a dance move that involves a person shaking his or her hips and bottom in a bouncy up and down motion, causing it to shake, ‘wobble’ and ‘jiggle;’ to dance in a sexually suggestive twisting fashion; see also, freaking, grinding, booty dancing, butt dancing, and most things offensive to administrators.

Second of all, when we speak of twerking in the courtroom, we are talking about both definitions. The one that involves bouncing, wobbling, and jiggling, as well as the secondary definition that has its origins in 1980s dance movies and in nearly every early mating ritual throughout the planet.

Sure, a gaggle of high school students has recently been suspended for video-taping themselves twerking. But that was in California, and southern California at that. And sure, scores of other high-school students across the globe have been suspended for, say, doing the same thing since at least 1947, though under various different dance names. But don’t let that scare you off if you are considering twerking during your next court appearance. The ones in trouble today are high school students. You are a lawyer. Big twerking difference.

Here’s what we suggest:

Run It By Your Client

I read a publication recently about the need to keep clients informed about things you are working on for them. This admonition applies to twerking in the courtroom. Don’t bust out twerking for the first time in court, especially if the client is present. If you plan to twerk in court, lay out that strategy early in the litigation plan. As we like to say, twerk smart, don’t dance dumb. Booya.

Pick the Right Spot

Twerking against a wall in court is a great way to highlight the characteristic bouncy up and down motion and can increase the overall shake, wobble, and jiggle of your buttocks. Find a solid wall across from the jury box so that jurors have a good view. Face the wall as you twerk, as jurors may get the wrong impression if you face them while twerking. Feel free to twerk against the wall while upside down with your hands on the floor, though practice this in the office first, as it is often difficult to continue a legal argument while upside down with your hands on the floor and your buttocks shaking rapidly in a sexual fashion. Just a suggestion.

Generally, ask permission of the court, which should be freely granted under the rules. If you are unable to approach the bench to twerk, make sure you have sufficient space around counsel table for twerking. Keep a suitable difference between your crotch and the table, though, as hitting the table with your crotch or buttocks could cause your legal research and other trial or hearing materials to fall off the table, leaving you disorganized and flustered for the next cross or direct examination. As with courtroom yoga, be cognizant of your surroundings.

Dress Appropriately

Just because it’s twerking doesn’t mean you can show up to court in spandex and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. This is court, and the rules of court decorum still apply. Wear a typical dark suit and appropriate footwear, though you may want to invest in a twerking suit, which is tighter but more flexible in the pants or skirt and looser throughout the upper torso. If you need help, most reputable clothiers can help you find a litigation-ready twerking suit. All other dress codes apply, such as ties, respectable scarves, cufflinks, and underwear.

Have an Audience

It’s just plain stupid to bust out a bit of twerking at a motion for summary judgment or at a motion to compel. First, no one is around as an audience, so there is no real benefit to you or the client. Sure, there may be a transcript of the proceedings, but generally that would look like this:

COURT:       Anything else, counsel?
MR. PETERS:  [Twerking] Nothing further, your honor.

 
See? Your presentation is reduced to a mere “Twerking” in the court transcript, often leading to comment and misinterpretation on appeal. Remember, unless opposing counsel agrees to mutual twerking in court, avoid twerking alone during routine motion hearings.

Certainly, twerking is not for all lawyers and it is not for all cases. We recommend it for ERISA litigation and hearings before an administrative law judge, as twerking can spice up an otherwise miserable and boring matter and leave a lasting impression on the fact-finder. We don’t recommend it for most criminal cases, except those in which you are prosecuting a corporate executive alleged to have defrauded pensioners of their life savings. Everyone loves the prosecuting attorney twerking in front of the perp with that one.

The post When to Twerk in Court appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

With such a clear endorsement from the highest court, it’s about time to use frickin’ more liberally in your correspondence, legal briefs, and in overly legalistic cocktail conversations. Why? It just works, and sets you far apart from other lawyers who use boring and less linguistically sophisticated legal slang, like “outrageous” or “unmeritorius” or “appalling.” Need some help to get started? Here are a few initial tips.

