Chuck Newton

I'm Not Sure About This

The Sharper Image and JDBliss.Com are both promoting this "laptop desktop" for lawyers on the road.  It is designed to help you balance your laptop on your lap.  A soft rubberized underside keeps the desk from slipping off of your lap, and dual risers elevate your laptop so your computer's cooling fans work to keep the computer — and your lap — from getting too warm.  On first thought this gadget looks really handy, but on deeper inspection you have to wonder if it is not just one more thing you have to keep up with when you travel.  If you are a true road warrior, it is one more thing you have to carry.

Work / Life Balance

I found this gem on JDBliss.Com:

Women tend to place a higher value on work-life balance than men do when considering a new job. Forty-one percent of women – compared to just 26 percent of men – believe having no flexibility with regard to work hours is a reason to not accept a new position. However, 40 percent of men indicate their current employer is not flexible enough in terms of allowing them to balance their professional and personal lives, compared to just 28 percent of women.

JDBliss takes from this study that law firms should place more emphasis on work-life balance because, although men may not be as vocal about the issue, it is what will allow the firms to retain quality associates.

Of course the advice of JDBliss would seem correct, but I would offer that large law firms are generally not about to allow this balance of life issue because the motivation of large firms too much favors billing and collection.  Associates, whether men or women, have to collect many times what they earn in order to be of a benefit to the law firm.  This requires a great amount of time.  The infastructure of the law firm simply will not allow such a balance except in a limited number of cases.  It is not a matter of want, as it is a matter of can, the large firms afford to do so.  It would require a top to bottom remake of most firms to accomplish this task, starting with drastic surgery to overhead, partner salaries and the bottom line.

You also have to stop the hours of commuting if you want a real work/life balance.  That means the large firms have to eliminate their large offices.  (One of the largest law firms in the World, based in downtown Houston, Texas, just purchased its own skyscraper to house its headquaters and Texas lawyers so it could stop renting.  This firm is not now likely to send everybody home given what is estimated to be a $100 million investment in infastructure).

In the not so distant past these associates did not have much of a choice.  Their option was to leave and try to replicate what they were leaving.  That was not and is not a really good option.  Today, however, the Third Wave is making this exodus possible for many.

I believe it is because of this regidity in big law firms, couple by what this study finds to be a real big concern among both Mommy-lawyer and Daddy-lawyer for a realistic work/life balance (a family life and a personal life) that we are seeing an exodous of sorts by more established attorneys from the office towers and the large firms to solo practices at home.

An Actual Virtual Law Firm

I work in a truly virtual law practice.  We have three attorneys in two locations, working from wherever we are, everywhere we are.  We have no offices, no centralized computer system, no advertising (except for a practice blog, StayViolation.Com), and no staff.  We work free from the confines of standardization, centralization, concentration, synchronization and bureaucracy, which has primarily contributed to the dissatisfaction of lawyers with the practice of law.  We live, support and fight for diverse lifestyles.  We do it by being King of the Internet.  That is why I always appreciate finding an article about someone else replicating this model.

Meet Gregory Kim and his virtual law firm Vantage Counsel.  According to an older story in the Star Bulletin in Hawaii:

Greg Kim is redefining the legal industry in

Hawaii

by creating a firm with no associates, no hourly rates and no office.

Instead of ranks of associates to do his bidding -- and to rack up billable hours for his firm -- Kim has no associates at all.

His name appears nowhere in the name of the firm, which is called Vantage Counsel.

And instead of billing clients by the hour, Vantage usually bills by the job. In fact, some of Vantage's clients are young start-up companies that lack the money to pay much in legal fees at all.

Finally, instead of a corner office, Kim now has no office to call his own; instead, he shares communal space with his firm's four other lawyers -- who often work from home or from free WiFi hotspots at Kahala Mall or the Plaza Club downtown.

If all of this seems unusual, if not a bit flaky for a corporate law firm, there's an aspect that's perhaps most surprising: One year into the venture, Kim is making as much money as he did at Goodsill.

"We're really not about making money; we want to make money, and we want to make a lot of money," he said. "But we also want to start seeding some things in the community."

Still, when asked how his income compared to what he was making at Goodsill, Kim said: "I'm making at least as much if not more. If I wanted to make a lot more, that would be easy."

Putting Your Aggragator On Double Secret Probation

Do you suffer from RSS Overload-itis?

If so then Rethink(IP) believes it has found a solution.  It is called "double secret probation".  These bloggers write:

One of the first visible symptoms of RSS overload-itis is an urge to delete blog posts en masse just to clear them. Been there, done that.

However, I've found a solution...double secret probation.

