Chuck Newton

Cardboard Office

When you look around at offices and space, have you ever noticed that only advertising executives and high tech people get to have all of the design and architecture fun?  What is it with lawyers that we seem to gravitate toward maybe competent but otherwise sterile design.

In this regard, here is something interesting.  Paul Coudamy designed a workspace for Beast (an advertising agency) on a limited timetable of a month and on a limited budget made almost entirely from cardboard.

Free Attorney Only Teleseminar

I have been asked to pass this information along:

On May 6, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time I am holding a free teleseminar and you are invited. The topic is:

"Give Me 60 Minutes and I_ll Show You How I Started Closing 90% of Prospects, and Doubled My Fees, Without Going In To The Ofiice"

You'll discover everything I did to increase the number of prospects I turn into clients to 90%, raised my fees by double and accomplish all of it even though I now hardly ever meet a prospect in the office!

One the call you'll learn:

-The system I use to ensure I don't waste hours of my time in long free consultations just to find out that the prospect is a tire kicker.

-How I went from right out of law school to thriving practice in a matter of months. Once I figured out these strategies, my practice doubled quickly!

-What to do to end the dog and pony show of selling prospects on your experience and services. With my 1-2-3 step strategy prospects will be pre-sold and begging to retain you by the time you speak with them.

-How to double your profits with less time spent in the office, even without a lot of staff or huge office changes.

-How to identify the four "practice killers" and make sure they are not lurking in your practice.

Want to be part of this free teleseminar? Go here to register, the call is free:

www.dreampracticesecrets.com/teleseminar.html

Oh Twitter

What About A1940s Texas Grain Silo For A Home Office?

Sure this is a wonderful example of adaptive reuse.  It would also make a wonderful home office.  In 2007, Gruene Homestead Inn purchased the 1940s grain silo and remodeled the interior and exterior.  The Silo includes one bedroom and one bathroom in a loft-type setup for the rental price of $175/$210 a night. Regardless of of the fact this is used as a motel room, my point is that you can find office space -- and especially home office space, just about anywhere.

Jiffy Lube Law Blog

I am trying out a new blog on Solo Practice University.  Some of the articles are re-purposed from the years of work and the, approaching 2,000 posts, on this blog.  However, the blog will be more tightly focused on highlighting the niche practice of law, and mainly to provide examples of niche practices as I find the.  It is called JIFFY LUBE LAW, as it reflects the basis of what is a profitable and desirable niche.  You can visit Jiffy Lube Law by CLICKING HERE.  I would encourage you to take a look and add it to your blog reader.

FREAK OUT! Le Freak By Chic

I do not know but that disco best describes or relates to the practice of law.  You might not like that fact, but still when preparing for trial or a weighty court hearing, I think of Le Freak by Chic.  Anyway, the Worldwide Home Office is continuing to boogie this Saturday.  Agreed, it is not a pretty picture.  Thank goodness you cannot see all of the gyrations going on here.

Gwen Dickey (Rose Royce) - Car Wash

I do not know why, exactly, but when work gets a little overwhelming at the worldwide home office, I listen to Car Wash.  Something about relating the job to physical work.  Something about "it is better than digging a ditch".  Now you can relate that or compare that to the practice of law.

Ashcroft Opens A New Type Of Law Firm?

As reported in the Austin Business Journal, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has started a new concept law firm.  Partnering with a consulting firm founded by John Ashcroft in 2005, the Aschcroft Group, the law firm will focus on homeland security, corporate governance, data security, federal enforcement and regulatory matters, and corporate finance.  In short, Big Law without the Big Law bureaucratic infrastructure.

The Ashcroft Law Firm, LLC appears to be forming a number of more regional law firms in which Ashcroft Law Firm is one of the partners.  In Austin, Texas, for example, the law firm is partnering with two former U.S. attorneys, Johnny Sutton and John Ratcliffe to form Ashcroft, Sutton & Ratcliffe.  The law firm also has offices in Dallas, St. Louis, Boston and Washington, D.C.

As for the niche value of the law firm collaborations, John Aschroft says, "As more and more businesses are involved with the government, that makes a breach of regulations more consequential."