Don’t Go Fricking Formal

As hard as it is for most attorneys, don’t skimp on the contractional use of frickin. In other words, don’t go formal and write “fricking” in your legal arguments, correspondence, or tweets. Unless you have a slow southern drawl or you like to use a British affectation in your speech, don’t elongate the word by adding the unnecessary ‘g’ at the end. You’ll just come across as yet another pencil-necked stuffed-shirt lawyer who has no real appreciation for the vernacular. Avoid.

Friggin’ Is for Clients, Frickin’ Is For You

While you may try to “connect” with the common client and with court personnel by dumbing down your use of frickin to “friggin,’” don’t do this. You will be seen as cute or, worse, patronizing. Leave friggin’ to the bailiff and your pre-school aged kids. Reserve frickin’ for you. And while freaking is an occasionally acceptable alternative, it lacks real rhetorical and euphemistic punch. More importantly, at least for attorneys, freaking alludes to things like zombies and ERISA lawyers, not orgies, fornication, and the like.

Use Frick If You Must

You can certainly shorten frickin’ to frick, but guess what? You lose the apostrophe. Plus, the obvious confusion with Henry Clay Frick becomes embarrassingly apparent. After all, Frick is considered one of the worst frickin’ American CEOs in the history of frickin’ CEOdom. Use frick only if you have no other options. Actually, frakin, fuggin, feckin, futzin, or effin are likely better and more powerful options than the plain and unassuming frick.

Seek Inspiration from Defendants and Thespians

If you are new to frickin,’ don’t fret. A simple Westlaw natural language search for “awesome legal use of frickin’” will yield great snippets for you to consider, such as “I’m thinking my ass off just to give you the—you know, the frickin’ crap I know.” And so will films, television, and internet memes. While obvious examples are Austin Powers (“sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!”), other notable entertainment sources include motivational speaker Matt Foley (“Well, la dee frickin’ da”), Charlie Sheen (“I’m a total frickin’ rockstar from Mars”) and Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force (“Hey, who’s gonna arrest me, huh? The frickin’ trees?”). As a last resort, consider consulting Urban Dictionary, the go-to for desperate wordsmithing lawyers seeking unattainable street cred.

Sure, frickin’ probably reached its most recent heyday with the movie Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 (and was at an all-time high with Austin Powers in 1997). But that just means, as lawyers, it’s about the time to jump on another linguistic bandwagon that left the hayfield many years ago. That’s how we lawyers frickin’ roll.

The post We’ve Hit the Frickin’ Heyday appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Cost

The 8000s is not cheap. But, remember, this is not the 8000X (pictured at right), the seminal mobile phone introduced by Motorola two years earlier. The 8000s is Motorola’s second flagship model, and it shows. With one less button and now under two pounds, it’s highly portable and—better yet—now coming in at just under $2,000 with a Bell Labs monthly contract of $129 per month (minutes extra). Sure, you could get an IBM Simon smartphone for much less, but why?

Overal Functionality

The DynaTac 8000s, like its predecessor, uses the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), a sure winner in wireless transmissions, as it has the word “advanced” in the title. Plus, it sheds all of the so-called modern but unnecessary whistles and bells of more advanced systems, like D-AMPS, B-Netz, or High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (believe me, these are just Germanic code words for “luxuriously expensive”). If you don’t need encrypted transmissions or if you don’t worry too much about eavesdropping or cell-phone cloning, the DynaTac fits the bill.

Apart from the network, the phone itself performs flawlessly. A really firm push of the buttons will dial outgoing calls, and the red “Send” button is a great touch, making it easy to find. Similarly, a firm push of the “End” button will hang up the phone. Other available button functions include “Rcl,” “Vol,” “Clr,” and “Pwr.” And the LED readout is top notch—just like your calculator, you can spell “hello” upside down by punching in 43110. Who needs an app when you can do that?