Most aggregators allow you to create "groups" for your blogs. I have groups for "blawgs," "bored," "technology," etc. (see a picture below). The most important group of all is called "Probation." Into the Probation group goes every new blog I add to my aggregator. EVERY one. Consider it a quarantine tank for your RSS aquarium. Once a month, go through your Probation group and cull the herd, promoting some to the big leagues, while giving others the boot.

Shoot...when a blog starts getting lame, I demote it to the Probation group, a first step on the way out of my aggregator.

The Blue Light Has A MySpace Page

The Blue Light Internet radio has its own MySpace page that you can check out.  As noted on the site:

Music from the Blue Light is an Internet radio station that plays the greatest music of all time. I like to call it the "Great American Songbook." If you like the best in easy listening music and standards, then this is the station for you. This award winning station has consistently been among the most listened to stations on the entire Internet since it's inception in 1999, and it is enjoyed by listeners from all over the world.

The station programer also has a blog, John's Opinions.

Office Music That You Want

We all have different taste in home office music.  We typically have a lot of interest, but like to work to a particular style.  For me, the music of choice are crooners.  Mid-century stuff like Frank, Deano, Sammy, Tony, Perry and the rest.  Typical radio offers too many interruptions and commercials.  IPods, CDs, and MP3 players require some degree of control and distraction.  Also, if you are looking for news or opinion or sports to help you through the day, then players will not work.  CNN.Com or other websites are not an option because they interrupt, as opposed to enhance, your work.  In other words, it is hard to watch CNN on your computer screen if you are trying to do online research or keyboard in a document.

For me it is Internet radio.  Specifically Live365.Com offers you a choice of thousands of stations to suit your tastes.  They have a premium service in which the company will guarantee you access and no commercials, but I would pass.  Otherwise the service and stations are FREE!  I rarely get knocked out of a station I like, and for commercials most true Internet stations play just one spot every few songs.  Many stations are programed by armatures, just like the radio station version of bloggers.  In fact, you can start your own Internet station by just clicking on the appropriate button on Live 365.  You can run the music in the background while you work on other programs on your computer.

My personal favorite?

That would be The Blue Light.  Currently playing while I'm posting, Ella Fitzgerald's Let's Call The Whole Thing Off from her Gershwin Songbook album.  It followed Dean Martin singing  Goodnight My  Love.  It is being followed by Ray Conniff's version of Buttons and Bows.  And of course if you hear something you just have to have, you can stop what you're doing momentarily and download the song to your computer for loading on your MP3 player.

This is a required Internet accessory for any Third Wave law firm wanting to keep his or her sanity.

It's Halloween--BOO!

My oldest daughter, Mary Newton, and her friends try to teach the concept of Halloween to the Japanese.  Now that is scary.  Click on video below.

Do You Have The Shingles?

I am sometimes amazed at what said causes trouble.

I recently wrote a post concerning (I guess what I perceived as the negative connotations with what is a well over used phrase by lawyers who decide they want to venture out on their own) "hanging out your own shingle".  It caused trouble with lawyers, some of whom I know and respect.  One lawyer with her own blog concerning the hanging of "shingles" in particular took offense believing (it appears) that I was specifically attacking her blog.  (It was not my intent).

She accused me of trying to be "trendy" by me suggesting that the term "hanging of shingles" sounded "so last millennium".  To this charge I plead guilty in so much as I want to bring the practice of law into the current age, but she was using "trendy" as a derogative.  I guess she thought I was belittling the word "shingle" so she would try to return the favor.  Touche!  Jargon is jargon.  I was just trying to make a point--and a good point at that.

What I do not understand is the inference that I am some kind of dot.com Johnny-come-lately to advising solos merely because she has practiced law for 13 years, and started working at home before it was "cool".  I certainly do not begrudge anybody who has accomplished so much and enjoys her profession so much, and who has worked so hard for so long.  She has been blogging longer than I have.  However, I have practiced law actively for 20 years, which means I was litigating in the Texas Supreme Court and the United States District Courts against the Bar, arguing for her first amendment right to blog in the first place, even before she entered law school.  In this 20 years I have never known of a time when solo practitioners were "untouchable", whatever that is intended to mean.  Although some have done amazingly well, most of the time solos have been out gunned, out financed and overworked by large firms who can spread the risk and incur the overhead.  It has always been about large firms and industry protecting their franchise on the market place over the interest of solos.  We solos and small firms banded together so that technology could take its course and so that the playing field could be evened out whether you were a firm of one or a firm of a thousand.  It is the technology of the Third Wave that is only now putting solos on an even playing field with large firms.  If that is trendy, then I accept the title.

Hence, my lack of preference for the word "shingles".

