Use Periods to Totally. Beast. Your. Writing.

Mad cat on beach

If you didn’t know it already, it’s international legal writing and drafting week, a national designation that we fabricated and confidently announced. In celebration, however, we’re posting short nuggets of legal writing advice, following up from our prior nuggets. Like submliminal hashtagging. Or optimizing with Yiddish. Or how to use powerfully meaningless phrases. As you can tell, we’re experts. And we have lots to say during the coming exciting week of international legal drafting. First up:
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Start a Law Firm for Less than Twenty Bucks

Picture of desk with various clutter

About every two days I get an advertisement in the post about how to start my law firm for $10,000 and an adjustable-rate mortgage. Thing is, I started my firm a long time ago. For twenty bucks. And that’s still all you need. Yes, you can be like Chank and spend $57,000. Or like that Glover kid, who financed a law practice by trading in a used Fiat along with a case of Cheetohs. All I’m saying is you need twenty bucks. Here you go. [Read more...]

Top Yoga Moves for the Courtroom

yoga-courtroom-lawyers

With the advent of competitive yoga and a possibility of it being added to the Olympics as an event, there is no better time to incorporate yoga into your practice. Yoga often resonates with intelligent white people with a lot of money and time, or people you want as clients. Or people you may find on a jury. Which is why you should consider incorporating some strategic yoga moves during a trial or hearing. Not only will it enable you to relax and better control your performance, it should impress a judge and jury. Here are some top moves to consider.
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Start a Solo Practice for Under $46,000 $57,000

mahogany-office

We receive a lot of questions about how much it costs to start a solo law practice, particularly a successful practice with a web site, well-stocked bar, and good staplers. Estimates from so-called legal marketing experts range from $49.99 to $3,000. But as Scott Greenfield is quick to point out, most of these fly by night operations don’t budget for basic legal research, such as books, a set of Shepard’s, and a multi-disc tray to use for your dedicated Westlaw terminal. No worries, we’ve looked at the research, considered needed capitalization, and have come up with a solid bottom line. [Read more...]

Top 5 Donuts for a Contemporary Practice

top-five-donuts

Pastries are highly functional office accessories. But with hundreds of pastries to choose from, what is best for building a modern practice? We’ve studied this issue and have talked with dozens of attorneys who think about it carefully every day. Most attorneys mention donuts as the workhorses of law firm nutrition and morale. We agree. But while some of our choices may spark controversy in the profession, here are our top five donuts to consider for a contemporary practice. [Read more...]

Attract Clients With a Crappier Avvo Rating

Lawyer Astronaut on the moon

You are listed in an online lawyer directory known as Avvo. Yes, you are. What’s Avvo? We recently explained it as “a site that uses fancy wind and solar powered proprietary algorithms to rate attorneys from 1-10. #manbehindcurtain.” Though Avvo’s counsel responded to clarify that Avvo uses only fossil fuels, the core of Avvo remains its ten-point rating system. Our own @gregoryluce is rated a 10, though he got that by adding all of his social media badges and answering an ERISA law question. Idiot.

But a super duper Avvo rating creates a big problem: future unrealistic expectations of clients, who essentially believe you are an astronaut. With a super duper rating, how can you deliver top-notch work for every client, every day? After all, everyone knows that attorneys do a mediocre job on their run-of-the-mill cases so as to finance their high-profile ERISA cases. But what if you are expected to provide astronaut-level service when you actually hobby in the law at Starbucks? It can be unnecessarily exhausting.
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