Portability

Weighing in at nearly two pounds and just about 10 inches high, the 8000s is decently portable, particularly if you use our recommended Clydesdale Hauler Cart to lug your legal stuff between the house, office, and car. Think of it this way: it fits nicely between the margins of a sheet of standard paper and it weighs far less than an Amiga desktop. If I were to spell portability in a technologically advanced design, it would start with the number 8000.

Communications

With built-in AMPS and a full-charge of the detachable battery pack, you can get up to 30 minutes talk time and 10 hours of standby, as in “clip it to your belt and forget about it.” Even after nine hours, it can dial one of the up to 30 stored numbers. With all of that, no wonder DynaTac stands for Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage. Score all around.

The post Motorola DynaTAC 8000s: Power and Portability in a Mobile Phone appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Wear It With a Support Belt

If like us you’ve already purchased a dozen of the cute little mini iPads, you’ll realize right away that they are smaller than old MaxiPads. A lot smaller. Which makes them smaller versions of the bigger version. That’s cool—because they are smaller. And highly portable, unlike the monstrous MaxiPd that is practically the size of a horse. With a few adjustments, however, you can still wear and carry that MaxiPad around with comfort and ease—and with a bit of style. Consider using a MaxiPad support belt, long available in the market, though primarily marketed for women. Men and lawyers (as well as men who are lawyers) are primed to reinvigorate the maxipad support belt market. And old iPads are just the thing to jumpstart that movement. We recommend the Hickory Belt, the Kotex featherweight belt, or the New Victoria Protector, all longtime industry leaders and thoroughly tested since at least 1940.

Throw Them Away

Honestly, once you have a smaller version of the bigger version of the iPad, why keep a used one around? They look ragged, have fingerprints on them, and are probably unhygienic at this point. Throw them away. They are practically worthless and may even lead to professional ridicule if you haul one out at a deposition and cause injury to those around you. So, next time you attend a CLE or legal conference, just dump your MaxiPad ceremoniously in the garbage bin or drop it on the floor with all the other used ones scattered about. Believe me, you’ll be seen as a pioneer, not an industrial polluter.

Donate Them to Third-World Countries

One of the biggest concerns facing countries like Africa and sub-Saharan Asia is the complete lack of sanitary, working MaxiPads. Sure, elites in these countries may have access to a first generation device, but those are practically useless and weigh up to forty-two pounds when fully loaded with apps. Think instead about the masses of people in Third-World countries without any technological advantage other than, say, a first-generation Kindle—people who have never experienced the touch screen magic of an iPad nor felt the thrill of slicing fruit in Fruit Ninja or delivering candy to a frog in Cut the Rope. Pack up your half dozen or so used MaxiPads in a box, address it to “Africa” and send them on their way. They’ll get there. And it will make all the difference to villagers in rural Tanzania and New Zealand.

The post What To Do With Used MaxiPads appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

As an internet savvy attorney, you know that the use of traditional advertising and online marketing is very expensive and often unproductive. The use of Google Ads and other online marketing for referrals can be extremely costly.

We are offering existing members deep discounts on membership. The pricing is based on your geographical location and practice area. Additionally, we will be limiting the amount of attorneys in each of these areas.

The discounted cost for you as an existing attorney member will be less than you spend on lunch, a modest $16.33 a day. This is a fraction of Google Ad Words or other advertising and marketing campaigns.

Get access to real people who need your help NOW.

Free access to Shpoonkle has been discontinued and you have 72 hours to accept this greatly discounted rate.

To insure the continuity of your membership and take advantage of this limited time discounted enrollment offer, please send us the best time and number to contact you within that period.

Sure, I appreciate being recognized for my internet savviness. But to dump me off my free Shpoonkle account so unceremoniously with only three days notice? And then ask for $16.33 per day? If I do my math correctly, that’s about $500 per month and $6,000 per year. Or, to put it more bluntly, it’s about 750 braised carnitas burrito bowls for lunch over the course of a year. That’s a lot of pork.

