Practice Management

"I Have To Get Ready"

Posted on August 23, 2008
If you are the ultimate procrastinator like I can be sometimes, you will understand why this is probably one of my favorite video.

Bullshit Bingo

Posted on August 23, 2008
This is a private little game that we like to play down here in Texas. Admittedly, it is best to play at Big Law firms and large in-house legal departments, but it works well in law school settings, courthouses, in surfing then Net and blogs, and in general discussions with people about how to operate your law practice...

Abe Lincoln Quotes

Posted on August 22, 2008
Sorry, I have either been preparing for or in trial all week, and I have not posted as much as I normally do. And then today I was mainly brain dead. In the meantime, I do not know why, but I like to read quotes while preparing for trial. They are quick respites that kind of break the monotony of it all, and they can be a little uplifting...

1 In 4 College Students Graduate With $5,000 In Credit Card Debt (Or, The University of Houston Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves)

Posted on August 21, 2008
This is from a poll commissioned by TrueCredit.Com and conducted by Zogby International. I have one child in a JD/MBA program and two in college, at the University of Houston. I can tell you I am fighting hard to keep this from happening to my children...

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Hey, I Resemble That Remark!

Posted on August 20, 2008
Oh good, fat people jokes. Not funny McGoo.

Ivy Bean - The Oldest Person On Facebook

Posted on August 17, 2008
As reported by Silicon Alley Insider, Ivy Bean appears to be the oldest person to join Facebook, which is a site mainly populated by college students and other 20-somethings. Bean is 102. She was born 46 years before the first computer was invented. She joined Facebook last year, when she moved to her most recent nursing home in Bradford, England...

Hamline Univesity School Of Law

Posted on August 16, 2008
Even all of the way down here in Texas, I know a very good lawyer who graduated from Hamline University School of Law. And, now even though he is most of the time in California, his daughter decided to attend Hamline. Why? Two reasons that I understand...

Where In The Hell Is My $2 Million Bonus!

Posted on August 16, 2008
My wife watches Martha Stewart's show almost every day. Hence, I watch good parts of Martha's show every day. My wife even applies some of what she learns from Martha's show, which has proved very satisfying for my tummy. But, what I took away from this article about Martha Stewart's agreement with MSO was that she literally gets a $2 million bonus for working at home...

Thompson & Knight Just Does Not Get It

Posted on August 16, 2008
In reality it would seem that most Big Law firms do not get it. They, like too many other companies in our nation, treat Green as nothing more than a marketing or publicity ploy. This comes from the fact that Thompson & Knight, one of Dallas' oldest law firms, is moving into six floors totaling 180,000 square feet in One Arts Plaza in the DallasArts District...

Destinesia

Posted on August 16, 2008
You know, it is an interesting word. Destinesia is when you get to where you were intending to go, but then you forget why you were going there in the first place. It often occurs during the working hours. We have all experienced it. You get up from your computer, go to where you keep your file or office products and forget completely why you went there in the first place...

Are Lawyers In Financial Trouble?

Posted on August 13, 2008
You know, what we talk about all of the time is how lawyers can and should increase the amount of money they make through a niche practice, social marketing, with the help of cheap tech, keeping costs under control by downshifting, moving home or to small offices, and ending long commutes, as well as other means...

Counter Programming

Posted on August 12, 2008
The term counter programming might be a bit old school, but I think it properly reflects how you can succeed well at the practice of law. Counter programming is a strategy used by movie studios, TV networks, radio stations, cable companies and the like to attract audiences from whom their competitors might not be appealing...

Big Law Lays Off Attorneys

Posted on August 11, 2008
Law students work so hard to get to join the ranks of Big Law. The money. The prestige. Sure you have to essentially sell your soul, ignore your family, and work crazy long hours to climb the ladder, but it is worth it. Right? You will make partner some day and live above comfortably...

Working At Home Can Shape Your Child' Perspective

Posted on August 10, 2008
No, I am not a psychologist. I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a sociologist. I do not know ology for a whole in the ground. I am pure and simply an attorney that works from his home, and has since 1999 or so. But, I am also a dad, a parent, and somebody that had an opportunity, as short as it was, to actually know what my kids were doing, what they were up to, and had an opportunity to give them a different perspective on life...

