Just for Lawyers by Joseph C. McDaniel

Jay Fleischman Explains It All!

2011-09-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

I know that a lot of bankruptcy lawyers read my blogs, and some of them read my blogs so they can find bankruptcy topics and bankruptcy analysis for their own blogs.

How do I know? Well, mostly because they told me!

But there's a very, very smart bankruptcy lawyer named Jay Fleischman who is a nationally known marketing and practice management expert, and he's bringing a road show to Phoenix, along with Cathy Moran, another well-known name in the consumer bankruptcy field.

You'll notice that part of the seminar is about improving service to consumer debtor bankruptcy clients, and I'm all over that!

So I've already signed up.

And if you practice consumer bankruptcy law in Arizona, and you want to hear from the best how to make your practice run more smoothly, and how to harvest more client happiness (I want all my clients to be happy all the time, although that's an impossible goal; but if I pick up one idea I can apply to my practice as a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona, that's worth it to me!), you'll sign up also.

Here's the information about the seminar, and I'm as serious as I can be: be there or be square, if you're a consumer bankruptcy attorney in Arizona!

Truth in Advertising spoiler: Jay is a friend of mine. Mind you, he's so smart I'd tell bankruptcy lawyers about this anyway. But he's a great guy, and generous with his knowledge.

How Not to Do a Television Interview, if You're a Lawyer!

2011-08-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is a useful discussion piece.

It is not a good television interview of a lawyer; there is clear stage fright, and a failure to find out ahead of shooting where to focus (on the camera? on the interviewer?).

Watch this space; my next one will be better!

Law Students, Beware!

2011-08-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

I think a law degree is a wonderful thing; it teaches you to think like a lawyer, and I'm in favor of anything that teaches people to think like me, right?

But I continue to be sensitive to the fact that many lawyers graduate at the top of their classes from top law schools, and they expect to be the best lawyers in their area of practice, even if it is bankruptcy law and they'll need to compete with me, and then they discover that there are lots of law school graduates, and few, if any, jobs for law school graduates.

This is one of the best articles I've seen about somebody who graduated law school, and discovered that the world was not waiting for him with baited breath.

TV Interview: Debunking Arizona Bankruptcy Myths

2011-07-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I spoke on ABC 15's Smart Family program. Check out the video above for the interview.

Do Law Schools Take Advantage of Law Students?

2011-07-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

The question whether it's a good idea to churn out lawyers in an economy already saturated with them is an interesting one.

And I believe that articles like "Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!" will ultimately begin to slow the flow into law schools.

So will blogs like "Life's Mockery", written by a "law school victim"!

Sadly, it appears that the market was flooded with lawyers, and then the economy turned to poop. When that happened, a bundle of great business clients disappeared, perhaps forever.

And the outsourcing of legal work began in earnest.

All of that has created a perfect storm for recent law school graduates, and many established biglaw AV Rated and AVVO 10.0 specialists, and that is very sad indeed, because big-firm lawyers don't learn how to find legal business, or how to set up a law firm, or how to do anything much except how to practice law and how to bill hours.

On the other hand, my good friend Rick Cook has written a gem of a tiny book (an e-book, actually), entitled "Shift Happens", and it describes the sea-change in publishing and how people can now easily publish and get rich, where before they could publish, with great difficulty, and stay poor.

He's careful to point out that work is involved in writing a book, and in marketing the book, but there are probably a few hundred good books to be written on the topic of law schools, and why it's a better idea to avoid them until the supply of lawyers is absorbed!

And if a recent law grad wants to make a few bucks while waiting to find a job, there's no reason not to write a book while they're waiting.

After all, they have more time than money!

A Job Opportunity for New Law Graduates!

2011-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

There are far too many lawyers for available jobs these day, and that makes me sad.

But a buddy of mine has just written a nifty e-book about the paradigm changes that have occurred in the publishing industry. It may just be your new career opportunity!

The book is written by my long-time friend Rick Cook, and it's available as an e-book on Amazon.

The title is Shift Happens. I strongly suggest that you buy it, read it, and use it!

You can thank me later!

Using Google Scholar for Legal Research, for My Favorite Price!

2011-07-09T18:31:00.001-07:00

Take a look at this nifty article in The Lawyerist, which discusses what Google Scholar can and can't do as a legal search engine.

Whitey Bulger Gets Lucky

2011-07-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have often said that it's better to be lucky than smart.

Woody Allen said that eighty per cent of success is showing up.

My addition to that wisdom? Showing up in the right place at the right time. Which moves it to ninety-nine per cent.

In the past, Whitey Bulger was a good friend to his friends, and a bad enemy to have, as behooved a reputed crime boss.

And he's been a "most wanted" for roughly forever.

Now that he's in custody, he has an attorney defending him who has been dubbed "The Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases", Jay Carney.

So it ain't over yet for Whitey Bulger, who can keep hoping that the luck of the Irish will strike again.

p.s. why in the world is this discussion relevant to the world of lawyer marketing and practice management? Well, ask yourself this question: do you have a sobriquet? If you had one, what would it be? Jay Carney has a pretty cool sobriquet, doesn't he? Don't you wish you had one?

And that, in turn, opens a discussion of online reputation management, which is a surprisingly important issue these days. Because, remember, when I was being mostly-in-house for a publicly traded company, somebody invented this thing called The Internet, and now everything is very different from B.I. ("Before Internet").

And is reputation management important? Well, I have a buddy who's a pretty fair attorney. He has claimed his profile on AVVO.com. He has two reviews on AVVO.com, both of which are awful!

Now, would you expect that fact to make a difference in the number of potential clients who are interested in talking to him?

Inquiring minds want to know!

So Maybe WordPress Is Pretty Cool. Maybe. I'll Get Back to You on This.

2011-06-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

I have given a lot of thought and consideration to the best platform for business blogging and legal blogging. Law blogs are worthwhile endeavors, and educating clients a noble goal, so working with the best tools for that project is a good idea.

And you'll recall that I've spent a lot of time blogging on Blogger, for My Favorite Price. But my Blogger blogs have been slower than I would have liked when it came to climbing in the pageviews sweepstakes.

And I learned to use MoveableType from my buddies at Justia, and the best Blog Coach ever, Kerri! And thank you both for all your help, Stacy and Tim!

And I played around with TypePad, which I like very much; it's kind of an idiot-proof tool for blogging, and the prices are very reasonable, and the SEO kicks behind.

AND I was previously downright worried about the excessive technical expertise I thought I needed to make a WordPress.com work properly. Fuggeddabout the technical expertise needed for a WordPress.org blog, which I have not yet attempted!

And yet. And yet.

When I actually dug in, with the help of my son Sean, putting together a WordPress.com blog about bankruptcy law and practice and news, it seemed...almost easy. And the SEO qualities of the system seem awfully nice, too.

I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

Justia, Justia, Justia! Woo-hoooo! And a FREE Website? It Doesn't Get Better than That!

2011-06-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

I know a bunch of nice folks you probably want to meet.

In fact, you definitely want to get to know 'em, because they can help you a lot.

They just helped me port my number one, best, and top-ranked Arizona Bankruptcy Blog over to a better blogging platform (MoveableType), and they're about to infuse it with Justia SEO steroids.

Why should you care about Justia? Let me count the ways.

First, they built a spiffy lawyer directory, and if you aren't in it, that's downright silly, because it's free!

Second, they will give you a cool, free template website, that's SEO optimized. And I'm here to tell you, Justia SEO rocks!

Finally, they'll provide you with a custom website with a great custom design, and superlative SEO, all for a very competitive price! Actually, it's dirt cheap, given the value.

Please don't tell 'em. I want to buy one at their current price!

But wait! There's more!

Justia will also build you a custom designed blog, and provide you with rocket-powered SEO support, and even the world's greatest blog coach!

Now, just so you know, once I started showing up high in the search engines, I thought I knew a thing or two. But Kerri, my blog coach, took my blogging to a higher level, and if I just practice what she told me, I'll keep getting better.

So zip on over to Justia, and put yourself in their directory, and sign up for a free website, and then when your practice increases, upgrade to their custom website, and then a custom blog package. And get a Justia blog coach.

But not Kerri. I don't want you cutting in on my time!

Should You Accept Paid Advertising on Your Legal Blogs?

2011-06-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

I have spoken before about the wit and wisdom of Jay Fleischman, who is a very smart man indeed.

Here's a article about accepting paid advertising on your blog, from Jay. You'll note a cute visual gimmick in his blogpost: he stuck a faux-sample-advertisement above the text of his article.

And he made his point with me!

How about you?

p.s. this is an area where there is controversy. I'll post articles that go the other direction when I get a Round Tuit. But, frankly, I see it Jay's way on this issue.

The Lawyerist Wants to Help You Start a Law Practice. For Almost My Favorite Price!

2011-06-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

There is a lovely post on The Lawyerist that talks about starting your solo law practice.

For under $3,000.

Check it out; you'll thank me later.

Gimmie a Hand, Okay? Go "Like" My Facebook Page!

2011-06-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

You know, I feel remarkably stupid asking for the favor, but apparently it's a good thing for SEO purposes if your buddies go to your practice Facebook Page and click "like".

Therefore, if you're on Facebook, please go click "like" on my little Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer page there, because I certainly want a big, fluffy SEO!

Do You Have Clients Who Want to Be Television Stars?

2011-06-18T13:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I received a nice email from Lauri, who is interested in casting for a companion series to the television show "Downsized".

Take a look at her email to me, and if you have clients who are interested, be my guest!

Name:
Lauri Lannan

E-mail Address:
lauri_lannan@pietown.tv

State:
California

ZIP:
91607

Phone:
DID NOT RESPOND

How would you like to be contacted?
E-mail
Phone

Brief description of your legal issue:
Hello Joseph,

I am the development coordinator at Pie Town Productions, a high volume, Emmy-nominated production company with more than 47 series under its belt. We’ve produced programming for networks such as Discovery, TLC, A&E, WE, Lifetime, The Food Network, HGTV and OWN. Some of our current shows include House Hunters on HGTV, Meat & Potatoes on Food Network, and Downsized on WE.

I am reaching out to you in regards to a current casting of a companion show to Downsized.

Downsized is our critically acclaimed docu-series on WE that follows a large, charismatic family that has been downsized in the recession and documents their challenges and successes of adjusting to new financial constraints.

Here is a link to information about Downsized on the WE TV website:
http://www.wetv.com/shows/downsized

We are now casting for a companion series to Downsized, and are specifically looking for a large and compelling family who is no longer bringing in the big bucks, is having to adjust their lifestyle, and would like some assistance getting back on track. The ideal family is fun-loving, honest, emotional...and willing to “put it out there”.

While we understand that you can’t share personal contact information, we do hope you will pass along our information to clients, and anyone else you feel could potentially benefit from a series based around their situation.

Any interested persons may apply here: http://www.pietown.tv/Shows/downsized_ourstory.php

We are happy to answer any questions you may have, please feel free to contact me any time. And please check out our website which will give you a greater understanding of our programming: www.pietown.tv

I look forward to hearing from you.

Many Thanks,

Lauri Lannan
Development Coordinator
Pie Town Productions

Would You Like a Suite of Free Software to Start Your New Law Firm? AVVO and Sam Glover to the Rescue!

2011-06-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sam Glover is editor-in-chief of The Lawyerist, and you should subscribe to that if you haven't already done so.

Really.

AVVO.com is a premier lawyer (and doctor!) directory in the United States, and if you haven't "claimed your profile", thanks! More clients for the rest of us!

Sam Glover and AVVO.com have teamed up to produce a priceless learning experience for you.

Priceless? Well, it's free, anyway.

And my guess?

If you're a starving lawyer, starting a practice, it is priceless!

Putting it another way, I wish I'd had cool software like that when I started my practice thirty years ago!

The Price of Success in Blogging, or Your Practice, Explained by Remarkablogger

2011-06-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

As you move toward the success that you have desired, you will discover several things.

One is that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Another thing you'll discover is that if you set a goal, and work like crazy, you will begin to approach your initial goal, or even achieve it!

And your life won't be perfect. In fact, the tools that you used to achieve success won't necessarily support you in your new successful life. So you'll want to take stock, and change your direction, and build a new plan (really, just a small course correction for your old plan).

One nice thing about Remarkablogger's remarkable blog is that you get to see his progress, and the hard work that went into it, and how you can apply the same approaches to your blogging and your practice.

So enjoy his blog, and his insights, and understand that someday you, too, can be working 400 hour weeks, and enjoying it less!

Whatever you focus on and work toward, you'll probably achieve. And when you arrive, it'll be a foreign country to you. You'll probably cope less well at first than after you adjust to the new currency, and the different weather, and the strange new analogies.

And then your success will become an everyday thing, and you can adjust it to fit your new needs!

AVVO, LexBlog, Justia, TypePad, MoveableType, Blogger and WordPress: Comparison of Legal Blogging Platforms, and a Spirited Controversy!

2011-06-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

I'm learning more about the differences between blogging platforms, and all of 'em have their good points. Since I started with Blogger, for instance, I still use it as my default blog location, although I know that will probably change very soon. Of course, it is My Favorite Price.

You can also use (this gets a little complicated) a free version of several of the blogging platforms. But I don't suggest that, for a number of reasons. The most obvious reason not to use a free platform is that free blogging platforms tend to have advertisements for competing lawyers on them.

Your first decision when you decide to blog is simple; you need to decide whether you are going to use a hosted-for-you platform or a self-hosted blogging platform (a lot of very serious legal bloggers use self-hosted WordPress, which is a great solution for somebody who is technologically very savvy. This does not include me. MoveableType is another stable, fully-developed platform that many power bloggers use for their self-hosted blogs).

Are you already a techno-geek, and great with computers? Then, by all means, use a self-hosted blog!