Already, hundreds of lawyers have faxed me to ask if it’s worth giving up their lunch money to keep on Shpoonkling. My answer is a qualified but emphatic “Yes.” Here are the three primary tips to consider:

• Downsize to Stouffer frozen food dinners and bring them to the office to heat in the microwave for lunch. We recommend either the Creamed Chipped Beef or Cheesy Spaghetti Bake entrees. At about half the cost of a fully loaded lunch at Chipotle, you’ll still be able to eat AND bid for potential clients;
• Master the supplemental exercises in our highly-acclaimed Shpoonkle for Dummies. Pay special attention to the section on how to bid on your own services to increase their net worth;
• Pass the cost on to your client as a required “Shpoonkling Fee.” Most clients will understand or, if they don’t, send them an extra Stouffer’s frozen dinner you may have hanging around. Clients love freebies, even if they’ve thawed out by the time they are delivered.

Good luck. As with any legal marketing disrupters like Shpoonkle, this move will invite competition. Don’t be surprised if Chipotle sees an opportunity in this one and starts offering online legal bidding while you wait for your bowl to be assembled.

The post Shpoonkle to Sell Chicken Burrito Bowls appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Create an Internet Meme

What’s a meme? Where the hell did you go to law school, Stanford? Every new lawyer should strive to create a viral online do-hicky, otherwise known as a meme and sometimes informally known as “waste of time in a bottle.” Who cares if you resolve a complex patent infringement case? Unless, of course, you are able to create a funny and viral Pinterest or Instagram image from it. Followers count. All else is just fluff.

Win a Shpoonkle Bid

We’ve covered Shpoonkle before and, if you don’t know what it is, you should. It’s the top Yiddish-language lawyer referral service on the planet. Better yet, it’s interactive, meaning you bid on cases that desperate normal people put on the site. That said, every new lawyer should have a successful Shpoonkle bid under his or her professional belt. Don’t know how to bid? No worries. We are the premier publisher of Shpoonkle for Dummies, which you can get instantly delivered by fax with your first order. Happy bidding!

Songify a Legal Brief

What could be more awesome than producing a Songified audio of your next legal brief, or even using the T-Pain effect at your next oral argument? Thankfully, technology has made it all possible, with the Songify app on iTunes or even a whole range of effects waiting to be used on Apple’s Garage Band. Imagine adding the T-Pain effect during your otherwise boring and mundane request for relief. Awesome.

Dole Out Legal Advice on Quora

Most lawyers mistake Quora for Qdoba Mexican Grill, the chain restaurant. It’s not surprising, given the use of the letter Q in the title. But for new lawyers, the sooner you can figure out how to post questions and answers on Quora the better. There is no better and quicker way to dole out legal advice to anonymous people in multiple jurisdictions. That rocks.

Actually Practice Law

Believe it or not, every new lawyer should actually practice law, or at least dabble in it. Why? It helps to support all of your other unhealthy habits and can even pay for some of the expenses associated with all of that online fancy stuff you do.

The post What Should Be in a New Lawyer’s Bucket List appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

It’s Not Artisanal Law

Before adopting a minimalist gestalt, remember that minimalism is very different from artisanal law, which we’ve covered before. Artisanal Law, for example, depends on the adoption of techniques that most lawyers find quaintly ironic—in other words, the modern equivalent of riding a fixed wheel bike to work or drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys. Minimalist Law, on the other hand, relies on stripping your practice down to the absolute bare minimum required to practice. You actually cut out fancy artisanal practice tools such as scriveners, ascots, and wax seals. Basically, if you need more than a desk and a pencil, you are not practicing Minimalist Law.

Less is Always More

We forget who said it but with minimalism “less is more.” That’s why a fully-stocked minimalist law practice consists of a desk, a chair, and a pencil. Sometimes, a chair is optional, depending on what is available in the minimalist law marketplace. Paper, however, should be acceptable so long as it is irregularly sized and ordered specially from a letterpress outfit that takes 6-8 weeks to process your order. The paper, however, should look no different that ordinary paper.

