Chuck Newton

Rise Of The "Homepreneur"

BusinessWeek published an article on the "homepreneur" and the economic statistics it provides in the article are amazing.  Specifically, did you know that we that work from home and collaborate with others account now for more than half of all business in the United States and employ more people than venture-backed companies.

So, the question really is, why are you as an attorney or legal staff still pursuing work in a dying, industrial-style system?  We as Americans, like it or not, are going freelance.  We are, love it or hate it, becoming carpet commuters.

This, to me, is one of the reasons I just hate this insurance debate going on presently.  All you hear about is the concept of people being allowed to stick with your own company, or forcing coverage through large scale employers, when much of this matrix either does not exist any longer, or it will not in the not too distant future.  Most big firm and big company employees do not have a health care problem because the employer has been eating the ever increasing losses.  The problem is that this benefit is increasingly not true for most of us, and in reality that type of insurance no longer exists, even if you want to buy it, for us spare room tycoons.

It is also the reason that I hate the law school tuition bubble.  It is based upon recruiting and training lawyers to get jobs -- but not teach them how to practice law -- with larger law firms, in-house, and government agencies.  Law schools ignore the likely outcome of most of their graduates -- solo practice -- small firms -- collaborative practices.

Of course, when BusinessWeek talks in terms of the "homeprenueur", it is referring to us Third Wave attorneys.

As indicated in the article, the time is coming when we home-based attorneys and business people can no longer be viewed as eccentric or dismissed as quaint hobbyist.

An estimated 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners' household income. Together Third Wavers employ one in 10 private-sector workers.

I am not even sure this figure is correct.  I think the figure of those that make their living at home is even greater.  Just in my neighborhood alone, there are a good many people that work from home, and I do not mean Mary Kay people.  I know many lawyers that work from home most of the time.

The Internet, broadband in the home, cloud computing, online collaboration, and smartphones have accelerated the trend.

Just listen to some of these statistics.  The 43% of home-based businesses that provide at least half of the owners' household income are, on the whole, smaller than non-home-based companies. Only about 35% have revenue above $125,000, compared to 75% for non-home based businesses. But they measure up to other small companies on key aspects of doing business, including access to capital, benefits to workers, marketing, and innovation. On average they have two employees, including the owners, and together they employ more than 13 million people—more than venture-backed companies, which employ 12.1 million people in 2008.  In some of these companies, the operations are concentrated in the owner's home. Others use their residence as a headquarters but do most of their work at clients' homes or offices. The variety of home-based businesses cuts across industries, but the top sectors are business and professional services, construction, retail, and personal services (such as law).

As a result of this trend, there has been a change of consciousness in the business world to recognize home-based enterprises as legitimate.

Why?

Well, the most obvious financial benefit for home-based entrepreneurs is lower operating costs. A 2006 SBA study compared tax returns of sole proprietors who deducted home-office expenses with those who deducted commercial rent. That analysis found that home businesses, on average, had lower sales and net profits than companies in commercial spaces. But profitable home-based ventures retained a greater share of their total receipts as net income: 36%, vs. 21% for non-home-based businesses.

As we have been saying, I think what you see here is an trend that will continue to grow, and grow, and grow.

PACER, Tear Down This Wall !!

PACER/ECF was a godsend for Third Wavers, connected attorneys, future lawyers, telecommuters, home office lawyers and, really, all lawyers when it was first established.  It sure beat the hell out of making tons of copies of a documents and either couriering or FEDEXing them to the Courthouse, and then turning around and mailing out copies to everyone and his dog who had any interest in the case.  The system now send me copies of everything filed in a case - twice.  State court systems, especially in Texas, are pathetically and terminally behind the times and the tech.  So, let us hear it for PACER/ECF!  It is probably the best government sponsored program ever.

That said, things do evolve, and it is time to move away from the closed access futures of the system.  My good friend Rick Georges over at Future Lawyer referred me to this article on Wire.Com, about Senator Joe Lieberman wanting to know why PACER has not eliminated its pay for access to view public documents.

According to the article, Chairman of the Senate's Government Affairs committee, Sen. Lieberman (I-Connecticut), bypassed the administrators of the system and sent a letter straight to the Judicial Conference of the United States, which stating in part:

"Seven years after the passage of the E-Government Act, it appears that little has been done to make these records freely available — with PACER charging a higher rate than 2002. Furthermore, the funds generated by these fees are still well higher than the cost of dissemination ..."

It is an ongoing attempt by some to open-source the nation's operating systems.  In this I agree.