If you're like the rest of us, get to work on a blog that is yours, but is hosted by someone else. You can use TypePad, for instance, which will host as many blogs as you like for about $15 per month, total. Or you can use a semi-free version of WordPress, in which you'll be using their hosting service, but paying a bit extra so you can avoid functioning as a billboard for competing lawyers!

You have a lot of choices as to platforms, and all have strong points, and all have weak points. But if you're a beginner, I strongly suggest that you let somebody else do the heavy lifting for you (for instance, Justia, Lexblog, TypePad, or AVVO).

The list of contenders for your attention in the legal blogging platform competition is pretty nifty; that is, there are a lot of platforms that should make you pretty darn happy. The platforms themselves are a little like automobiles; you can buy the very best blogging platform that an attorney could have, with every custom bell and whistle known to mankind, or you can get a downright...free platform, like this one, Blogger!

I have direct personal knowledge of one premium lawyer blogging service, which is provided by Justia. And I love it, love it, love it! I have no criticisms of it at all, and I have found the customer service to be amazing, and wonderful, and spectacular. They built me a couple of blogs, and are porting my big bankruptcy blog over to a Justia platform soon. And I cannot wait to see how it thrives when it has the SEO advantage brought to the party by Justia!

The price for Justia blog design and support and "blog coaching" is not free, but the quality of the customer service is priceless; and it will move you forward far faster than floundering around to learn things yourself that Justia knows very well! Here is a list of the top ten questions to ask a prospective blog platform provider, from Justia! Note also: your time has value. If you use a blog designer and blog coach from Justia, your time will be spent actually blogging, rather than trying to learn by yourself how to stick a video into a blogpost.

I have a buddy named Vladimir Gagic who has recently started using blog design and support from LexBlog, and he raves about how wonderful his results have been. I don't have direct knowledge of LexBlog, but I trust Vlad's perceptions and intelligence completely.

So let's think about this for a minute.

There are several wonderful blogging platforms out there. They include lawyer specific platforms that will help you with design and coaching and SEO, including Justia and LexBlog; in addition, AVVO offers a template-driven service that AVVO will host for you, which is supported by WordPress, and the price is very good. There are free blogging platforms like Blogger and TypePad (but don't be silly with TypePad; step up to the plate and pay the $15 per month, sport! You'll be glad you did!) and WordPress.

WordPress is a great platform, and comes in several flavors; free/hosted by WordPress.com/advertising by others on your blog; and small price/no ads/hosted by WordPress.com...then you get to the self-hosted flavor, where you download software from WordPress.org and host it yourself or use a separate hosting site...which is the point at which my head explodes because I'm not a technical guy. But I do know how to type!).

Whatever blogging platform you decide to use is fine by me, of course, because I don't get a commission from anybody, but your blog should probably be set up to automatically dump your blogposts into your Twitter and your Facebook accounts.

You don't have a professional Facebook account? And you're not on Twitter?

Well, my Findlaw buddies built me a neat little Facebook page, and I am always grateful for the help that my buddy Alex Morris at Findlaw has given me. And, sure, today I'm only the number 6 most-searched lawyer in Phoenix, out of 8,297 lawyers. And today I'm only the number 331st most-searched lawyer out of 1.444 million in the United States. But for a guy with no marketing budget, it's a good start, right?

Back on topic.

The reason for this post was to discuss the different platforms you may use to blog. I have personal experience with a lot of blogging platforms, including Justia, and Blogger, and TypePad, and WordPress (my WordPress blog isn't live yet, but it may be worth the wait; I'll keep you posted).

As soon as I can figure out how to do it, I'll be signing up for an AVVO blog, and probably a LexBlog blog as well, just so I can tell you all how they stack up.

Now, would you like to see a chart that compares blogging platforms for lawyers? Well, Conrad Saam has devised such a chart, and there are a boatload of comments after that chart!

If I were you, and I was contemplating legal blogging, I would get right over to the AVVO Chart which discusses some differences between platforms, and I would read the comments from such worthies as Kevin O'Keefe, of LexBlog (Kevin maintains a nifty blog entitled "Real Lawyers Have Blogs", which is hosted on...LexBlog!). There are also insightful comments from Rick Klau, of Blogger (listen, Rick, if you'll give me just a few new templates, we'll talk!), and Joshua Fruchter (of E-Law Marketing), and well as other notables.

p.s. I'm going to make this easy for you. There are two different roads you can go down to create your blog. You can use an inexpensive, template-driven system that takes care of all the hard technological work for you, and gives you a perfectly good-looking and functioning blog. The places to stop on that road are going to be TypePad Boulevard or AVVO Way or inexpensive, they-host-it-for-you WordPress.com Lane.

The other direction is the plush, premium, we'll-stir-your-coffee-for-you-sir, do-you-like-this-custom-blog-design-sir road. The mansions on that road are located on Justia Avenue and LexBlog Street.

I have gone down both roads, and I have enjoyed my travels on both of them.

If you are a starving lawyer (you are not alone, trust me on this), I suggest that you go to TypePad and pay $15 per month to set up a blog or two. That blog can even serve as your website, capeesh? So you're getting some real value for your $15 bucks a month, and that will even buy you additional blogs! Or use the template-driven opportunity at AVVO, for about $300 per month. Or the semi-free they-host-it-for-you-but-you-pay-extra-for-no-advertising package at WordPress.com.

If you are a well-established lawyer who has a good practice, and wants to make sure he keeps a good practice, by all means pay for the expert help you'll get at Justia. Or, according to Vlad, at LexBlog. The reason I suggest that you do that is that you will be frustrated beyond belief when you try to do simple stuff without a coach on your blog, and if you have a blogging coach, your frustration level will be far lower. Your learning curve, however, will be far higher!

In essence, you are paying for convenience and a custom image for your blog with both Justia and LexBlog. Bear in mine that your stunning blog may make an expensive website less necessary for you!

The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, by any means. You can always start with a nearly-free blog with anybody you want, as long as you don't get stuck with ads for other lawyers on your site, because that looks unprofessional, and a little silly. And it's very inexpensive to turn off that spigot on most low-priced, high-quality blogging platforms.

And note that while I am well acquainted with Blogger, which is a stable, remarkably-easy-to-set-up-and-use blogging platform, there are also about twenty other free blogging platforms that, if you're starving, you may want to explore; most are going to be full of ads unless you upgrade, but some are not.

They include LiveJournal.com, Blogr.com, Xanga.com, Blogster.com, Multiply.com, Blog.com, Freevlog.org, InsaneJournal.com, ClearBlogs.com, Etribes.com, Terrapad.com, Blogsome.com, ShoutPost.com, OpenDiary.com, Greasy.com, Friendster.com, Netcipia.com, SquareSpace.com, BraveNet.com, Tumblr.com, and Posterous.com.

Have fun blogging!

p.s. if you use TypePad to produce multiple blogs for a total, total, total of $15 per month or so, you'll want to "map around" the initial TypePad domain name. It will cost you a little to buy a domain name (think ten bucks a year-ish), and you should do so, for several reasons that I'll discuss more fully when I get a Round Tuit! And that's when it's good to have a computer-savvy buddy. But that's the only geeky thing you'll need to manage if you use TypePad!

The Easiest Way to Start Blogging without Fear, or Even Brains! Call Justia, and Do It Now!

2011-06-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

I have friends. Yes, it shocks even me.

In particular, I have friends at a company called Justia, which is all things to all lawyers. It has a lawyer directory (you're not in that directory? More clients for the rest of us!), and a lot of other stuff.

For the purposes of this discussion, it has an antidote to the fear of blogging, and it's a pretty darn nifty antidote.

You just pick up the phone and call 'em. Tell 'em you want a blog and blog coach.

They'll do the rest.

Your blog will look like an expensive website, and it will function in exactly that way, only better than most. Here's my blog with Justia. Here's my other blog with Justia. And soon, my other, other blog with Justia will look and function about the same, except for that whole thousand-entries thing.

But even when they build a beautiful blog template to your specifications, you'll still be a dummy about blogging, right?

Wrong, Fearofbloggingguy!

Because you will be assigned a smart person with a job description that didn't exist fifteen years ago: a blogging coach! And the coach will take you step by step though every aspect of blogging, starting with baby steps (after all, at first, you don't know how to add a picture, or a video, or even how to italicize, right?).

And you can relax, because Justia knows what it's doing.

This isn't it's first teach-a-dummy to blog rodeo. That was me.

What will amaze you is the ease of use of the entire well-thought-out system; you won't be burdened with any geek-speak, and nobody will expect you to know diddly about blogging.

Because if you're a beginner, you have no bad blogging habits.

And if you're already an experienced blogger, you'll learn stuff you wouldn't learn on your own in another half-decade of mindless blogging.

So either way, if you're not blogging today, call Justia tomorrow.

You can thank me later.

p.s. no, it's not free, you dummy. But it is priceless, if you want to educate your clients, and you want your firm to thrive during lean times for lawyers. And while it isn't free, it is far less expensive than it should be. You'll be amazed.

How To Port Blogs from One Platform to Another, As in From Typepad to Wordpress, or Blogger to Typepad

2011-06-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the answer, based on my initial review of the literature.

It's a big fat pain in the neck to port from one blogging system to another.

Even my genius buddies at Justia have needed to work hard to get my big bankruptcy blog ready for the migration from Blogger over to the Justia/MoveableType platform, and they're professionals!

Now, there are a lot of articles discussing ways to move from TypePad to WordPress, because WordPress has great...press! And I've reached the conclusion that it's a magnificent solution for those who are not as computer-challenged as I am.

And take a look at this discussion of porting capabilities in MovableType! It made my eyes glaze and roll back in my head!

Now, for me personally, a WordPress set-up or port over is a bridge too far.

For me, TypePad is in the sweet spot between power and flexibility, ease of use, absolute freedom to ignore issues like whether my server will fail, and the ability to just...type blogs! And its SEO characteristics seem very, very nifty, as compared to Blogger.

So my guess is that there will be a short-term explosion in demand for computer guys who do exactly one thing: help professionals port blogs!

And that's because there's always a newer and better thingie out there.

Which is why I'm particularly happy with TypePad. It's been around a long time!

Like me!

p.s. yeah, okay, I'm going to go ahead and try WordPress, just because I want to do that. And I'll let you know if all the magnificent press I've read about it appears to be justified. I'll keep you posted. But if it seems too good to be true, you know...

p.p.s. I'm a little surprised that Blogger has lagged behind the competition in blogging platforms so profoundly; my guess is that if Blogger had simply added a ton of templates, and a few more capabilities, it would have been well situated to retain bloggers who had used...Blogger!

p.p.p.s. Embrace your ignorance and start blogging! Today. In fact, I'm going to generate a post about this very topic. But if you look at posts like the above, and become intimidated that you'll need to learn things, that will slow you down. Remember that the easiest way to become a professional quality blogger (if you're a lawyer) is just to go to Justia, contact 'em, and ask to be set up with a blog and a blog coach.

If you listen to your coach, you'll get smart about blogging very quickly, and you'll be very happy with the results, if you do the work.

You won't be sorry you started blogging. Seriously.

Typepad vs. Word Press, from an Expert. But Remember, You're NOT an Expert on Blogging Platforms or Technology!

2011-06-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some cogent discussions of the differences between Typepad and Word Press, and all of these considerations make sense to me.

And my choices in building new blogs lets you know where I come out on the topic.

See, what I know about internet technology is simple: I know how to type!

And all I really want to do is to share information about bankruptcy with people and businesses.

And for my purposes, Blogger was great until it became too constricting. But thank you, Blogger, for a long and free run, which is my favorite price! And I'll come back here often to update, and link to my older articles.

But for me, Typepad has it all; remarkable ease of use, nice looking templates, and did I mention that I don't need to know nothin' about nothin' on the Internet?

What happens if I can't get the latest and greatest template for my blogs from Typepad? Or the most amazing brand new Widget?

Well, not very much, I think!

What Blogging Platform Should You Use if You're a Beginner and a Non-Techie?

2011-05-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, the longer I live, the smarter I get. Because I learn more ways not to do things!

Up until recently, I've suggested that absolute blogging beginners start with Blogger, which has absurdly simple setup; hey, if I can do it, you can do it!

Now, if you're serious about blogging, you probably ought to consider talking to my friends at Justia, and let them help you for your first year or decade of blogging; not only will they make your blog beautiful and functional, they'll provide you with a Blogging Coach! And super-duper SEO!

And thank you, Justia!

But you may want to goof around a bit before you get serious, and play around with building your own blogs first, they way I did. After all, how bad could it be?

I'll let you in on it at some point. Time has value, you know?

But now, I'm re-thinking my prior advice to my buddies that they start blogging on Blogger.

While it's easy to use, it lacks a lot of capabilities, and I'm not sure it speaks fluent SEO, which is very odd, because it's owned by Google!

When I've read the Blogger vs. TypePad vs. WordPress vs. MovableType articles, the thing that sticks out to me is that TypePad has a both a very high ease of use factor, as well as substantial capacity to build a nice looking blog with videos, photographs, and similar functionality.

And TypePad also has a free trial function, so I'm pretty strongly inclined to tell my buddies to start with a free trial TypePad blog, move to a baby TypePad blog until they feel comfy, upgrade to the big boy TypePad blog, or just go for the Gold and go from TypePad (to learn the rudiments of blogging) to Justia to get a lot more pageviews from Justia's SEO.

I'll keep you posted as I get smarter!

But free is my favorite price, so going with TypePad for a test drive seems like a good idea to me right now.

And I'm proud of it because I just built it (sort of like with Lego Blocks), so I have to show off my little amateur Typepad Bankruptcy Blog!

Which Blogging Platform Should You Use?