Cost

While minimalism evokes minimal stuff, it does not connote cheap or inexpensive. In fact, it is an extremely expensive practice area. A minimalist law desk, for example, will run anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000, often more. The one pictured in this post put us back $18,000. Quality pencils are at least $75 each. For office space, it’s best to consider ordering prefab buildings or modern sheds from the magazine Dwell. Preferably, any prefab office should be installed “off the grid” and will run $70,000 to $350,000 depending on how much minimalism you want to evoke. As a rule of thumb, the more minimalism the higher the cost. Thus, if price and fixed expenses are an issue for you, it’s best to consider other alternatives, such as Bauhaus or Brutalist Law.

Yes/No Advice

With Minimalist Law, most practice questions are answered with either yes or no. That’s all. If you find yourself deviating from this essential practice quality, you are likely not practicing minimalism. For example, a question from a client such as “what do I need to do to protect myself from liability in my business” is—in nearly every case—answered “No.” Similarly, requests for your pricing structure are almost always answered “Yes.” If clients do not understand this, they should typically be treated as unintelligent sentient creatures who do not fit well within your practice area. Avoid such potential clients if at all possible.

We will revisit Minimalist Law again with additional advice, including what to wear to the office (typically hand-stitched outfits that double as burlap sacks and cost upwards of $1,000) and what to use for technology (a custom-made paperweight that resembles a stapler). Stay tuned.

The post Tips for Adopting a Minimalist Law Practice appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Add More Cheesy Stock Images

We’ve covered this before in our wildly popular post Boost Your Website with Cheesy Stock Images. What we said then holds even more true today:

With the proper use of gavels, law books, attorney action figures, and thinking people, you can easily create a dynamic and powerful law firm website.

That’s worth repeating. And since we published that post, additional categories of cheesy stock images bear mentioning, such as Diverse Group of Jurors, Upset Judge Swinging Gavel and Pointing, and Business Man at Desk with Empty Beer Bottles.

Switch to Dark and Ominous Colors

For some of us, practicing law is a serious business, and your website should reflect that. Luckily, it’s easy to do with dark, serious, and ominous color palettes. Our favorite is black, but dark burgundy, deep purple, jungle shadow green, and thunderstorm gray are great colors to emanate “This firm doesn’t smile.”

Add More Text

Lawyers are known for using a lot of words. So if your website doesn’t reflect that, what will a typical visitor take away from the experience? That you are not wordy enough. A quick solution is to add more words. Lots more. For instance, did you include in your bio page where you attended middle school? Have you included all of your publications, including those in the PTA newsletter or in your local church bulletin? Have you done an adequate and lengthy job explaining how serious you are about using lots of good words? I’ll wager that you haven’t done all that you can to add more text to your site. Review your site now and add more words.

Consider Footnotes

Footnotes are a great way to hide words that you really want people to know that you know but cannot fit into your regular textual flow. From our research, most users love footnotes—especially those that are hyperlinked—because it’s like a sexy little interactive game of hide and seek. After all, Noel Coward explained that “having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.”¹ Bingo.

¹Supposedly spoken by Noel Coward. Found on the internet by searching on Google for “stupid history of footnotes” and ending up at one of those dumb and badly designed quotation sites.

The post Keys to Making an Awesome Website Totally More Awesomer appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Right-Handed Writing

Held in my right hand, the Cristal Stic felt perfect, its hexagonal and clear barrel well-suited for gripping and moving effortlessly under my control. Writing was a cinch, as it seemed orientated to move easily from left to right, even when executing more complex tasks like signatures, doodles, or redaction. And, as BIC advertises, it wrote the first time. No need to prime it on toilet paper before jotting a reminder on my hand.

Left-Handed Writing

Unfortunately, when I switched hands the Cristal Stic lost nearly all of its precision, flow, and control. My lines were squiggly, shaky and uneven, and often monstrously out of proportion. The pen felt awkward in my hands and—in all honesty—I felt once again that I was a retarded senior citizen. The experience was so different that I questioned whether I had picked up a defective pen from the batch of 72 that BIC had sent us. But, even after trying out six identical pens (all blue), they all performed the same when used in my left hand: terrible. Unusable. Disastrous. For that reason, we have downgraded the Cristal Stic from a 9 to a 2.3. My only hope is that BIC chooses to fix an obvious design flaw and works to produce a pen better designed for use in my left hand. Until then, it’s a pen to avoid, at least for writing.

