him.

When I started my own commercial litigation boutique last year, I gave serious thought to abandoning the much-maligned billable hour. After all, we all know the criticisms: The billable hour rewards inefficiency, places the lawyer’s interests at ...

Want to build your law practice? Then the first thing you want to do is get a little bit famous. And one route to fame is getting your byline in print and pixels. To all who just muttered, “Yeah, but that’s nearly impossible,” oh no, it isn’t! ...

Innovation is the cornerstone of our economy. Finding new ways to do things, unique things to sell and better ways to sell them—that’s what it's all about. How does this apply to your law practice?

You probably aren't surprised to hear that Americans now spend more time online than they do watching television. But would you guess that 85.6 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed at least one online video in the month of June 2011 ...

Let's say you have a meeting scheduled with your client to review an important time-sensitive document. Moments before, your client calls to cancel because she's caught at home during a snowstorm. At one time, you would have had no choice but to ...

I don’t know about you, but I like to spend as much money as possible on my firm’s phone system while making sure it is as inflexible as Bakelite in winter—and nearly featureless. Wait. I may have reversed that. What I really like is to ...

Some years back, I worked in an office where the boss was obsessive about how callers were greeted on the phone. Then a new receptionist was hired who just could not get the phrasing to his liking—no matter how hard she tried or how many ...