Lawyer Skills

Mae West once claimed, “I speak two languages, Body and English.” Double entendre aside, she had a point. Fluency in both speaking and understanding body language can take you far — both in your law practice and your life (although maybe not ...

In law firms, most of us copy and paste within and between documents a lot. Especially when a well-written document crosses your desk with text you could use in a precedent – why not borrow and reshape it instead of starting from scratch? I ...

The amazing array of communication technologies at our fingertips allows us to connect with clients, colleagues and resources across the world in ways unknown and unheard of just 10 years ago. On the flip side, many things get lost in ...

It's gone now, but I remember the coffee shop across the street where we used to gather in the mornings to brace ourselves for the coming day and generally shoot the shit with each other. It was a shifting set of players from nearby law firms. ...

Last year I went to a reunion of sorts with a couple dozen former colleagues from my college newspaper. Itinerant profession that it is, journalism had scattered us across the country into a broad range of media industry jobs. Over the years I ...

Anyone who knows me (or follows me on Twitter) knows that I love sports, particularly my beloved Golden Gophers. So it should come as no surprise that I watched the press conference with our new men’s basketball coach, Richard Pitino. After ...

Maybe it's time to accept that email just wasn't designed to do all the things we try to get it to do. Like manage projects and files, share documents or (groan) schedule meetings. It's not just that it's considered "old-fashioned," but with so ...

Social media. A familiar topic for me, and a staple now at ABA TECHSHOW. I'd be remiss if I didn't say I walked into the session, "Social Media as Information Gathering Tool," a skeptic last week. Obviously, social media is an information ...

A shocking number of ethics complaints stem from a very simple problem: lawyers not communicating with their clients. Clients pay for our time and effort, and they deserve to hear from us. Plus, our ethical obligations require that we be in ...

It seems excellent lawyers do not always produce excellent legal writing. Whether due to a lack of time, of mental energy, of colleagues available to proofread, or of awareness of just how bloated a legal document can get, good lawyers sometimes ...