As for the more Third Wave quality, Ashcroft points out that the law firm "will try not to be a big behemoth in the beginning. The idea is to be lean, without huge bureaucratic infrastructure".

Rapping Flight Attendant

The Law School Scam?

There is a lot of truth to this video contending there is a law school scam.  I personally think there is a law school scam, but probably not for the reasons stated in this video.  For you see, you can argue that a lot of law school graduates are not getting employed immediately after law school, and that traditional law job are falling, but I hardly think it is because of India and China or the relatively small increase in law school seats.  The truth of the matters is that all traditional jobs in this country are dissipating.  It is simple not the way we work any longer in this world.

Alvin Toffler said, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn".  It is a flexibility that too many law students lack, or it is a mode they get into that hurts their chances at good living.

We are being washed by the Third Wave and work styles and opportunities are changing.  They are not less.  They are not worse.  You can call it the "post-industrial" society and the "information age" if you prefer.  But, this society is represented by "subcults" or diverse lifestyles, "adhocracies" or fluid organizations that adapt quickly to change, and where information begins to substitute for most material resources.  As to the latter point, information becomes the main material for workers, each of which is only loosely affiliated.  Mass production is replaced by mass customization; offering personalized and cheaper goods and services.  Third Wave lawyers, like Third Wavers in every field work from homes or cubicles or small shared offices free from the confines of standardization, centralization, concentration, synchronization and bureaucracy, which have primarily contributed to the dissatisfaction of lawyers with the practice of law.  Third Wavers support and fight for diverse lifestyles.  Third Wavers do not employ other lawyers or staff so much as we operate within theseadhocracies or fluid organizations in which we as attorneys and firms come together only to work on specific cases or tasks.  In other words, we are freelancers.  We survive not on libraries, expensive associates, in-house computer systems, and high rise offices of marble and mahogany, but off the Internet, online research, information and social media.  In short, we do what attorneys were programmed to do -- we collect information, process information, analyze information, repackage information, and sell it in packages or in a means to make the lives of ordinary people and organizations better.  Shorter still, Third Wave law firms and lawyers provide personalization and mass customization of the law for the consumer or prosumer in a more cost effective manner.

And frankly, law school graduates are not ending up on skid row, as the video might suggest.  They are slowly finding and developing a life in the law in this Third Wave environment.  It is a shame they have to do it on their own.

The scam that law schools perpetrate is that ranking systems do not keep up with reality.  Law school are trying to please the ranking gods.  They do this by perverting statistics.  Then we expect them not to use these statistics to promote their law school.  Therefore they develop systems, training, and realities that do not reflect what is actually happening in the "real world".  Law schools are a bit like Ward and June Clever.  Those old show are fun to watch, but they are not realistic either.

The problem with law schools engaging in this deception is that they are wholly failing to prepare, train, or educate their attorneys for this "real world" or Third Wave environment.  They sell something that is not true, which is shameful because they could easily sell that which does reflect what is going on and what is likely to happen on graduation.  Sure, it has to be disappointing to go through law school being told there is a standard Dagwood or GeorgeJetson type of job out there for you when you graduate, and there is not.  But, there is work for you and lots of it.  The problem is that the law schools have mainly ignored (or just minimally complied with) any type of practical education.  They need to be producing practice read attorneys, without a lot of debt, that can take on the market because that is the reality of the situation.

There is no allusion in other professions about this.  Most doctors now they are going out on their own or into small group practices when they graduate.  Dentist know this.  Nobody has to solicit those to become a Realtor based on promises of high paying salaries, fast cars and an easy life.

The lie really needs to stop.  I agree.  I just do not agree that there is as much dissatisfaction out there as this video would suggest.  Maybe some initial upset as law graduates must learn on their own to adapt.

I wish I could start a law school that recruited students with the correct information, prepared them for the right things, and trained them for the real world experience of the Third Wave.  I think it would be one of the best law schools in the country, one of the cheapest law school in the country from a tuition standpoint, and one of the lowest ranked.  Why?  Because the rankings do not care about real world issues or real world matrix.  They are designed to sell advertising.  Statistics are combined to deceive.  I am not even sure such a law school could achieve ABA approval, but with a lot of work, maybe it could.