Uploading is paid in the way of filing fees in most instances.  But, if you were an ordinary citizen you could walk into a Courthouse and see all these records for free.  (Unless the Court sealed them for good reason).  Sure you would have to pay for the cost of copying any document, as the government should not bare that costs.  So, you should be able to access these public documents freely now.

I am not supporter of Sen. Lieberman, but I do like this idea.

I Use Google Earth

I am not a scientist.  And, I am not traveling salesman.  I am a simple attorney who works out of my home.  You might not think that I have any reason to use Google Earth or Google Maps in the work that I do, but you would be wrong.

I like Google because the company offer services that are functional, useful and FREE.  I like the power of FREE.

If you have ever visited my practice blog (StayViolation.Com), you know that I defend the rights of debtors gained in filing bankruptcy.  What I primarily do is prosecute automatic stay and discharge injunction violations.

Google Earth and Google Maps might not be the most important app that I use.  Admittedly, it did not replicate what the apps provide before they were available.  But, they do come in handy.

Many of the cases that I prosecute involve a debtor's home.  They involve value issues in determining how badly the automatic stay might have been violated in a case, for example.  Even though I rarely meet a client other than over the telephone, I want to know -- I need to know -- things about them.  I want to see where they live, and the neighborhood in which they live.  If I do need to meet with them, I want to see what location might be convenient for my client.  Visual images provide a better understanding of what and whom I must deal.

Also, a big part of my job is serving lawsuits (adversary proceedings) my law firm has drafted.  We do this by certified mail.  This task of serving the correct party at a correct address is not always as easy as it sounds.  This is especially so in serving smaller creditors that forget to update their registered agent information.  When there is confusion it helps to get online and take a look at the location suggested.  You need more than a map to make these judgments.  Google Maps might actually give you a street level picture of the building, can tell you if the address is a private home, is it a car lot, is it an empty field?  If it is a multi-tenant commercial building it matters in making these decisions?  It helps you understand often whether or not you need to look deeper.

Ice Cream As An Antidepressant

Finally, someone has cleared that up.  I love ice cream, and I am generally happy.  What more research does anybody need.  One scoop or two?

ABC News covered this issue recently on its website.

New research published in Nature Neuroscience shed some light on the biological relationship between depression and appetite. While it does not show that ice cream is an antidepressant, it does suggest that a brain chemical, that motivates the consumption of the ice cream, may be.  The chemical ghrelin is naturally produced in the brain and the stomach and it is the most potent appetite stimulant known.

Anyway, you can read the article for the science.  Let me just say, that I am feeling like a little ice cream.

Hey, I Know You!

Talk about network or relationship marketing.  As reported in the Washington Post it turns out that this is a small world.

With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.

A "degree of separation" is a measure of social distance between people.  You are one degree away from everyone you know, two degrees away from everyone they know, and so on.

Why does it matter that people from around the world are closely tied together?

Well, researchers said that the knowledge might have applications for political organizations, charity efforts, natural disaster relief and missing-person searches.  Large meshes of people can be mobilized with a tough of a return key, is the theory.  I agree, but it is also, from a relationship or network marketing concept a terribly interesting thing as well.

Better To Be A Happy Satisficer

Psychology Today and Kirsten Vala deal with whether it is better to be a happy satisficer or a successful maximizer.

The point of the article is that students in particular graduate with a multitude of skills and interests, but often are overwhelmed when it comes to choosing the ultimate career goal.

I feel this is nowhere more obvious than in graduating from law school or in deciding on a ultimate practice area.  We all feel at some point like a kid in a candy shop trying to make a choice on one flavor or one tasty little morsel.  But, what if after making that decision you were stuck with only that flavor that one pick for the rest of your life?  Would you be satisfied?

It depends, I take it from the article, as to what type of person we tend to be.  The research by the Swarthmore College professor Barry Schwartz and Columbia Business professor Sheena Iyengar looked at who was happier with their choices -- "maximizers" who consider every possible option, and "satisficers" who look until they find an option that is good enough.

As you might expect, the enlightened among us, those that undertake exhaustive research or study as to their ultimate best decision would be the most satisfied with their final decision.  But, the study found this not to be true.

Although maximizers typically ended up with better paying jobs than satisficers, they were not as happy with their decisions.

Professors Schwartz and Iyengar speculates as to why this is true and suspects the world of possibilities can be seen as the world of missed opportunities, and when you study every possibility you can become fixated more on what you have given up or failed to gain.