2011-05-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the answer is almost funny, and it's similar to the answer to the question, "Which exercise program should I start?"

The answer to the second question is simple: start the exercise program that you'll actually do! Doesn't matter if you're not jogging, or not lifting weights, or not swimming, or not going to yoga or karate. Not doing it is the same across the board!

And the same rule applies to blogging.

But the answer is almost the same, not exactly the same.

You may want to start with something very easy to set up, and free. That has advantages, and if those are your two major concerns, start with Blogger. It's not my choice for the long term, although I'm typing this discussion into Blogger as we speak!

But Blogger has limitations that I don't yet know how to overcome; still, if my sonny boy is helpful applying new templates, these Blogger blogs may survive for a while!

I have two, going on three, blogs supported by Justia, and they run on top of a blogging system called MovableType. And I like MovableType a lot. It just works, first time, every time. Once the program becomes transparent to you, using it is easy. I may decide to set up a few additional MovableType blogs. Why? Because I can!

On the other hand, there's a little site called TypePad. And I recently started playing with a Type Pad blog because it dumps directly into my twitter and facebook feeds, without any effort on my part. And that's a good thing, right?

On the other, other hand, my next projects will include building a WordPress blog, because WordPress consistently gets good press among bloggers.

One other little thing.

You went to law school, and since there was little differential between your I.Q. and that of your professors, they couldn't really use Socratic Method on you. So they just beat you up intellectually, and you couldn't tell the difference, because you were just a law student, right?

That's easy to do, especially in a Research and Writing Class. After all, what do you know? And if your Professor tells you that you can't write, that can have a profound effect on your willingness to be embarrassed by publishing a blog.

Well, guess what?

You've been in practice now for a while, and you've learned a lot that your professors don't know, because most of them didn't have the huevos rancheros to spend time in the trenches, practicing law.

Which is, by the way, not as easy as it looks on television.

And getting harder every day.

So heal your writing trauma by...writing.

The good news is that nobody will read your blog at first, anyway!

The bad news is also that nobody will read your blog at first!

We'll discuss these issues more when I get a Round Tuit.

Until then, stay safe out there!

p.s. you may want to start by blogging in an area where you feel safer than blogging about the law. That's actually a pretty good idea. It will get you into the habit of blogging, and that's a good thing.

I started my blogging career with a hobby blog about Shotokan Karate, which I built for the simple reason that I wanted to drive additional traffic to my karate instructor, Sensei Shojiro Koyama.

After a while, I discovered that my little hobby blog was showing up high in the search engines for a series of Shotokan Karate related search terms, and now my little karate blog shows up in a footnote in Wikipedia!

So I guess I invented myself into an expert by blogging about something I loved.

And you can do the same thing, and enjoy the process!

And after you have have the habit well-established, you can start (carefully) writing about something scary, like The Law.

And if the keyboard doesn't explode, you may decide to keep it up!

p.p.s. Here's one discussion of the top ten blogging platforms; as you can see, there are a lot of choices for you. Don't feel overwhelmed. Just start, and blog a little bit every single day. And you'll soon become relaxed and habituated to blogging.

And do remember that once you press "publish", the post is forever. You may want to consider letting all your posts season for a day or two before you press the publish button, because then the Rubicon has been crossed, and there's no going back!

p.p.p.s. Duhhhhh. Turns out that TypePad isn't, as it thought, a quirky little blog platform. It's been around forever, and has frequently been the center of TypePad vs. Blogger vs. WordPress slugfests, and sometimes comes out the winner!

I played with my new little TypePad blog today, and there are a couple of things I haven't worked out yet. Overall it's a very, very useful blogging platform, with a very good ease-of-use factor. In fact, it seems about as easy to use as Blogger, which has an insanely high ease-of-use factor.

But TypePad seems to be a perfectly worthwhile platform to set up a website (which is really just a one-page blog, right?) or a blog (which is just a multi-page website, right?). It loads quickly, there are plenty of templates to pick among, it's easy to plug in a video, and...well, that's not a bad start!

The price factor is low enough that it ought not stop most lawyers; the big boy package is about fifteen dollars a month, and for the convenience and...well, ease of use, as well as the power to do anything you want with your blog, that's a pretty good deal!

As of now, with so many folks discussing WordPress in such glowing terms, I'm tempted to play around with it. But it was so refreshing to build a blog that quickly (and no, it's not yet a perfect blog. And no, I don't know how to plug in my own domain name; but I'll bet I can get it done pretty easily!).

Now, my Justia-supported blogs aren't perfect either, but they sure are close; so I'll keep an eye on how well all of my blogs do as they casually and slowly drift up the blogosphere, and I'll keep you posted. But for now, I'm quite impressed with TypePad!

High Paying Prestige Jobs for Law School Graduates? Fuggeddaboutit, Says Law Professor, Who Then Does a Buddha.

2011-05-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

In an interesting presentation at a commencement ceremony for recent law school grads, a professor tells students not to yearn for the high paying jobs of that past, because they just aren't there. That's the simple truth, and good for Sarah for pointing out that truth.

Emory Professor Sarah Statler goes on, in an analytical approach that sounds Buddhist, to say that desire for those jobs causes suffering, and that by abandoning that desire for those high-paying high-prestige jobs, the suffering can be cured, and happiness can be obtained (and yes, that's a paraphrase).

I found all of that interesting at many levels, and on another level I thought, "Easy for her to say! She's already got a job!"

The Rainmaker's Networking Meeting at Monti's Tonight

2011-05-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

See, the appetizers at Monti's are perfectly okay.

And the folks at the Rainmaker's Networking meeting are smart, friendly, and actually send each other business, which is a good thing.

But the reason I keep showing up is simple: Stephen Fairley is a world class speaker who knows at least a hundred different ways to double the size of your practice.

Tonight he talked about a system that he's taught to a few thousand lawyers. It isn't fancy, and isn't technologically sophisticated. A lot of lawyers have been exposed to this approach to bringing clients into a firm. It has only one thing to recommend it, as a system.

It works. Really, really well.

I'm not going to tell you about it, because I'm not a world-class speaker and practice development expert. I'm just a bankruptcy lawyer.

If you want to double the size of your practice in six months, take the courses offered at The Rainmaker Institute. And then apply the lessons that you learn there.

Now, here's the funny thing.

I know, without a question, that the technique he taught tonight works, first time and every time. And I know it because it's the technique I used to build my firm back before there was an internet.

And the funny part was that, even though the lawyers at the Rainmaker's Networking meeting last night applauded vigorously, my guess is that most of 'em won't apply what they learned.

Oh, well. Some of 'em will, and they'll be happy that they did!

Killing and Destroying and Jumping Up and Down on Blogging Writer's Block, by Copyblogger

2011-05-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

Copyblogger consistently presents ways to make it easier to blog, or more generally, to write.

The discussion I read today was nifty because it provided a formula for making writing harder, not easier.

And I kinda like that sort of reverse-psychology!

I'll Be Back!

2011-05-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Well, the State Bar of Arizona is in safe hands this year, and they aren't mine!

Congratulations to the brave souls who have taken up the thankless, unpaid task of sitting as Governors of the State Bar of Arizona!

And thank you to all of my friends who voted for me! The number surprised me, because I didn't campaign this year; that made me more grateful to the voters who supported me.

I'll be running again, I expect, and next time I may actually...campaign in the Board of Governors election!

One nice thing about doing things is that you often learn how not to do them!

Dan Gukeisen, former Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer, Sentenced to Five Years in Prison in Manslaughter

2011-05-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

Dan Gukeisen, who practiced bankruptcy law in Arizona, has been sentenced to five years in prison in connection with the stabbing death of an ASU student.

So If "Murder", "Shrewdness", "Dissimulation", "Implausibility", and "Mischief" are all used up, What is the Plural Noun for a Buncha Lawyers?

2011-05-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

I ran into the list below at a site called "Fun with Words", and I loved the list.

And you know the next question, and you probably know the correct answer: what is the correct plural noun in English for a group of attorneys?

A golden gavel is not the prize for the correct answer, by the way.

herd	of	antelope
army	of	ants
colony	of	ants
swarm	of	ants
shrewdness	of	apes
flange	of	baboons
congress	of	baboons
tribe	of	baboons
culture	of	bacteria
cete	of	badgers
colony	of	badgers
sleuth	of	bears
sloth	of	bears
pack	of	bears (polar bears)
colony	of	beavers
lodge	of	beavers
flight	of	bees
grist	of	bees
hive	of	bees
swarm	of	bees
congregation	of	birds
dissimulation	of	birds
flight	of	birds
flock	of	birds
volery	of	birds
sedge	of	bitterns
siege	of	bitterns
herd	of	boar
singular	of	boar
sounder	of	boar
chain	of	bobolinks
brace	of	bucks
clash	of	bucks
herd	of	buffalo
rabble	of	butterflies
swarm	of	butterflies
wake	of	buzzards
flock	of	camels
army	of	caterpillars
clowder	of	cats
clutter	of	cats
glaring	of	cats
pounce	of	cats
dout	of	cats (house cats)
nuisance	of	cats (house cats)
kendle	of	cats (kittens)
kindle	of	cats (kittens)
litter	of	cats (kittens)
destruction	of	cats (wild cats)
drove	of	cattle
herd	of	cattle
kine	of	cattle
team	of	cattle
yoke	of	cattle (two)
herd	of	chamois
brood	of	chickens
flock	of	chickens
peep	of	chickens
brood	of	chicks
chattering	of	chicks
clutch	of	chicks
cartload	of	chimpanzees
herd	of	chinchillas
bed	of	clams
quiver	of	cobras
rag	of	colts
rake	of	colts
bury	of	conies
cover	of	coots
flight	of	cormorants
band	of	coyotes
sedge	of	cranes
siege	of	cranes
congregation	of	crocodiles
float	of	crocodiles
storytelling	of	crows
murder	of	crows
herd	of	deer
leash	of	deer
parcel	of	deer
bevy	of	deer (roe deer)
kennel	of	dogs
pack	of	dogs
litter	of	dogs (puppies)
pod	of	dolphins
drove	of	donkeys
herd	of	donkeys
pace	of	donkeys
trip	of	dotterel
bevy	of	doves
cote	of	doves
dole	of	doves
dule	of	doves
flight	of	doves
piteousness	of	doves
flight	of	dragons
weyr	of	dragons
wing	of	dragons
brace	of	ducks
flock	of	ducks
flush	of	ducks
paddling	of	ducks
raft	of	ducks
team	of	ducks
aerie	of	eagles
convocation	of	eagles
swarm	of	eels
herd	of	elephants
memory	of	elephants
parade	of	elephants
gang	of	elk
herd	of	elk
mob	of	emus
business	of	ferrets
cast	of	ferrets
fesnying	of	ferrets
charm	of	finches
catch	of	fish
haul	of	fish
run	of	fish
school	of	fish
shoal	of	fish
swarm	of	flies
lead	of	foxes
leash	of	foxes
skulk	of	foxes
army	of	frogs
colony	of	frogs
knot	of	frogs
flock	of	geese
gaggle	of	geese
skein	of	geese (in flight)
wedge	of	geese (flying in a 'V')
horde	of	gerbils
corps	of	giraffes
herd	of	giraffes
tower	of	giraffes
cloud	of	gnats
horde	of	gnats
swarm	of	gnats
herd	of	gnus
implausibility	of	gnus
drove	of	goats
herd	of	goats
tribe	of	goats
trip	of	goats
charm	of	goldfinches
glint	of	goldfish
band	of	gorillas
skein	of	goslings
leash	of	greyhounds
covey	of	grouse
pack	of	grouse
colony	of	gulls
group	of	guinea pigs
horde	of	hamsters
drove	of	hares
down	of	hares
husk	of	hares
leash	of	hares
trace	of	hares
trip	of	hares
warren	of	hares
aerie	of	hawks
cast	of	hawks
kettle	of	hawks
array	of	hedgehogs
prickle	of	hedgehogs
brood	of	hens
hedge	of	herons
sedge	of	herons
siege	of	herons
shoal	of	herrings
crash	of	hippopotami
herd	of	hippopotami
bloat	of	hippopotami
drift	of	hogs
parcel	of	hogs
passel	of	hogs
nest	of	hornets
harras	of	horses
herd	of	horses
stable	of	horses
team	of	horses
troop	of	horses