Chewiness

The chewiness of the pen itself is a bit hard and somewhat disappointing. Though the plastic hexagonal barrel holds up well to gnawing, we noticed that little pieces of plastic may shear off and end up on your lap or even in your stomach. While the taste of these pieces is a tad acrid, they do go down fairly easy.

The chewiness of the cap, however, was nothing short of awesome. We swear BIC has dulcified the cap slightly more than in the past and it shows. It has a nice density to it—not too grainy and incredibly responsive. Rheologically, the BIC pen cap is a winner.

Breathing Underwater with My Head in an Office Aquarium

Since its introduction in 1950, the BIC pen has found many alternative uses, from picking Kryptonite locks to being used surgically in tracheotomies. It can also be used as an office weapon. For me, I tend to use it as an alternative breathing device and have successfully snorkeled with the pen in the drainage pond behind our office building. It also performs well in an office environment, specifically an office aquarium down the hall from us. Placed in my mouth and plunging my head into the aquarium, it worked well and stood up to the challenge, as I breathed easily while watching clown fish swim in and out of a small-scale pirate ship.

I still like the BIC ballpoint pen, though I now hesitate to recommend it until BIC fixes the pen’s lack of ambidextrous use. Until then, we’ll be snorkeling out back, shooting spitwads, and performing outpatient surgeries in the office instead of using it for more basic things like writing. But that’s OK.

Post image from Flickr.com user robertosena

The post Product Review: BIC Ballpoint Pen (Blue) appeared first on Big Legal Brain.

Pick a Color

Ever hear of a color wheel? You should. It has lots of colors. I mean lots, maybe 200 or so. The first trick to building a brand is to pick one of those colors and show it to people while saying “that’s my practice, right there.” In other words, be your color. Because when you think of some of the best-branded attorneys on the planet, you think “blue” or “ruffled clam” or “chartreuse,” don’t you? We do. Mention Adrian Dayton or Kevin O’Keefe and the first thing that comes to mind is “electric banana,” and “honey moth,” respectively, of course. Don’t underestimate the efforts to which Dayton and O’Keefe have gone to build their brand colors. If you doubt it, get on Twitter and DM one of these guys, asking “what’s your color, man?”

Buy a Logo

You cannot be a serious court-hovering lawyer without a solid logo. If you have a talented cousin or a little sister in the family, ask one of them to draw up a logo for you. Using your chosen color, of course. Or, if you haven’t spent all of your future income on staples and cloud-based Ninja-like practice management software, splurge a bit and buy a logo from eBay or Etsy, two great places to get hand-crafted professional logos. Once you have one, make sure it gets up on your website, on bumper stickers, and included on legal briefs, where appropriate.

Wear Knit Shirts with Your Logo on Them

Once you have your color and your logo, head down to the t-shirt shop and pick out a good heavy-knit shirt and ask them to airbrush your logo on it. If you have some bucks, get the logo embroidered on the shirt (or even on a baseball cap), as an embroidered logo on a knit shirt exudes two things: 1) class and 2) charity golf events. Wear those knit shirts wherever you can, and think about cufflinks or ties that also contain the logo. A knit shirt with cufflinks and a monogrammed tie is a terrific branding combo.

Hire a Guy Named Chad

We’re not sure why, but employing someone named Chad actually helps build a brand, particularly if you give him a title like “brand evangelist” or “spokesweasel.” Better yet, Chad typically becomes the fallback guy for problems, as in “I’m not sure about that claim, let me get Chad on it.” We employ three Chads here in our office and things could, truth be told, be a bit better. But we like them.

With just a few steps you too could be young again and rocking a brand. Or old and looking more shipshape in a knit logo shirt. Let us know how your brand-building works out.

The post Key Essentialities for Building a Bullshit Brand appeared first on Big Legal Brain.