Lawyer Skills

According to a Gallup poll on the perceived honesty and ethics of various professions, most people (79 percent) rate lawyers average or low. Just below bankers. Congressmen and car salesmen ranked lowest. How can you convey that you really ...

I coach one-on-one with hundreds of lawyers each year. When they plop their legal pads on the table as we work, I can see the notes they have created for public speaking or trial advocacy. With just a glance, it’s immediately obvious how ...

Lawyers writing books is certainly no grand innovation on the marketing front. If you can write a legal brief, you can write a book. But why should you? There are a number of reasons: 1. Authority. A book on a subject you practice daily with ...

Incorrect pronunciation can signal there’s something not quite right about the speaker. The speaker means to sound impressive, but incorrect pronunciation is a sure way to undercut a message. Generally, only your mother will correct you, so you ...

As a blogger, I often have random inspirations for posts. They can hit me at any time — when I’m going for a run, talking to colleagues, reading my Twitter feed. The one time my brain goes blank is the moment I sit down to actually write a post, ...

Maybe as I get older I have less patience for things that seem wasteful or meaningless, or maybe I’m just getting crankier. I suspect people who work with me would choose the latter, but I have made strides over the past few years in learning ...

Lawyers are hard-wired to be precise when writing and speaking. When practicing law they honor that precision rigorously. However, when it comes to interacting with their market, let’s just say their language discipline loses a lot of its rigor. ...

Of all the unexpected gifts from our respective law schools (debt, alcoholism), one of the worst may be a ghastly writing style that appeals only to law school professors and some judges. Don’t get me wrong. Law school provided its fair share of ...

Writing and editing marketing copy — for a brochure, proposal, website, whatever — can be a high-wire act. If there's more than one lawyer in your practice, you know it's true: Make editing a group event, and it becomes a management nightmare. ...

"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 ...