cry	of	hounds
mute	of	hounds
pack	of	hounds
charm	of	hummingbirds
clan	of	hyenas
band	of	jays
party	of	jays
scold	of	jays
smack	of	jellyfish
herd	of	kangaroos
mob	of	kangaroos
troop	of	kangaroos
deceit	of	lapwings
ascension	of	larks
exaltation	of	larks
leap	of	leopards
leep	of	leopards
lepe	of	leopards
pride	of	lions
sault	of	lions
sowse	of	lions
troop	of	lions
lounge	of	lizards
herd	of	llamas
plague	of	locusts
tidings	of	magpies
sord	of	mallards
stud	of	mares
richness	of	martens
horde	of	mice
mischief	of	mice
nest	of	mice
company	of	moles
labor	of	moles
movement	of	moles
cartload	of	monkeys
tribe	of	monkeys
troop	of	monkeys
troup	of	monkeys
herd	of	moose
barren	of	mules
pack	of	mules
rake	of	mules
span	of	mules
watch	of	nightingales
bevy	of	otter
family	of	otter
raft	of	otter
romp	of	otter
parliament	of	owls
drove	of	oxen
herd	of	oxen
span	of	oxen
team	of	oxen
yoke	of	oxen (two)
bed	of	oysters
company	of	parrots
covey	of	partridges
muster	of	peacocks
ostentation	of	peacocks
colony	of	penguins
crèche	of	penguins
huddle	of	penguins
parcel	of	penguins
rookery	of	penguins
nest	of	pheasants
nide	of	pheasants (on the ground)
nye	of	pheasants (on the ground)
bouquet	of	pheasants (when flushed)
flight	of	pigeons
flock	of	pigeons
drove	of	pigs
herd	of	pigs
litter	of	pigs
farrow	of	pigs (piglets)
sounder	of	pigs (wild pigs)
shoal	of	pilchards
congregation	of	plovers
wing	of	plovers
chine	of	polecats
string	of	ponies
pod	of	porpoises
school	of	porpoises
passel	of	possum
coterie	of	prairie dogs
bevy	of	quail
covey	of	quail
bury	of	rabbits
colony	of	rabbits
down	of	rabbits
drove	of	rabbits
husk	of	rabbits
leash	of	rabbits
trace	of	rabbits
trip	of	rabbits
warren	of	rabbits
nest	of	rabbits (young)
wrack	of	rabbits (young)
gaze	of	raccoons
nursery	of	raccoons
colony	of	rats
horde	of	rats
mischief	of	rats
pack	of	rats
plague	of	rats
swarm	of	rats
rhumba	of	rattlesnakes
storytelling	of	ravens
unkindness	of	ravens
crash	of	rhinocerouses
building	of	rooks
clamor	of	rooks
storytelling	of	rooks
run	of	salmon
school	of	salmon
shoal	of	salmon
bob	of	seals
colony	of	seals
crash	of	seals
harem	of	seals
herd	of	seals
pod	of	seals
rookery	of	seals
spring	of	seals
team	of	seals
school	of	shark
shiver	of	shark
down	of	sheep
drove	of	sheep
flock	of	sheep
fold	of	sheep
hurtle	of	sheep
trip	of	sheep
bed	of	snakes
den	of	snakes
nest	of	snakes
pit	of	snakes
walk	of	snipes
wisp	of	snipes
host	of	sparrows
dray	of	squirrels
scurry	of	squirrels
murmuration	of	starlings
muster	of	storks
mustering	of	storks
flight	of	swallows
bevy	of	swans
herd	of	swans
wedge	of	swans (flying in a 'V')
flock	of	swifts
drift	of	swine
sounder	of	swine
spring	of	teals
ambush	of	tigers
streak	of	tigers
knot	of	toads
hover	of	trout
flock	of	turkeys
brood	of	turkeys (immature)
bale	of	turtles
generation	of	vipers
nest	of	vipers
colony	of	vultures
mob	of	wallabees
herd	of	walruses
pod	of	walruses
pack	of	weasels
sneak	of	weasels
gam	of	whales
herd	of	whales
pod	of	whales
school	of	whales
plump	of	wildfowl
herd	of	wolves
pack	of	wolves
rout	of	wolves
route	of	wolves
warren	of	wombats
fall	of	woodcocks
descent	of	woodpeckers
herd	of	yaks
herd	of	zebras
zeal	of	zebras

The Top Ten Just for Lawyers Articles this Week!

2011-05-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

The Top Ten Just for Lawyers Articles This Week!

Yeah, I'm Running for Office. Fortunately, My Chances of Winning are Slim!
The election for Board of Governors is now closed, and my guess is that I didn't win, place, or show, partly because I didn't campaign! Whic...
What Is a Virtual Law Office, and How Do I Build One?
Well, I have no idea, but this article by Stephanie Kimbro in the Lawyerist shows that she knows. And tells!
How Awful Is Your Website?
At some point, you're going to get a website. It'll probably be a crummy website, because we all have to start somewhere. In fact, at the ...
What Area of Law Should I Practice? Part I
When you're a baby lawyer, you really ought to give this issue some thought. Because in four years, anybody can invent himself into an exp...
How Much Is a Solution Worth?
Lawyers don't sell time, not really. They sell solutions to problems. Which is why, when clients drop into my office, I ask "how can I s...
The Rainmaker Retreat: Worth the Price, and Then Some!
I've been to a fair number of seminars concerning the art of rainmaking. I've read a lot of books on the topic. I've lectured to lawyers on ...
OH, NO! Not an Algorithmquake!!
I've gotten some clients because of my online educational efforts, since some people like to know what's going to happen next in their bank...
Decisions. Decisions. And Schizophrenia. Clio vs. HoudiniEsq!
So here was my thought. I was going to pick up a buncha licenses for Clio , an online practice management system that had gotten a lotta g...
RealPractice Gives You FREE PRACTICE MANAGEMENT AND WEBSITE SOLUTION; and it Partnered with AVVO, So It's Probably GREAT!
I know it's rough to be a solo or small firm OR a big firm lawyer during a recession. I get it. Apparently, so does a firm called RealPr...
Tim Stanley Knows His Stuff! Justia Puts Your Blog on Steroids!
I recently got a call from Tim Stanley, who runs Justia , along with the lovely Stacy; they created Findlaw, and now that they have sold th...

OH, NO! Not an Algorithmquake!!

2011-05-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've gotten some clients because of my online educational efforts, since some people like to know what's going to happen next in their bankruptcy cases.

But the most frustrating experience I've had was after I had worked my tail end off in the Internet Teaching Trenches, and succeeded. I became the Arizona Internet "Go-To Guy" for bankruptcy information and bankruptcy education and bankruptcy resources, and I was getting tons and tons of pageviews and phone calls from potential clients.

And then it hit.

The dreaded Algorithmquake.

Da-daaaa-daaaaaa-dummmmmmmmm!

And for a few weeks, nobody dropped in to say howdy; and nobody (relatively speaking) found my various blogs about bankruptcy, or health, or Shotokan Karate to read them.

I was sad. No, I was very sad (sad face goes here).

Google had changed its algorithm and nobody had sent me the memo!

The short version of the horrible story was that I went from being very easy to find to being Casper the Friendly Ectoplasm.

That was because I had been working to show up well for "organic searches", and Google had previously presented information that showed organic searches at the top of the search page, and a map on the side, kinda like electronic fries.

Then the presentation of information changed, and I ceased to exist; because the top searches for many terms became linked to local search and Google Places.

And when Google doesn't love you, it's a dark, dark day, and they don't make hot fudge sundaes big enough to smother the pain.

I figured out the problem by mistake; I was showing a nice computer network geek how to get a little more business for his business, and we went to Google, and we saw a bundle of Google Places entries, and he said, "if it doesn't show up in the top of Google Maps, I just do another search!"

He was sheepish when he said it. I was horrified when he said it. The scales fell from my eyes. I suddenly knew why the phone had recently been quiet. I verified it with some quick searches, and then I knew what I had to do.

I had to find some way to make Google Places love me. Or find a Shadchen to get Google Places to marry me. Or at least date me!

Now, I survived that Algorithmquake to tell the tale.

And I was scarred; while there are more efficient and effective ways to check for your rankings, I also spend my mindless hours at the end of a long, long day as a bankruptcy lawyer clicking again and again on various search terms to see that I haven't vanished.

The first step is admitting you have a problem. I, of course, don't have a problem. I can stop clicking on bankruptcy search terms any time I want. I just don't want to, you know?

So when I ran into an article telling me that Bing was about to change its algorithm in a way that I am completely unprepared for, it made me wish I'd put on my extra-strength Depends today.

And I haven't even gotten started working to make Bing Local Search love me, much less Bing!

But if you go to my Facebook Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer site and click "like" as much as you want, I may still be able to feed my Bengal and my Wire Haired Fox Terrier.

If you click frequently, I may be able to rescue some Airedale Terriers, although that may be a bridge too far; they eat a lot.

But I'm not begging.

I still have my pride (proud face goes here).

How Much Is a Solution Worth?

2011-05-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Lawyers don't sell time, not really.

They sell solutions to problems.

Which is why, when clients drop into my office, I ask "how can I solve all your problems?"

On the one hand, it often makes them laugh, and sometimes makes them cry, and sometimes makes them stop and think for a minute. It's really fun any direction that it goes.

Except the crying thing. That's not so much fun.

On the other hand, this lawyer has some fun ideas on billing, the most dismal project; he thinks billable hours, as a business model, is dying.

And maybe he's right, and maybe he's wrong. It'll be fun to watch how the future develops.

How Awful Is Your Website?

2011-05-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

At some point, you're going to get a website. It'll probably be a crummy website, because we all have to start somewhere.

In fact, at the very first, fumble around with ten different free website setups. They probably won't be perfect, but they'll be better than nothing, and you'll learn a lot about websites that you never wanted to know.

Fumble fast, by the way. Learn as quickly as you can, because about 70% of consumers who look for lawyers start their search on the Internet.

If you were an art student, or a marketing major, you have some advantages over some of your lawyer peers, especially the ooooold guys, who will fairly soon wake up and say, "Who is that kid who 's siphoning off all my potential clients?" Actually, lawyers who simply refuse to embrace the internet will all say things like, "If I hurry, I can get to the Jack in the Box interviews before they close today!"

And that's depressing in many ways, but it's also true. So get with the program.

But today, you have no clue what a cool website should look like. You don't know phrases like "call to action", and you don't know what effect your video will have on your...conversion rate!

And I wish you didn't need to learn this stuff, but you do.

Recently two friends of mine got new websites, and I love them, for entirely different reasons. One buddy of mine got a crummy, horrible website, but I won't show you that one, because I don't want to embarrass him.

Here's one example of a great website: it's the new website for DeShon Pullen, which she contracted with my friend Alex Morris's firm Findlaw, and I LOVE THIS WEBSITE!!! On the one hand, it's so darn pretty I can't stand it. On another hand, it's simple, which is critical, because if people don't understand what you're about very quickly, they're off with a different Google search.

I have criticized the site with DeShon for one reason.

Can you guess why?

It's because when a potential client clicks onto the website, the "screen shot" for the video is dark, instead of showing a pretty screen shot of her human face. I'm a big proponent of human faces on websites, because humans are programmed to respond to faces, not to text.

Another Findlaw website I love was built for my buddy Vladimir Gagic, which is so different visually from the Pullen site that words fail.

But it's also simple, clear, provides plenty of calls to action, and has a human face showing up on the video on the website. It has something else, which is a tag line, and that is "Summon the Marine". Now, that may seem a little corny to you, but to folks who have been in the military, it tells them a great deal about Vlad in three words.

And, while I don't offer it as a perfect example of a website, I'm pretty happy with my current website, also a Findlaw/Alex Morris kinda deal, because it has drifted toward the top in the search engines. I have recently been assigned a new SEO specialist by Findlaw, and I live in fear that my position in the search engine ratings will drop, but I'll keep you posted on that.

Note that my Justia Blogs have done a good job of rising in the search engines, and they have a look and feel similar to my website, so that whatever "branding" I've done should carry over. Stacy and Keri at Justia are wonderful, and have provided exemplary customer service and value for me. So if my new Findlaw SEO expert isn't as perfect as Amelie, my Justia Blogs should keep me visible in the search engines. On the other hand, I sure hope the new expert is as expert as the old expert.

There are at least two things you'll need to consider in thinking about your website, and you shouldn't go totally crazy if your site isn't perfect at first. Remember, you don't know what to ask for when you're talking with your website designers, so they have to try to read your mind, and that's not always easy.

And while the website needs to have a strong call to action, and a clear message, and invite people to call you or email you, if nobody sees it because it's on page three or four of Google for relevant search terms, is it going to help you much?

Yeah, I know. If you're a beginner at this stuff, this is TMI ("too much information").

Sorry!

p.s. this is obvious, but if you're absolutely new to lawyer marketing, or already pretty knowledgeable, you should really go to the website of my friend Stephen Fairley, and at a minimum get his dvds entitled "Rainmaker in a Box, volume 1 and 2". After that, you'll be hooked, of course.

Anti-Cyborg Software! The Terminator is not the Only Cyborg Out There!

2011-05-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Did you ever get a twitter friend request from a stunningly beautiful girl who had posted no tweets at all?

Me neither.

But if you had received that kind of communications, the odds are that it came from a twitborg, or a cytwit, or a cyborg built out of pixels for the purposes of marketing to you, or for less warm and fuzzy reasons.

There's an anti-cyborg service that will filter out all those bad, bad robots with no effort on your part.

It's called "TrueTwit".

I couldn't make this stuff up.

p.s. I haven't yet told you why you should Tweet.

Abide.

All will be made clear.

And resistance is futile.

Yeah, I'm Running for Office. Fortunately, My Chances of Winning are Slim!

2011-05-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

The election for Board of Governors is now closed, and my guess is that I didn't win, place, or show, partly because I didn't campaign! Which is fine; getting elected wouldn't increase my income, of course. It would have the opposite effect, because of the time that is involved in working as a governor for the State Bar of Arizona.

But I'm sticking my platform in here, such as it is: that way, I won't lose it, and I can dust it off for next year! And make no mistake; this economy is hard on lawyers, and all of 'em need all the help they can get!

Joseph C. McDaniel, Joseph C. McDaniel, P.C.A graduate of Arizona State University College of Law, Joseph McDaniel began his legal career as a judicial clerk for two Bankruptcy Judges before opening his practice in 1980. Recognized as a Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the Arizona Board of Legal Specialization, Joseph McDaniel is also an AV peer-review rated lawyer.
AVVO has awarded Mr. McDaniel a 10.0 rating, and he is a member of "Arizona’s Finest Lawyers."
Joseph McDaniel is a former Chair of the Arizona State Bar Bankruptcy Section, and a former Chair of the American Bar Association Bankruptcy Committee of the General Practice Section, as well as a former Editor of that Section’s Bankruptcy Update. He has practiced in medium and small firms, and thinks well of lawyers.
Discipline Disclosure Statement: Not applicable.

