USWNT Protest

Large Firm Lawyers in an Unwanted Spotlight

An argument put forth by Seyfarth Shaw in defending the U.S. Soccer Federation against allegations of pay discrimination has landed the athletic organization in hot water with sponsors and fans. Remarkably, last night the President of U.S. Soccer, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned as a result of the backlash to an argument made in a legal brief. […]

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The Mental Health Crisis Facing Lawyers

Data from the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey (ALM) demonstrates concerning levels of mental health issues among legal professionals. With 74% of the over 3,800 respondents agreeing that their career has had a negative impact on their mental health over time and nearly one-third citing their work or work environment as a cause of […]

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Why Personal Branding Is a Career Development Strategy

When you first start your legal career, you build your book of business by chasing down clients one-by-one through time-consuming networking efforts. Acquiring business on an individual basis is pretty much unavoidable at this stage, but it shouldn’t be that way for your entire work life. As you gain expertise in your field, you can […]

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How Lawyers Can Generate More Leads from Presentations

Those in the legal profession tend to believe that lawyers shouldn’t need help when it comes to making public speeches. After all, most lawyers know a thing or two about being persuasive, and trial lawyers address juries for a living. Many seem to be master communicators, but there’s a major difference between a jury and […]

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How to Get More People to Read Your Law Firm’s E-Newsletter

There is a straightforward and massively overlooked way to improve the effectiveness of your e-newsletter and other electronic communications: sending messages to relevant sub-sections of your recipient list. Just as you wouldn’t send holiday cards that say “Merry Christmas” to folks who don’t celebrate Christmas, you shouldn’t always send a single message to your entire email […]

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The State Bar’s Innovation Task Force

The State Bar of California is currently considering recommendations issued last summer by its Task Force on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services (ATILS) that relate to non-lawyers having ownership in law firms and even delivering legal services and legal advice. The theory behind such moves is that the increase in supply will reduce costs in the […]

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Why Big Law Partners Struggle to Go Solo

Am Law 200 partners and other large firm attorneys are surrounded by helpers. When a computer glitch occurs, someone from IT visits your office. The billing department takes care of the collections process, so you rarely have to get involved. And some firms have an in-house kitchen with food delivered right to your desk. At […]

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The Wrong Way to Raise Rates

As the new year begins, you may be looking to increase fees for your legal services. All too often, lawyers who charge by the hour include the higher rates in an invoice at the beginning of February with no prior warning. Whether this strictly complies with the requirement to notify clients of material changes could […]

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How to Lateral Without a Book of Business

Many attorneys are laboring under the misconception that without a $750,000 book of business, they don’t have the option to move laterally to another firm. Fortunately, there is no absolute bar to making that kind of transition with a smaller or even non-existent book of business. Below, we outline the real relationship between your book of […]

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Avoiding Common Errors In Compensating Law Firm Associates

Many lawyers practicing now came up through the ranks in a time when the norm was to compensate associates with a third of the revenues they brought in through billable hours (another third going to employee benefits and overhead and the remaining third going to the firm’s profits). In today’s market, using this rule almost […]