Lawyer Skills

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 ...

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 ...

When lawyers and law firms get focused on “creating content” (for those of you living in caves, that's what "writing" is now called), they think mostly about the subject matter. And that makes a lot of sense, for obvious reasons. But often ...

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! ... ...