Why are you interested in running for election to the Board of Governors? What do you believe are the significant issues facing the members today? If elected, how would you hope to address these issues?
I’m interested serving on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Arizona because I’d like to help my fellow lawyers in every way I can.
This economy appears (from my viewpoint as a bankruptcy lawyer) to be a depression, not a recession. I am aware that many young lawyers and new law graduates are having trouble finding jobs in this economy, and that established lawyers in large firms are being let go because of economic pressures.
Currently, the option of permitting law firms to "outsource" their legal work to lawyers in India is a factor that could have massive negative effects on hundreds of thousands of lawyers in the United States.
The State Bar of Arizona has done many things to help working lawyers, including providing "Fastcase" as a research tool, and trying to assist lawyers in finding jobs. If I’m elected, I will favor every economic benefit that can be provided to lawyers, and I will vote against everything that appears to me to place unnecessary burdens on the backs of working lawyers.
Overall, I want to help lawyers deal with a bad economy.

Should an Article About a Physical Attack on a Lawyer Go in this Blog? Or the Other One?

2011-05-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is an odd, odd world.

I have a few bankruptcy blogs, because I'm a bankruptcy attorney in Arizona, and I want my clients to be the best educated, best prepared bankruptcy clients on the planet.

And a few years ago I went back to study with my old karate teacher (he's now 75 years old, and an inspiration for my health blog!), and I therefore have a karate blog as well.

And when I read about this attack on a lawyer, who was fortunately a former cop (and therefore knew how to handle himself), my first thought was simply, "Where should this go?"

Outsourcing Legal Work from U.S. to India is a "Big Historical Movement"

2011-05-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

I spoke recently with a brilliant lawyer who will only be practicing for another decade or so.

He hadn't heard the gospel of legal outsourcing.

Here's the way it works: legal work that was previously done by lawyers in the United States in big firms is now being done in India.

The process is moving like a snowball rolling downhill.

Is this a large movement? Well, here are a few numbers:

Revenue at India’s legal outsourcing firms is expected to grow to $440 million this year, up 38 percent from 2008, and should surpass $1 billion by 2014, Valuenotes estimates.

However, note that while those numbers appear small, the dollars that are not being spent in the United States are large indeed, and getting larger every day. If you understand that lawyers in India are paid amounts that wouldn't keep you in beanie-weanie, you'll understand that one billion being spent in India may well represent a hundred billion not being spent in the United States.

Will this movement have any effect on you as a lawyer? You may believe that you are insulated because the senior partner likes you or your work. But replacing you with a nameless, faceless drone in another country will increase his income dramatically. Same result if the drone has a perfectly good face or a perfectly good name, like "Rajeesh".

Do you want to bet against the economic self-interest of your senior partner?

That's what I thought.

And what effect will that have on sole practitioners, baby lawyers, and small firms?

Well, expect mass layoffs from BigLaw. Everybody who isn't a rainmaker or a velcro strip for a major client can expect to find a new job, competing with sole practitioners, baby lawyers, and small firms.

Which simply means that new lawyers will have no jobs, and no opportunity to pay off their student loans.

So even bankruptcy won't help them.

So the half of the legal practice in the United States that is currently in solo practice may well get an early, continuing Christmas Present! A lot of very sad lawyers who used to have corner offices asking them for jobs.

And a lot of lawyers will have another gift; an opportunity to file a bankruptcy, because they weren't trained in law school how to engage in price competition with Rajeesh.

And a recent article in the Wall Street Journal indicated a belief that some lawyers in the United States might have "harbored an outright hostility to outsourcing legal work in principle".

To which I can only say, why would any U.S. lawyer harbor outright hostility to outsourcing legal work "in principle"?

This requires principle?

A HUGE Mistake You Don't Have to Make!

2011-05-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

I once made a fairly huge mistake, when I signed an agreement with a firm to do advertising for my office and the amount of the contract was fifty grand.

I paid the fifty grand, although I really, really didn't want to, after I realized that I was receiving exactly zero clients from the amazingly expensive website, banner, and directory listing.

I recently talked to a nice lawyer who was having issues with his practice, and he told me that he was having problems paying ____________ Advertising for the expensive ads that he had purchased, which had done him exactly zero benefit.

We talked, and laughed, and cried a little.

You don't have to suffer the same consequences of bad judgment that my buddy and I suffered, because I'm going to tell you how to deal with that issue.

Don't sign!

This is really simple: before you are seduced by a salesman for an ad company, ask yourself this question: can I handle the gaff if I get zero clients from this marketing investment? If so, maybe it makes sense. If not, don't sign.

But wait! There's more!

Before you throw away twenty-four thousand dollars, or twice that (a two-year contract to "lock in the price"), find somebody you trust who is using the same advertising vehicle, and ask 'em how they like it.

If they start sobbing, or gnashing their teeth and rolling around on the floor, you have your answer.

Now, if you goofed already, don't worry.

It only takes once, and you probably won't do it again!

But it can be a pretty expensive lesson for a lawyer during a depression!

p.s. How do you deal with a hard-sell kinda salesman? Here's the answer: "If the answer has to be today, the answer is no." It's amazing how fast a salesman can get you an extension to think about it if he won't get a commission unless you have a chance to analyze!

What Is a Virtual Law Office, and How Do I Build One?

2011-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I have no idea, but this article by Stephanie Kimbro in the Lawyerist shows that she knows.

And tells!

Should Non-Lawyers Be Permitted to Own Law Firms?

2011-05-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article by my friend Ed Poll, and he tells me, indirectly, that it doesn't matter what you and I may think about it.

He says,

What are States Doing?
But the states themselves have begun to move on the issue. The District of Columbia permits non-lawyers to own 25% interest in a law firm, and North Carolina has a bill before its Senate that would allow 49% non-lawyer ownership.

Now, why is this important?

Well, non-lawyers are obviously not subject to the ethical rules that make lawyers such good guys; and they didn't want to study the law. And to them, buying a law firm would simply be a business investment. One that they would make sure paid off, by threatening lawyers to pull out of the deal if they didn't like the way the firm was being run.

And if you hear a scraping sound, that's the independence of the legal profession being dragged away to the boneyard.

You Need a Tax-Deductable Vacation in Florida, Don't You? How About If You MUST Learn This Stuff?

2011-05-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Do you think it might be smart to learn from the best and the brightest about online marketing for lawyers?

Well, you've got about two weeks to find a way to attend AVVOcating 2011.

And if I weren't a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona, I'd be there with bells on (whatever that means)!

Which Lawyers Deserve the Most Pity?

2011-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well, baby lawyers with huge student loans and no chance of ever getting hired do come to mind.

But think about being one of the ten thousand BigLaw Lawyers who got the ax over the last three years. My guess is that those firms will replace those expensive partners with...baby lawyers! Who will make just enough to buy beanie-weanie and peanut butter, and make payments on their student loans. OR those firms will simply outsource the legal work to India.

Then there is the saddest group; they still get some business, although it's coming in slower and slower, from their nurtured, watered referral tree, and their Yellow Pages Advertisements.

While the number of consumers seeking lawyers on the Internet goes up, month by inexorable month.

The last group is the saddest, because 1) they don't see the Tsunami coming at them; and 2) they really believe that they don't have a problem.

Debra R. Bruce Helps You Decide WHICH Law Practice Management Software

2011-04-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Debra R. Bruce has a nifty blog entitled Lawyer-Coach, LLC.

And inside that blog is a post entitled Choosing Law Practice Management Software. It makes reference to the ABA analysis of nine such programs.

So read and enjoy!

And note that there are a lot of free to try, or even simply FREE, law practice management programs on the market right now.

So let me know which programs you like best, and I'll talk about that here, again and again.

RealPractice Gives You FREE PRACTICE MANAGEMENT AND WEBSITE SOLUTION; and it Partnered with AVVO, So It's Probably GREAT!

2011-04-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

I know it's rough to be a solo or small firm OR a big firm lawyer during a recession.

I get it.

Apparently, so does a firm called RealPractice, which wants to give you free website and time tracking and practice management software.

Faithful readers know My Favorite Price: Free!

Now, if it's free, do you think it could be any good? Well, probably.

Because RealPractice has partnered up with AVVO, and I know AVVO is the real deal. Remember, AVVO is a website that assists clients in finding lawyers, and lists all practicing lawyers in the United States, for FREE! Unless you want a little extra placement, of course.

I have not had a chance to take RealPractice for a trial run, but I'll be doing that in the next few weeks; but if you have the chance to test drive it before I do, let me know how it went, so I can pass it along to our buddies in the trenches, in the practice of law.

The BuzzMachine; Lessons for Newpapers, and for Lawyers in the United States

2011-04-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just ran into an article directed at newspapers, which sell information.

The remarkably insightful analysis of Jeff Jarvis is just as relevant to attorneys in the United States, who sell...information. Mind you, lawyers do more than newspapers, but as to the provision of information, they're in the same business.

So look at this article in the BuzzMachine, and internalize its lessons: do not ask for whom the BuzzMachine tolls.

It tolls for thee.

Top Ten Most Popular Just for Lawyers Articles This Week!

2011-04-23T16:06:00.001-07:00

Enjoy!

Top Ten Most Popular Just for Lawyers Posts this Week!

Time Management for Lawyers
After getting a philosophy degree, and pumping gas, and then being a teacher at a violent and dangerous junior high, and then at a little pa...
iPad Launch Coming Up: Is My Long Wait Over At Last, Apple?
I have friends who told me not to be an early adopter, no matter how much I love the Apple Platform; that the new iPad would make video maki...
How to Find Guest Posts for Your Blog. On Facebook. While Playing Zynga Poker.
So there I was, relaxing at the end of a long day at the office. The most mindless endeavor in the world, which puts my racing thoughts in...
Decisions. Decisions. And Schizophrenia. Clio vs. HoudiniEsq!
So here was my thought. I was going to pick up a buncha licenses for Clio , an online practice management system that had gotten a lotta g...
No Jobs for Attorneys? Hey, Plenty of Work for Social Media Managers!
Everybody knows that the job market for lawyers is the pits. The Wall Street Journal has written about it, and so has USA Today . That ma...
Blogging Like Michelangelo; Set that Angel Free!
There is a wonderful post at Copyblogger that contains many of the "secrets" of creative writing (or sculpting, or painting, or anything el...
The Rainmaker Retreat: Worth the Price, and Then Some!
I've been to a fair number of seminars concerning the art of rainmaking. I've read a lot of books on the topic. I've lectured to lawyers on ...
iPad vs. Xoom vs. Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor vs. Kindle on Amazon
Lawyers who are starting a practice need to pay close attention to the interesting and odd race involving various tablet computers. Why? ...
Making Professional Quality Videos Is No Big Deal!
I always laugh when I hear lawyers talking about how it's too much trouble to educate their clients using video, or hearing that it's overwh...
I like it When a Lawyer Gets Press for Doing Good!
Lawyers are among the best-educated, hardest-working, and most highly-regulated people in the United States. And articles about lawyers ge...

I like it When a Lawyer Gets Press for Doing Good!

2011-04-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Lawyers are among the best-educated, hardest-working, and most highly-regulated people in the United States.

And articles about lawyers generally say that they were accused of doing something bad, and then ignore the story when lawyers are found not to have done something bad. There probably ought to be a lawyers anti-defamation league.

So I love it when a lawyer heroically defends a client by main force, not just with words, against a violent aggressor. I'm tempted to put this in my Shotokan Karate Blog instead of my Just for Lawyers Blog!

How to Find Guest Posts for Your Blog. On Facebook. While Playing Zynga Poker.

2011-04-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

So there I was, relaxing at the end of a long day at the office.

The most mindless endeavor in the world, which puts my racing thoughts in neutral, is Zynga Poker.

You heard it here first.

So a pop-up appeared, and the lovely young lady said hi, and I said hi back, and she asked if she could do a guest post. I said, I guess so. And she looked at a bunch of my blogs, and said she wanted it to appear in my Just for Lawyers Blog. I suggested a different blog, but she wanted this one.

So I said, and I quote, "Okay!" So here you go:

Debt Settlement Attorney- A Ray Of Hope To All Debt Ridden Souls

This is the guest post by SJ. She writes for Oak View Law Group. She writes on financial topics like debt consolidation, debt settlement, bankruptcy etc. She is a financial advisor and help people to mange their finance.

A debt settlement attorney practices law to assist the pitiable souls who are on the verge of collapse under insoluble debts. Maximum creditors agree to settle debts whenever there is a good chance that the debtors will fail to pay the entire debt amount. By settling debts they make it sure that they should receive some money rather than no money at all. With a debt settlement plan debtors can reduce their outstanding balance and pay an amount which is affordable to them and acceptable to the creditors. You can settle your debts on your own but if you are looking for proficient paper work, expert advice and professional help, you can hire a debt settlement attorney as well. For an immediate help and information in this regard, you can take help from good debt settlement companies If you are receiving calls from creditors and collection agencies on a regular basis and have a mammoth amount of debt, you might want a debt settlement attorney to help you out. Read on, to know explicitly how a debt settlement attorney works, what the benefits of appointing a debt settlement attorney are and what types of debts can be settled by a settlement attorney.

Benefits

A debt settlement attorney’s primary concern is to figure out a repayment plan which will enable you to settle your debt amount with at least 40% of reduction. They achieve this task step by step. They systematically browse through all your credit information and then start negotiating with each of your creditors and discuss the credit terms with them. They make sure they reduce the amount of money that you owe as well as work to remove any negative information from your credit report. Settling your debts has some pitfalls as well. As you lower your debt amount through settlement, it hurts your credit worthiness and adversely affects your credit ratings. As a result, you lose all hops of attaining future credits. However, your settlement attorney might help you out in this regard. They can negotiate with the creditors regarding the removal of negative information from your credit reports. Attorney constantly strives to dissuade creditor to report any negative credit information to the credit reporting bureaus. This certainly helps you to get back your financial footing after settlement.