To me, maybe is that, especially among lawyers, maximizers try to judge the avenue they ultimately take in terms of making more money -- hence the drive toward Big Law.  In the process they ignore things like the lack of a commute, the cost of belonging to such an organization, the billing wheel on which they find themselves, and the thought that they really do not get to help real people.  I do not know, but it is plausible.

The professors think that maximizing is only really a problem if the person utilizes it as a full-time strategy.  In fact, most people change their decision-making style to fit different situations.  But, what this means to me is that all of us suffer to some extent with possibility that we made the wrong decision, and that based upon our decision that we missed opportunities to do something different with our lives or our careers.  I find that true in my life and my practice.

The professors come to the conclusion, I think, that as a general rule that we need to strive to settle for "good enough" and to lower our expectations so that we will have fewer regrets and can be generally happier.

What do you think?

Heath Insurance Is The Bane Of My Existence!!!

I have said it before, health insurance (and insurance in general) is the bane of my existence as a home office practitioner.  I have crappy health insurance coverage from a crappy insurance company that charges a ton of money every month so they can elect not to provide me or my family any real services for the money.  That is good for the insurance company, and it is bad for me, both from a financial standpoint and a health standpoint.   I pay a huge sum of hard earned money for the benefit of carrying a plastic card in my wallet that says I have insurance.  As far as I can see, my money is spent on not much more than a status symbol.  That plastic card says I am not one of the uninsured, but what does that really mean.  It is like having a AMEX Platinum Card to show people, but you do not really have the ability to charge anything on it.  That is the only benefit I see.  It is out of control.  It is not that I have not shopped around and tried to find something better.  I have.  I just cannot find anything better that somebody less than Bill Gates can afford. 

I wish there was some organization for solos and small firms that at least provided some type of decent comprehensive health insurance coverage in my state.

This said, before this turns you off on moving your practice home or in going out on your own, let me just say it is not much better out in the rest of the business world.  The Austin Business Journal reports that in a new survey by SurePayroll that 56% of all small business do not offer a health insurance plan.  I am sure that is probably true for many law firms as well.

Worse still the number of small businesses offering health insurance dropped by 32% since last year.

Many lawyers try to get their spouse to work from governmental agency or large company just for the insurance.  I have known lawyers who have left the private practice of law (and sometimes the practice of law altogether) so as to find employment with a group insurance plan in which the company pays at least part of the insurance premium.  The point of all of this is that these alternatives are becoming fewer and farther between as businesses rush to cut insurance coverage.

So the dark underbelly of the private practice of law is either the lack of health insurance or, in my case, the lack of decent and good quality insurance coverage.  We do not talk about it enough.  Worse, we as a group are not doing anything about it, and we should be.  It is not just the bane of my existence, but it is the bane of the existence for most of us.

Does anybody have any ideas?  If so email me or comment to this post and share them with us.

Boone Pickens Discusses How To Help Solve The Energy Crises

I am not always a big fan of Boone Pickens, but he does give a compelling argument was to why we need to act now and what we can move to solve the energy crises in this country.

On This 4th Of July We Need To Remember Thomas Paine

We pay so much attention to the named founding fathers.  This video from American News Project tells us that on this Independence Day we need to look back at the radical influence of Thomas Paine.

Medical Myths

I do not know about you, but sitting at home and avoiding the long commute does allow me to eat better and regulate myself a little better.  It also gives me more time to fret about all of this stuff you read concerning health.  I find myself following some of it, and feeling guilty about not following the rest.  Now, however, Telegraph has research these myths and they have exposed most of them not to be true.  You decide.  They are:

1.  We must drink eight glasses of water a day.  WRONG.  No more than one litre is needed, generally.

2.  Antibiotics and alcohol do not mix.  WRONG.  The possible exception is when taking Motronidazole or Rinidazole.

3.  Carbohydrates are to be avoided if you want to lose weight.  WRONG.  Starchy foods only become fattening when actual fat, such as cream or margarine, is added to the meal.

4.  Computers can be harmful to your health.  PARTLY TRUE.  Repetitive use can cause muscle strain, RSO and eye-strain.

5.  Shaving causes hair to grow back faster and coarser.  WRONG.  There is no proof of this.

6.  Poor diet and hygiene cause acne.  WRONG.  Acne is the direct manifestation of the production of hormones.  But, this is not to suggest that you should have a poor diet.

7.  Detoxifying the body is the ultimate path to wellbeing. WRONG.  The body is well equipped with organs that are marvelous at detoxifying what we put into our bodies.  All these organs need is exercise and a reasonable amount of water.