One lawyer commented that my blog is my shingle.  To the degree that you can equate a business card to a billboard, I would say that is right.  There are similarities.  Shingle used generically, without any preconceived notion of its meaning or the attributes placed on it, is not a problem just as saying you are going to buy a "car".  But, what if you say you are going to by a "Ford".  That is a car, but it conjures up images and attributes (or lack of attributes) as well.  And, that is my point.  Shingle has attributes (or lacks attributes) to many that would suggest some trendiness away from the term is required.

To the degree that this is a healthy discussion that has obviously bedeviled saints and sinners alike, I also do not understand the argument that my blog is one that places "form over substance" or that this blog is "full of jargon" that does not "teach" "by example" on "how to practice law and deliver legal services to my clients better, faster and less expensively."  Oh, it hurts.  Most of what she blogs on, I blog on.  We agree on most of what we say.  I call my philosophy in this regard the "M-Factor" and she calls it "Shingles".  I cannot see where "Shingles" is any less jargonistic than is "M-Factor".  The term "Shingles" just comes with more baggage.

I understand that Shingles' symptoms, as I perceive them, may be vague and nonspecific at first. People with Shingles may experience numbness to large firm practice, an itch to try something new, and inkling that there is something better out there for them as lawyers.  At the pre-eruption stage, diagnosis may be difficult, and the pain and depression could be so severe that it may be mistaken for burnout.

But, the problem is that Shingles can carry a deadly virus with it that can ruin a promising legal practice.  This virus represents the attributes (or lack of attributes) that one associates with Shingles.  This virus is typically contracted at law school.  It can cause one to have delusions of grandure, and it associates itself with ideas that you need a seperate office (likely in a large office tower), staff, partners, copiers, phone systems, computer networks, and all of the trappings those of old once associated with a dynamic practice.  It creates the feeling that you need to replicate what you are leaving instead of leaving it all behind and trying something radically new.  This virus operates under the scientific name, "overhead".  It can be costly to cure, and in some cases can lead to the death of the practice.  This virus retreats to nerve cells in the body, where it may lie dormant for decades.  But under certain conditions, usually related to a desire for a change, a desire for more time, a desire to raise a family, or the desire for more money, the virus can reactivate and begin to reproduce.   Once activated, the virus travels to your brain making you believe that you need an office away from home and luxuries that result in high, high overhead that deprive you from your sanity, earnings and happy clients (or really the oxygen you need to effectively practice law alone).

It is this disease of sorts that we are trying to fight in blogging to enlighten you of the need for, and the benefit of, a Third Wave law practice.

If the crazy way I try to present the argument is offensive or hurtful to some, I am sorry, but our mission is resolute.

Whether for or against what I have stated, I appreciate all of those who have contacted me on this subject.

Niche It Or Lose It

Tom Kane is a former practicing attorney and is the principal of Kane Consulting, Inc., a legal marketing consulting firm.  He is author of several books including, Letters for Lawyers: Essential Communications for Clients, Prospects, and Others.  He recently blogged about the practical need to have a niche legal practice and a desire to fully or properly market your niche.  For example, my practice blog or website is called StayViolation.Com.  I do not practice bankruptcy law, or litigation within a bankruptcy filing.  My practice is even more narrow than that.  I litigate only one subsection of one section of the Bankruptcy Code--automatic stay violations.  Another example is that attorney Grant Griffiths practices in the area of family law, but he also has a blog devoted to Grandparent Visitation.  There are many more such examples.

Tom Kane states:

The more narrow your niche, the more likely you’ll stand out from the crowd. So, why do so many law firms look similar?

The problem is that it is hard for some firms to narrow their focus enough to truly appear different ...You just have to make some hard decisions, and the more you narrow your niche the better.

Let’s face it; the tendency is to fish for clients with the largest net possible, so as to not miss any possible catches out there. Not the smartest move, in my opinion.

“Specialists” (I know you can’t use that term unless certified in most states) in whatever their niche:

• Standout
• Are more desirable and in demand
• Can charge much higher rates (or larger fixed fees – see my last post about one firm’s move to flat fees), and
• Generally, can pick and choose the clients they want.

...So, how do you concentrate on marketing a niche that will make a difference?

Well, you may have to change your image in the marketplace...But, if you really have a niche, then you want to promote it (yes, to the exclusion of all the other terrific things you do).

Niche marketing is very effective, and a whole lot better than what most law firms currently do. But, to get meaningful results, you will need a niche/image campaign that lets potential clients know what that niche is, as well as ensuring that your firm truly stands out from the crowd.

        

The MiniMinder

MiniMinder is the slick little date reminder program which gives an attractive daily countdown to any upcoming events which you've chosen to track. It's designed to be small and unobtrusive, but how you size it and where you put it is entirely up to you. If you're the type of computer user who starts up their computer every day, MiniMinder is there for you with your reminders each time you reach the desktop.