Types of Debt That Can Be Settled

We often wonder what types of debt are permitted to be settled. If you have unsecured debts such as credit cards, medical bills you might consider debt settlement as your viable option rather than paying off the full amount which is due. Secured debts such as home loan, car loans and even student loans won’t be settled in any way.

To summarize, if you are feeling stressed out with piled up debts and looking for a way out then you better hire a debt settlement attorney who might be able to provide you with the best possible debt solution. With the expert assistance of a debt settlement attorney your debt obligations can go down by as much as 60% of what you have originally owed.

Blogging Like Michelangelo; Set that Angel Free!

2011-04-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

There is a wonderful post at Copyblogger that contains many of the "secrets" of creative writing (or sculpting, or painting, or anything else).

And the post itself is a good example of the qualities of a well-written, well-balanced, and entertaining article.

You should read it; and in particular, note that it's darn hard to write well when you're "multitasking"!

Time Management for Lawyers

2011-04-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

After getting a philosophy degree, and pumping gas, and then being a teacher at a violent and dangerous junior high, and then at a little parochial school, and digging ditches for Pancho Willis, I went back to law school. And graduated, and had two clerkships, first with Bankruptcy Judge Maggiore, and then with Chief Bankruptcy Judge Caldwell.

Then I went into private practice.

And I was utterly unprepared for that project. Nothing in my wide and varied background as a professional student, a sorta-teacher under a Federal Grant, pumping gas, digging ditches, or clerking had made me ready to start that most difficult of exercises, starting and running the small business (law practice subdivision).

In particular, I had no ability at the time to orient myself in time. My previous excursions into the commercial world had only required me to show up; Pancho would point me at an inchoate ditch, and I would dig. My Judges would point me to a daily calendar, and I would read, write, and research. Teaching didn't really count, because my time was controlled by the bells and the school periods.

And that was my weakness. My time had been dished out in chewable portions, rather than dumped on me like a swimming pool.

And at the time, I had no time management skills whatsoever.

Fortunately, I had friends who understood the nature of small business, and being an entrepreneur in a start-up.

And, with apologies to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, friends will get you through times of no knowledge pretty well.

Larry Melby saved me from my ignorance of time management skills. He didn't do it for money; he just did it because he's obsessive about helping other people, which in my book is a good thing.

Opinions differ, of course.

But Larry, having seen and run successful businesses of various sorts for his entire life, understood perfectly that I was a disaster waiting to happen, because it was only a matter of, you know, time before I missed an appointment or worse, a Court date.

Remember, if you have no experience at all with managing your own time, which is the situation in which many students find themselves, a solo practice is just a punji stick with your name on it.

What Larry did, when we talked about how I managed my time, was to laugh and let me know that there were better ways to do it which did not involve my worrying non-stop. And then he persuaded me to study time management, which is a testament to both his benevolence as a friend, and his sales skills; if you can convince somebody to do something they don't want to do, you have remarkable persuasive skills.

And fortunately, the same sorts of time management skills that Larry told me I needed, and the same sorts of tools and resources he showed me with much generosity and patience, were available in the marketplace, and they didn't even require a secret handshake.

But if he hadn't told me I needed 'em, and where to find 'em, I wouldn't have done so; and my practice would not have flourished, and I would have worked for someone else my entire career, and then with the depression hit, I would have been dumped out of a corner office, the same as many of my BigLaw buddies.

Or worse.

Honestly, while time management doesn't sound exciting or miraculous, it's both. Because it permits you to use the only real resource a poverty-stricken baby lawyer has in any amount (time) in the most effective way, as opposed to squandering it in ways with no particular return on the investment.

Back in the day, and this was thirty years ago, the tools for time management were less completely developed than they are today.

There were things called audio tapes, which none of you have ever used. But the Brian Tracy audio tapes that Larry suggested that I give a listen were excellent, and I strongly suggest that you listen to them. And the Daytimer time management packages are still sold, although there are computerized technologies that will even work on your smartphone today.

Life has not changed so much that the nature of time has changed (although it does seem to be moving faster, at my age).

But if you learn the time management skills that I didn't know I needed, your life will be better, and you will accomplish things you believe to be impossible, today.

I did. And thank you, Larry.

iPad vs. Xoom vs. Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor vs. Kindle on Amazon

2011-04-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

Lawyers who are starting a practice need to pay close attention to the interesting and odd race involving various tablet computers.

Why?

Well, one is the leader, one is a dark horse contender and one is well-funded and floundering.

Just like lawyers in your community.

Ignore for a moment that some sort of tablet computer is in your future as a lawyer; Sam Glover at The Lawyerist says that the iPad is indispensable to your law practice.

But today we're not talking about the uses of tablets in your law office or at home.

Today, we're just watching how marketing plays out for very similar products, backed by vast sums of money, and how radically different results have obtained for those similar products.

Apple released its iPad and the world noticed and lined up to buy it. It has sold about nine trillion iPads and made vast profits.

The Motorola Xoom is a great product, with great support, and is open-source; those are a lot of greats. And nobody is lining up to buy it.

The Barnes and Noble NOOKkcolor, with no advertising to speak of except from dedicated rooting fanatics, has sold three million units. With no sign of stopping. They even run out from time to time! Jason Hiner at TechRepublic tells all about rooting, which turns the NOOKcolor into a full-featured android tablet, which is the reason that Barnes and Noble has trouble keeping this dark-horse front-runner in stock!

Note: I just bought a Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor, and it is wonderful so far. I'll keep you posted.

And Kindle at Amazon has sold more e-readers than a dog has fleas, and more in the pipeline are being purchased and loved by their users. Hint to Amazon; make your next release capable of being "rooted" to turn it into a full featured android tablet, and then pretend you don't want people to do that!

As a lawyer, you can't help people if people with problems don't come into your office.

So consider, grasshopper, which marketing model works best for you. Take lessons from the Tablet Wars.

And doesn't it drive you crazy? When you went to law school, nobody told you that you'd have to think about how to find clients!

Making Professional Quality Videos Is No Big Deal!

2011-04-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

I always laugh when I hear lawyers talking about how it's too much trouble to educate their clients using video, or hearing that it's overwhelming trying to figure out lighting, sound, and video quality issues without any training in those areas.

I laugh because I know that those lawyers are simply using the wrong tool for the job!

The correct tool for the job is called "a videographer"!

I was lucky to find Marius Ciocirlan.

$250 Xoom, and a Beautiful $300 Website? Hey, Bargains Galore!

2011-04-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've already talked extensively about how a Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor can be "rooted" to produce something very much like an iPad or a Xoom Tablet, with the exception of the cameras. "Rooting", as I'm told by my rocket scientist buddies who can actually do things with computers, takes out the existing operating system in the NOOKcolor (the "kneecapped" version of Android) and put in the big-kid version of the Android Operating System.

But wait! There's more! The Lawyerist has a great article on using Word Press and $300 to produce a knock-your-socks-off Website!

And I'm fond of the idea of getting wonderful results for little money.

Bear in mind that the content additions to your beautiful $300 Website may make it more like a blog than a website.

But I wonder; if you have a blog that has more than a thousand entries, and you put it on a platform like Word Press or Moveable Type or Type Pad, and you get expert SEO from Justia, do you really need something designated a Website?

Actually, I'm experimenting, and soon I'll do traffic comparisons between my websites and blogs and let you know my conclusions.

Putting it another way, it seems to me that websites with a sort of synthetic, artificial SEO were very, very important for lawyers without blogs.

Another way to look at the Website vs. Blog issue is that as time moves forward and Blogs get prettier and Websites get more content, we will see them merge seamlessly, one into another.

This is the dawning of the Age of Website and Blog Convergence, which doesn't scan as well as "the Age of Aquarius", but you get the idea.

The Lawyerist.com Tells You How to get Great Low Cost Graphic Design for Your Law Firm

2011-04-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

I get regular email updates from Lawyerist.com.

Today I got a great suggestion from them for getting very low cost, nifty graphic design for your law firm.

I'm not going to swipe their suggestion; it was their idea, after all!

So go on over to Lawyerist.com and subscribe.

You can thank me later.

Wix is a Free Website Builder that Looks Great for Lawyers! For My Favorite Price!

2011-04-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Wix is a free website-building site for anybody who wants a great looking, free website that costs My Favorite Price.

I love my current website, and I love Alex Morris and Findlaw for doing such a good job on it for me.

In fact, I love the way it looks so much that they cloned it for my new blog and my new, new blog!

But if I were a baby lawyer with no dough and I wanted to start building a presence on the internet, I'd start with a blog and a free website; and the Wix sites look particularly well-adapted to lawyers!

In fact, I'll be putting together a Wix site just to see if I can do it, and then I'll let you show you how it looks.

And you know perfectly well what I'm about to tell you: if I can do it, anybody can do it!

LibreOffice: An Open-Source Office Productivity Suite! For MY FAVORITE PRICE!

2011-04-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

I recently talked to an author buddy of mine, and told him that I'd blogged a lot, but I hadn't yet written an e-book. I pointed out that an e-book seemed like a good idea to me for a number of reasons.

But while I've written thousands of pages in my various blogs, including my pretty new bankruptcy blog, and my other new blog, I told my buddy Rick Cook (who has written about seventeen published books) that I'd like his help in making my e-book look like a book.

And since I wanted his help working on my book, it occurred to me to ask him what program he used to produce his current work. He told me about an open-source program called LibreOffice, which means, more or less, Free Office!

So now you know about a free suite of office software that one smart professional uses to build books and articles for publication, and according to this review by Katherine Noyes at PC World Business Center, it's a pretty good free program!

Michael Martine at "Remarkablogger" is a Funny, Useful Read! Especially About How to Blog!

2011-03-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Michael Martine is a funny guy.

And a smart one.

If you read Remarkablogger, your writing will improve and you will connect better with your audience.

Guaranteed!

How do I know?

Well, I've been writing better since I found Remarkablogger, and if Michael can help a stodgy, boring, old, gray-headed bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona write better, he can sure make you write better!

Law Practice Management Expert Jay Fleischman Gives You a Checklist for Starting a Bankruptcy Practice!

2011-03-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Faithful readers of my blog know about Jay Fleischman, who is very smart indeed, and generous with his knowledge.

Recently he posted on topics that a baby bankruptcy lawyer really needs to know, including books, computer programs, groups to join, and a partridge in a pear tree.

So read Jay Fleischman, and if you're smart, subscribe to his blog.

Tim Stanley Knows His Stuff! Justia Puts Your Blog on Steroids!

2011-03-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

I recently got a call from Tim Stanley, who runs Justia, along with the lovely Stacy; they created Findlaw, and now that they have sold that company, they're back at work helping lawyers find clients, and vice-versa.

I had called Justia because I ran into a blog that they were supporting that had gotten much better search engine placement than my blogs, and while I was gnashing my teeth, I saw that it was a Justia Blog.

So Stacy, who is a very smart lady, explained how they did things for bloggers at Justia; they teach and coach bloggers (my coach is Kerri, and she ROCKS!) in the arcane science of blogging.

Now, I'm not exactly new to blogging, but I discovered that I had plenty to learn, and I'm learning it from Kerri, who learned it from Tim Stanley.

Here's the good news/short version: Justia Blogs are a remarkably good way for a lawyer to establish a presence on the Internet. For a very, very good price.

Mind you, you provide the content; but you'll never blog alone, because Kerri will tell you how to make the most of your blogging time.

And the SEO support provided by Justia for bloggers is remarkable.

I have a 1,000-plus entry bankruptcy blog that's been on Blogger for several years, and shows well in the search engines.

The brand new (okay, six or eight weeks) bankruptcy blog that Justia is supporting for me has only about fifty entries at this point, and it's already showing higher on Alexa.com than my well-established, Queen Mary of an amateur Bankruptcy Blog.

And I'm dying to see the stunning template which Justia is about to plunk down on my nifty new blog get plunked.

Woo-hoo!

p.s. they plunked it down on my new blog, and it looks great! It's not fully functional at this point (the various logos should send clickers to my state bar listing, or my AVVO.com bio, or my SuperLawyers bio, etc.) But I'm certain that they'll get those functions up and running very soon!

p.p.s. My brand new blog, supported by Justia, has broken the 100,000 barrier at Alexa.com; in fact, it blew by it like it was standing still! It looks like it's going to break 90,000 this week!

p.p.p.s. Broke 90,000!

iPad or Motorola XOOM or Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor? Your Choice! Mobile Computing for Lawyers on a Budget!

2011-03-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

By mistake, Barnes and Noble seems to have created a firestorm of interest in its NOOKcolor reader.

The NOOKcolor appears to have turned into the current "must have" mobile computing platform.

Now, I'm ultimately going to get an iPad, because that's a great thing to have, and soon it will have cameras and a system that looks like I can use it to make more bankruptcy videos that look...good!

But the idea of getting what is, in essence, very much like a Motorola XOOM or an iPad for a tiny price is apparently the next big thing.

It even has me drooling, and I'm old!

Steve Jobs has done his work far too well!

Many of us are now convinced we must have an iPad, or our lives are bleak and empty. Or a XOOM.

Or, more to the point, a Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor for $250, RETAIL!

But once you buy the NOOKcolor, you're not done; you need to "root" it, using one of several applications.

Here's what it looks like to me: there was a time when cake mixes were big sellers.

A cake mix seller decided to make it's cake mix far easier; no need to put in eggs or to mix it!

Their cake mix sales went onto life support. Because, apparently, part of the fun is in the process.

So in the same way that Old Spice created a sensation by mistake, Barnes and Noble now has an opportunity created by Apple and Steve Jobs and Motorola, which overpriced its very good tablet out of the market.

It will be interesting to see how Barnes and Noble exploits its opportunity.