Creative Uses For Junk Mail

Posted on August 10, 2008
ProQuo has a post about some of the creative uses for all of the junk mail all of us receive. Some of the ones demonstrated on ProQuo are: 1. Make 3D trees out of it as illustrated on A Little Hut. 2. Make furniture out of it as illustrated on Chrissie Macdonald's site...

Leave It To The Banks To Overreact

Posted on August 09, 2008
Banks and other lenders get drunk with enthusiasm of making the big time with increasingly risky loans where they can charge a lot and spread the bounty around. Almost everybody that knew anything about it knew this would come back to bite, but greed is a terrible thing to waste...

Talk About Work-Life Balance - There Is Nothing Like Suing Your Own Family

Posted on August 09, 2008
You have to love it really, unless you are related to him. Movie star Richard Dreyfuss has filed suit against his own father and uncle over a loan he claims to have made them in 1984 and which remains unpaid now, 24 years later. In his lawsuit filed Friday, Dreyfuss says his uncle, Gilbert Dreyfuss, has repeatedly refused to turn over records that would show its financial status of an office building the purchase of which the money money was borrowed...

The Dreaded LSAT Score

Posted on August 06, 2008
Here is a news flash, if not a couple decades old -- I do not do well on standardized tests. A lot of those applying to law school do not. This presents a problem in regard to the LSAT because a number of law schools heavily weight their selection process on the LSAT score...

Paris Hilton Gives Her Take To John McCain's Celebrity TV Ad

Posted on August 05, 2008
I think Paris Hilton does a good job of responding to the silliness of John McCain's Obama attack ad including her, and the even sillier debate that followed. See Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad and more funny videos on FunnyOrDie.com See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Calling Cards (And I Do Not Mean Cards That Provide Free Telephone Minutes)

Posted on August 05, 2008
No ... not phone cards ... not gift cards ... not business cards. We are talking about old fashion Victorian calling cards. In the old days when you went to pay a call you would see the person you were calling on and your leave a card announcing your presence in a new town, or that you returned after a trip, or that you were leaving town (in which case you would right PPC for pour prendre conge or I am leaving)...

Yikes! It Looks Like We Could Get It.

Posted on August 04, 2008
The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch for the coast of western Louisiana and eastern Texas. Edouard is still a tropical storm, but it is still possible for it to turn into a hurricane. Regardless, most tropical storms are not fun either...

Ecycle Your Old Electronics

Posted on August 03, 2008
If you are like me it is ease to allow the carcases of old electronics pile up in your home, office or home-office. You get something new, somethings quits working, or it just becomes obsolete. I cannot even begin to imagine what someone like Rick Georges over at Future Lawyer must tolerate in this regard, with all of the new stuff and old stuff that he tests...

Health Savings Accounts Are A Scam

Posted on August 03, 2008
... And, the problem plagues solo practitioners and attorneys as well. I recently posted about health insurance being the bane of my existence. Two things have happened since them. First, I received a notice in the mail that informs me that my $5,000...

Ice Cream As An Antidepressant

Posted on August 03, 2008
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...

Jimmy Justice

Posted on August 03, 2008
I do not much care about the direct confrontation and the mouth on this guy in New York City, but you have to think about the overarching attempts by Jimmy Justice to expose law enforcement officers who do not comply with the own laws they are retained to enforce...

Tiny Tim Weekend

Posted on August 02, 2008
Maybe it is just warped, but for some reason I was reminded of Tiny Tim, as I remember it in the late 60s and early 70s. I am not sure if he made the talk show and comedy circuit back then because he was funny or just bizarre -- or for that matter who cares...

Hey, I Know You!

Posted on August 02, 2008
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...

Better To Be A Happy Satisficer

Posted on August 02, 2008
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...

Transparent Billing And Payment Policy - Control High Expectations

Posted on August 01, 2008
There are nothing like fee disputes. Sometimes they come in the form of an objection to your fees, and sometimes they come as an objection to your services. Generally, they relate to the same thing -- overly high expectations. There are a lot of lawyers now recommending fixed fees even involving one-shot litigation...

THE BIGGEST QUARTERLY PROFIT IN UNITED STATES HISTORY!

Posted on July 31, 2008
Does not that headline really say enough? Exxon Mobile Corp reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion. It is the largest quarterly profit really in World history. But, what is really the icing on the cake is that these gargantuan earnings fell short of Wall Streets expectations and so despite this embarrassment of wealth, the company's stock actually fell on this news...

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