A $250 iPad? Sign Me Up!

2011-03-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

I regularly have dinner with some friends who are...rocket scientists. One is a pretty girl who crunches galaxies of numbers in her sleep, one is an information retrieval genius, one is an artist, and one is a rocket scientist. Actually, he just tells rocket scientists what to do.

Often, I listen in bemused admiration as they talk about smart stuff. And sometimes I follow the train of the conversation, and sometimes my eyes glaze, and I wake up face-down in the gravy.

But one topic that got my undivided attention was the idea of using a "rooter" program to turn a cheap, $250 Barnes and Noble Color Nook into sort of a poor-man's iPad. It's really more of a big Droid Tablet with wifi and a great color screen than an iPad, but hey.

Now, the best article I've read about the process whereby you turn a limited-use, intentionally kneecapped reading device into a wifi connected, spectacular Tablet Computer that runs the Droid Apps is by a site called R.O.I. on the Wall Street Journal.

And another interesting article, using different technology to get to a similar destination, shows up with the title Confessions of a Nook Color Rooter, and it has screenshots!

Under either analysis, having a light, cheap wifi that runs Android Apps and functions to let me read books (heavy books aren't so easy when you're old, right?) in bed with a screen that doesn't require a nightlight?

Priceless!

p.s. note that if you try it, and it doesn't work, you're on your own! But I think the game is worth the candle.

p.p.s. here's another article that discusses the pros and cons of rooting your Barnes and Noble Color Nook; it points out that unless things go really wrong, you can always just turn the thing back into...a Barnes and Noble Color Nook.

p.p.p.s. this is a situation where giant corporations miss gigantic opportunities; given that the Nook can function very well indeed as an iPod Clone, Barnes and Noble has an opportunity to be ahead of the wave with a version of the Color Nook that doesn't need to be hacked. And it could sell a heck of a lot of those, if they were smart.

But you know the definition of a committee, right? The only life-form with ten bodies and no brain. So the chances that a mega-corporation will fumble a mega-opportunity are fairly huge.

Maybe Barnes and Noble should hire Steve Jobs as a consultant.

Alcohol and Attorneys: Article in the Lawyerist

2011-03-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

I have a fair number of buddies who like the sauce.

A lot.

And that's because I'm a lawyer, and being a professional in a high-pressure job makes many professional turn to self-medication. Again and again.

Mind you, it's not just lawyers; dentists also self-medicate, and doctors, and CPAs.

But today we're talking about lawyers.

Here is a nice article that discusses the benefits of drying out, particularly in terms of productivity, which is remarkably important to lawyers.

What it does not point out is that if you are not a drunk, you won't die in a fiery car crash with nearly as much frequency, and you won't ruin other people's lives nearly as frequently, either.

My mother's life was destroyed by chronic injuries she suffered when a drunk rear-ended the family car; I prefer the idea of motorists who are operated on high octane, not on high proof.

Here in Arizona there is a good deal less drinking among all those who have a time-horizon, because drunks who drive spend time in Tent City, and that's said to be a life-altering experience.

And on balance, that's probably a good thing.

Why Are We So Darn Lucky to Have Stephen Fairley in Arizona?

2011-02-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

There was a Texas Chili Commercial on TV many years ago; the essence of the commercial was that God loved Texans more then everybody else, because Texans had this really nifty chili.

Well, I gotta say that we lawyers in Arizona clearly did something right, because we don't have to fly to lots of other locations; we can listen to Stephen Fairley, one of the smartest guys I've ever met, talk about law firm marketing, law firm economics, ways to increase client happiness, and similar topics, right here in Arizona.

Every month or so Stephen speaks, generously holding nothing back, about topics that are MUST KNOW topics for lawyers.

This month it was "Advanced Search Engine Optimization for Law Firms".

Here's the kicker: we got continuing legal education credit!!!

Lemmie say this again: for about twenty bucks, we got spiffy hors d'oeuvres at Monti's, got to talk to our buddies, and we got to listen to something that you gotta know if you wanna, you know, eat!

Now, I know a handful of people so smart that I'd walk barefoot across burning coals for ten miles for the privilege of listening to them talk; my buddy Alex Morris (the leading Findlaw Rep in the United States), Stephen Fairley and Jay Fleischman are members of that select group.

I have never failed to learn ten valuable lessons when I listened to Stephen Fairley speak; and he's entertaining, to boot!

Actually, I have to admit, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot telling you about these meetings; and if there are no chairs for me next time, I'm taking down this post!

A Video Resource for Lawyers, Courtesy of AVVO.com and ABC

2011-02-26T15:47:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal: AVVO and ABC parachute a crack video guy into your city, and he gets with a local ABC station.

You show up in your Sunday best, including that tie you reserve for weddings, funerals, and photographs.

The video guys ask you questions, and you answer. And answer, and answer. About a hundred and fifty to three hundred times.

Then the videos are posted on THELAW.tv, and hilarity ensues!

"Noble Calling" Paradigm Being Discarded? Where Are the Torches and Pitchforks?

2011-02-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

I have to ask myself what ordinary, garden variety lawyers ("soon to be in the gutter drinking woolite") make of the proposals to swipe their jobs and ship 'em to India.

And if you have any belief that the law is a "noble calling", let this article set you straight.

Just When American Lawyers Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse!

2011-02-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

U.S. Lawyers, Arise! You have nothing to lose but your upcoming insolvency!

Now, rainmakers will always have jobs. But you diligent worker bees...not so much. You are being tossed off the top of your buildings, and you apparently don't even care.

That's okay; there's nothing like hunger to focus attention.

And here's another announcement of the outsourcing festival that's coming up soon.

Have you noticed that the managing partner in your firm is looking at you funny? And why is his pocket calculator set for "rupees"?

Here's the announcement:

Friday, February 25, 2011

Dear Reader,

Who is attending Global LPO Conference London?

Uniquely, the London conference will facilitate a variety of discussions, case studies, presentations, one-on-one meetings, analyses, and best practices adopted by several LPO stakeholders. To help lawyers preparing for the new outsourcing environment, they will learn how to build a case to present to management boards. They will learn from other buyers about their past successes and failures when offshoring.
Between 100 and 150 key executives with extensive interests in the legal outsourcing industry from across the world will attend the Global LPO Conference 2011.

iPad Launch Coming Up: Is My Long Wait Over At Last, Apple?

2011-02-23T13:42:00.001-08:00

I have friends who told me not to be an early adopter, no matter how much I love the Apple Platform; that the new iPad would make video making a snap, and be more fun, given new cameras that are rumored to be standard equipment.

And it may be that my long wait is over, and that I will soon have the iPad of my dreams; only the upcoming Apple announcement will tell!

On Days When You Feel Bad About Your Decision to Become a Lawyer, Look at this Photo!

2011-02-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me this photo. I don't know who shot it, but it's a very nice photo.

And a reminder that some people have jobs that are, well, challenging.

And most lawyers get to work where there's air-conditioning! In the nice, safe indoors.

Got the idea? Here's the photograph:

The Beginning of the End for the Lawyer Manufacturing Industry

2011-02-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

Inquiring young lawyers want to know the numbers on hiring and salary earlier in the process.

That is the beginning of the end for many U.S. law schools.

And the current university bubble is also going to burst, although in slow motion, for the same reasons.

Students want cost effective education that will permit them to get jobs, and they want them with the smallest possible student loans, or none at all.

And that's just smart.

Alex is Getting Better!

2011-02-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

The most knowledgeable Findlaw Representative in the United States is the friendly and fantastically well-informed Alex Morris.

His many friends among lawyers and non-lawyers in Arizona will be happy to know that he is recovering, more slowly than we'd like, but getting better every day!

Alex was at Baby Kay's last night with his large family, and while he was leaning heavily on his cane, his full recovery can't be far off!

And that's a good thing for Arizona Lawyers; Alex is an extraordinary practice development resource on two legs. Well, three, if you count the cane!

Fistfights Are Apparently the New Courtesy Among Lawyers!

2011-02-18T14:07:00.000-08:00

Fistfights?

Lawyers?

Apparently, the erosion of civility among lawyers has been more severe than I had noticed!

Recently, I had an opportunity to talk to a fine young man who is also a police office in a small, quiet suburb of Phoenix. I discovered that in a majority of the Gin Mills of the locale, fistfights were only the first round; and that the Gin Mills doubled as Knife and Gun Clubs, as well.

The good news? Well, the lawyers didn't pull knives or revolvers on each other!

That's a good sign!

Free Websites for Lawyers? FREE? LawFirm911

2011-02-13T22:26:00.000-08:00

Loyal readers all know My Favorite Price.

You know, FREE!

I have no idea why LawFirm911 wants to provide FREE websites for lawyers. None.

But I'm going to play around with the site and see what the outcome looks like; I'll keep you posted.

Mind you, I have the world's spiffiest website for a bankruptcy attorney in Phoenix, Arizona right now!

But how could you have too many websites, right?

Avery Crossman is a Smart Lawyer in Arizona, and I Really Like Her Website and Blog!

2011-02-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

Avery Crossman is a very smart lawyer, like most of the second-generation lawyers I know.

She has a striking website put together by Findlaw (remember my buddy Alex Morris? Yeah; he does remarkable work) and she's also started blogging.

I was very impressed; she's only been seriously blogging for a few months, and she's gotten a great start!

The Lawyerist.com is a Nifty Survival Guide for Lawyers, and You BETTER Listen to THIS Advice; Don't Say I Didn't Warn You!

2011-02-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

There is a nifty lawyer survival guide called Lawyerist.com.

I like it a lot; it's a cross between funny and practical and vital and essential.

And I just love the article which advises one of the most vital and essential things you can do to ensure your survival as a lawyer, or in any small business, for that matter.

And if you want something very fast and efficient to deal with the issue, you might want to consider Carbonite.com, although I don't guarantee or warranty anything or anybody, including myself!

Attorney Uninvited to Law School

2011-02-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

Lemmie ask you something about this guy:

Do you think maybe they did him a favor?

I'm a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona, and I see waaaaaaay too many folks with huge student loans, and no place to work and make money to pay them.

Twitter: a Tool for Finding a Job in the Practice of Law

2011-01-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, here's the deal: there's this thing called Twitter.

You've heard about it, and it was The Next Big Thing until the Next Next Big Thing came along.

But there's a very cool site for lawyers called Lawyerist. com; I suggest you subscribe, because, darn.

And there's a post on it about the use of Twitter to find a job if you're a...lawyer!

So read, subscribe, and enjoy!

So What Happens if You are Consigned to the Inner Darkness?

2011-01-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

You know the inner darkness; that's the windowless interior office to which an associate is consigned, never to see the light of day or the light from the corner office.

But wait!

Science fiction had a solution. It was called "slow glass", and the idea was that light passed through it very, very slowly; so a piece of slow glass was placed where it faced a beautiful landscape, and after a few years, it was harvested so that it provided a "window" onto nature in the city.

But even in science fiction, that sort of solution was prohibitively expensive, because you had to "grow" the glass for years before it became a salable commodity. Far too expensive for a baby lawyer.

But now there is a potential solution well within the reach of a lawyer just starting a practice.

And as soon as they mass produce it, I'm getting one, too! My nifty offices next to the Biltmore Golf Course have a beautiful view. But some days I want to see the ocean, you know? Or maybe Hawaii. The big island.

Blog. Don't Think. Don't Try. Do.

2011-01-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

Jay Fleischman is a genius, and he generously shares his genius with us mere mortals.

Now, I'm not a genius, but when I get advice from all three of Stephen Fairley, Alex Morris and Jay, I know it's good advice.

And what they said is blog. Start. Doesn't much matter if it's great at first (it won't be!), because you won't have many readers at first!

So what you do is simple: you just start.

And what platform do you use for your blog? Well, when the great ones, like Jay and Alex, offer different perspectives, learn all you can, and then jump in!

You can sign up for AVVO Legal Blogs, Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, Lexblog, or Justia, which will even give you a blogging coach!

Compare them all, and compare what you get.

If I were you, I'd start with something free (my favorite price), and then upgrade once you develop your backswing a bit.

And don't try.

There is no "try".

Do.

Another, Nother Reason to Get the iPhone 4!

2011-01-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, accidents of genetics occur. I admit it. I'm a guy.

Therefore, I have a genetic flaw common to...guys.

I really like a sexy new...gadget!

The iPhone fills that bill. No problem.

But there are tiny areas in which the iPhone is not yet perfect (yeah, I know that's like articulating the Albigensian Heresy, but let me live for the moment and I will reward you).

See, my cool new iPhone has a neato flash attachment; and if you could trigger it from the iPhone control panel, that would be nifty!

Because then you would always have a flashlight with you! At all times. All the time. Get the idea?

But nooooooooooooooo! That would be too easy!

Instead, you go to the Apple Store Online and get the Best Flashlight Application.

And then, life is good.

Aaaaarg! This Ticks Me Off A Lot! Baby Lawyers Here in the United States Just Had their Futures Swiped!

2011-01-19T15:19:00.000-08:00

So there you are, proudly holding your sheepskin and your ticket to practice in your jurisdiction.

So what are the chances of getting a real, live job as a real live lawyer in a real live law firm?

Well, lemmie ask you something.

Why should Rich, Greedy and Powerful, LLC, hire you when it can outsource it's grunt work to Calcutta?

If it sounds like I'm outraged...well, I guess I am.

Now, some lucky lawyers will simply be in the right place at the right time (Nina the Unpronounceable, for instance, my brilliant associate), but most of you poor folks are about to run into...outsourcing.

p.s. Why am I complaining? I'll get to hire the cream of the crop as I expand, because I'm a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona, with clients coming out of my ears. But I sure wish kids today had it as easy as lawyers back in the Good Old Days, formerly known as These Trying Times.

And When Nancy Rapoport Speaks, You Should Also Listen!

2011-01-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

Nancy Rapoport is a shining example of balance in a professional life. If you go to her blog, you will see that, and you'll wonder how she finds the time to breathe.

She works out, she dances, she teaches, she writes and writes and writes, and she helps her friends (she lists her personal trainer and dance teacher and physical therapist on her award winning blog, and I give her compassion points for that decision).

But when she was writing, she also wrote a Law School Survival Manual. If she co-wrote that, and you are contemplating law school, or already in the wringer, get it!

I haven't read it yet, but I have read her always entertaining blog, and I'm telling you that you can't live without it!

Heck, I even subscribed to her blog, and I never do that!

When AVVO Speaks, You Should Listen!

2011-01-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

AVVO is the most important lawyer directory on the planet, because it now lists doctors, as well as attorneys.

If you haven't claimed your AVVO profile, you have missed out on a remarkable opportunity; your AVVO profile is for all practical purposes a free-standing website crammed with all the nifty information about your favorite attorney!

But this isn't about me. Sigh.

Today's post is just to remind you that you get to go to a nice warm place and learn from the best of the best how you should most effectively manage your on-line presence, for a very reasonable price.

Here's the flyer:

Tired of hearing from so-called "experts" about how to use the Internet to increase business? Now you can get the inside scoop from the tech industry leaders themselves, up close and in person. Avvo's second annual Avvocating 2011 conference brings together top executives from Avvo, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Apple to help you take your online marketing and reputation management to the next level.

If you're a lawyer or an in-house law firm marketer, then join us May 19-20, 2011 in Orlando, Florida. This advanced, cutting edge two-day seminar for lawyers and legal marketers will cover online marketing and social media tactics as well as online reputation management best practices.

Register before February 28th and SAVE!

Early Bird Price: $299 Regular Price: $399

Register now!

Here's a glimpse at what you can expect from the two-day seminar.

Day 1:

Advanced Pay Per Click Marketing - Microsoft

Marketing in the Age of Google - Vanessa Fox, Author

Engineering Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization - Duane Forrester, Microsoft

Video Best Practices - Apple

Do It All Yourself for $20 and 60 Minutes - Conrad Saam, Avvo

Day 2:

Ethics and Online Marketing - Brian Tannebaum, Lawyer

Social Media: Going Deep with Facebook - Facebook

Maximizing your Avvo Profile - Mark Britton, Avvo

Under the Hood at LinkedIn - LinkedIn

Google Website Analytics and Website Optimizer - Google

20 Things in 20 Minutes - Mark Britton, Avvo

Register before February 28th and SAVE!

Early Bird Price: $299 Regular Price: $399

Register now!

How to Blog, Part Two: Attracting Clients Like a Huge Magnet-Thingie!

2011-01-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

I have previously discussed a How to Blog article by my friend, Alex Morris, who is a genius at communication.

I got to listen to another nice man speak today. He was asking for donations to starving people in parts of the world that I've never seen, and that I never will see.

He talked too fast, and he mispronounced some words. He wasn't handsome, or smooth, or spiffy; he didn't wear a nifty suit with well-polished shoes, or a Beautiful Rolex Watch (that's one word, by the way).

He had not been to Toastmasters, which you should do, and I'll talk about that later.

But if you blog the way he spoke, lots of people will listen to you.

There are two kinds of communicators; there are some who make you turn to your friends and say, "What a great speaker!"

When the other kind of communicator gets done talking, you turn to your friends and say, "Let's march!"

Great speaking and writing share these essential qualities, when you do it right: authenticity, and urgency.

Today's speaker didn't try to hide his accent. He didn't try to pretend he was a great authority on anything in particular, except things he'd seen, and people who had talked to him directly about, well, starving.

But because he spoke from his heart, and because he believed in his message, and because he clearly carried a specific message with a clearly-articulated call to action, he got action!

Wallets were opened, money flowed like water, and a good time was had by all.

Now, today isn't about sending money to deserving charities (although you will probably feel like a better person if you do that right now, because you will be a better person right now, right?).

Today is about blogging. Now, all communication, including blogging, is like "The Force" in Star Wars. You can use it for The Dark Side, or the Light, and you know that's true.

And here's something that's true about you, unless you're a lousy lawyer: you actually want to help people. So you'll accept people as clients, if you can help them!

So here's how you can get more business than you can handle in your firm: figure out whether you are the best guy for your clients. If you are not, quit the practice of law. Close your doors, now! OR become the very best lawyer for the kind of law you practice in your state. If you are, your potential clients will figure that out on their own, and you will not flinch at asking your clients for a fair fee for your work for them (which was hard for me, personally, because my daddy had been a teacher and his daddy had been a teacher and I had been a teacher! Teachers don't ask for money.).

But if you are the best attorney for your area of the law for your particular client, and you believe that, you will communicate your sincere and accurate belief to the potential client without saying a word on that topic. You'll simply be working to figure out the facts, and to figure out whether you are the best person available to help your client.

And if you aren't the right lawyer for that client, refer them to the right guy!!! And by the way, the rewards for those referrals are tangible and immediate, and they aren't kickbacks from the lawyer to whom you referred.

On the one hand, you get to sleep at night because you know you did the right thing for the potential client, and helped him.

Never underestimate sleep. It comes harder as you get older.

And people are smart. They understand when you do the right thing by them, rather than the right thing for you and your wallet. Read these, and understand that when clients read them, they have an effect that cannot be purchased.

How does all the above translate to blogging?

Well, when you set up your website or blog, ask yourself, am I trying to attract clients because I am (or can immediately become) the best possible lawyer to help my prospective clients?

You cannot be all things to all people.

Seriously.

Find the area of law that you love, and blog about that, and dump your guts. Tell your prospective clients the approach you will use, and tell them why you think that will work, and tell them the risks, and tell them your experiences, including the bad ones. Tell them what you really think, and you will simultaneously drive away clients you do not want, and you will magically attract the clients who will appreciate your help, and make your practice a dream.

p.s. it is also true that you can "use the Force, Luke" and The Dark Side to accomplish bad ends; those are their own punishment, and I don't mean in the afterlife. I mean that if you promise what you can't deliver, or sugar-coat your area of law to attract clients, it will work fine until your clients discover your duplicity.

And then you are in deep kimchee indeed.

And if you get what you deserve, and the Bar kicks your behind, AVVO.com will rat you out!

p.p.s. becoming the best lawyer there is for what you do isn't that hard; you first decide what you do, and then slice that universe of potential clients into the EASY ONES, so you can practice on them; and make sure that you first do all the reading, educational video watching, and seminaring in the world, to prepare for your first case.

Also seek out a mentor who is the person you want to be when you grow up, and buy him lunch, drinks, or cigars, because he'll knock ten years off your learning curve, and probably wind up sending you cases in your chosen baby case area, because he knows he's helping you, and not hurting the potential clients!

Over time, if your first clients survive, or if you can figure out why they didn't (there's a reason they call it the practice of law, by the way; same reason they call going into labor...labor! Truth in advertising!), then expand your practice to the next level of difficulty, and keep doing that until you can do everything in your desired area of practice.

And do it really, really well.

p.p.p.s. be honest with your clients: say, "You are my first solo divorce, and I've taken your case so I can learn all the steps that I've read and studied about, and I've adjusted your fee to reflect the fact that I'm new at this; and by the way, I've got tin cans and a string attached to the best high-dollar divorce lawyer I know, and if I get scared along the way, I'll be calling him for advice and wisdom."

p.p.p.p.s. being the best lawyer in an area doesn't mean knowing the most caselaw by heart; it doesn't mean memorizing the most statutes. It means knowing how to get the result that most benefits your client, and working you tail end off to get the best result you can get for each and every one of your clients. Even when it takes extra work, focus and a couple of extra sleepless nights figuring out how to get that best result!

There's a New Rainmaker Retreat Coming Up Soon, You Lucky Devil!

2011-01-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

If you'd like to have a life, AND a law practice, you probably want to attend a Rainmaker Retreat; Stephen Fairley is an actual, factual genius on the topic of law firm marketing, development and just plain making it rain!

And I've written previously about my personal experience with the Rainmaker Retreat, and it is a remarkable seminar!

AND there are two sessions coming up, one in Las Vegas (January 28-29) and in Orlando (February 25-26).

For more info, contact The Rainmaker Institute. Better yet, contact 'em and sign yourself up!

You can thank me later.

p.s. no, I don't get a referral fee or an honorarium; I'm just trying to help out lawyers who are smart enough to go to the seminar, and then do the things that they learn about there!

Attend the Blogging Summit. If You Know What's Good For You!

2011-01-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

There is a blogging summit coming up.

It's virtual, man!

If you blog, or you don't, be there or be square.

Seriously, there are going to be some heavyweight bloggers, and I can't believe I'm saying this, at the blogging summit! And if you don't learn from them, your competition will!

Here's a Tale of Two Twins: Spokeo and About.me!

2011-01-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

Here's an blogpost I wrote as a public service for my bankruptcy clients in Arizona, because I'm an Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer.

But I like lawyers, too. So unless you want Peggy in Pakistan to swipe your identity, read this and act accordingly:

In Bankruptcy Court in Arizona and your Bankruptcy Schedules and Bankruptcy Lists, it's a good idea to play "Open the Kimono", because the bankruptcy trustees and the Bankruptcy Judges take a fairly dim view of failing to list assets or creditors, and it's a crime under some bankruptcy statutes.

But I've written and videoed about that topic previously (the video is one of my very first, and the technical quality of the video is awful, but I stand by the information!).

On the other hand, I'm not sure that it's a good idea for some website out there (that you never hired) to blab all of your personal information on the Internet for every bad guy computer criminal to find.

But even though you never asked for it, a website called Spokeo.com is, as we speak here, shoving all of your personal information (like your home phone number) endlessly out into cyberspace.

If I were you, I would seriously consider going to that site and "opting out", so that your hated former mother-in-law can't sneer about your income or your second wife and your third wife at next Thanksgiving Dinner with the kids. And so Vlad in Vladivostok can't use all of your personal information to swipe your identity. Because identity theft is less fun than it sounds.

Just a thought.

p.s. on the other hand, if you have a small business and you previously filed a bankruptcy in AZ, or anyplace else, and you want to make it easier for clients to find your goods or services, there's a cool, nifty website called about.me which permits you to control the information that people find about you. And it's free, which is My Favorite Price.

Putting it another way, Spokeo.com is sort of the evil twin of about.me!

Outsourcing Ethics Rule Article; Read it Or Weep!

2011-01-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Only take a look at this article if you care about feeding your kids, you associates and junior partners ("grinders")!

Out-of-Work Jokes for Lawyers, and Everybody Else!

2011-01-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Times are tough, and especially tough for Baby Lawyers, who have the triple-whammy of jobs outsourced to India, no jobs for recent law graduates with no experience (so how are you supposed to get experience?), and the Damocles Sword of Gigantic Student Loans.

Well, I could say that jokes get you through times of no money better than money gets you through times of no jokes.

But you would know I was a liar.

Here are some gags I got in my email; I hope at least one 'em makes you chuckle!

The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's, and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds", you have to call them and ask if they mean you or them .

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 Ouncer.

Parents in Beverly Hills and Malibu are firing their nannies and learning their children's names.

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .

Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.

Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.

The Mafia is laying off Judges.

BP Oil laid off 25 Congressmen.

Congress says it's looking into the Bernard Madoff scandal. Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!

And, finally...
I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, and our bleak future that I called the Suicide Lifeline and was connected to a call center in Pakistan . When I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

Diligently Clicking on Your Own Site to Improve Your Google Ranking?

2011-01-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

I have a buddy named Alex Morris; he is an actual expert on Internet marketing, and a salesman who actually cares about all of his clients.

He also has a blog (a bunch of them, actually) and you should read them all if you want to learn how to market on the Internet; Alex knows so much that his most casual blogpost leaks vast amounts of information.

If you're a beginner to Internet marketing, Alex's posts may at first seem artless; then, as you learn, you will begin to understand the methods he employs.

The purpose of this blog is to protect you and your little firm from needless carpel-tunnel syndrome (see my health blog if you want to feel better, of course).

But if you're going to get repetitive-stress injury, I want the project whereby you got it to be productive.

In this post, Alex talks about a useless exercise; clicking on your own website to get, you know, statistics!

It doesn't fool Google, and it confuses your own statistical analysis!

Claim Your Name on About.me!

2011-01-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

There's an interesting and free new site called About.me.

It provides a landing page and an email button and an easy way to list all the website locations that discuss your practice, including your blogs.

Since it seems to me that having an additional free website is probably good for lawyers, AND the site is free, have at it!

And better go sooner rather than later, before the guy with the tattoos and facial piercings with whom you share a name fills up the ecological niche!

Is the iPhone 4 Good Enough To Make You Want to Upgrade? Well, Yeah. I Guess It Is.

2010-12-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

One of my staff members wanted to move us into the next version of the iPhone, and moved heaven and earth to accomplish that.

The transition, which took place at a Radio Shack, took at least three hours, and wasn't nearly as wonderful a transition as I've had in the past at Apple Stores (note that the darn new phone uses a new, mini-sim card, so you can't just swap a sim card and walk out singing). But there was an upgrade "deal" being offered, which wasn't as great a deal as I would have liked, but we were all there anyway, so we went for it.

So far, I love the iPhone 4.0; it's brighter and clearer by far, so often I can read it without my reading glasses, and I'm sixty!

The battery life alone was amazingly improved!

The funky antenna/reception issue that required an add-on didn't bother me, because I always encase my iPhones in Kryptonite, to keep 'em safe from dropsy. You know?

And it may just be my imagination, but it seems much faster.

And even if it's not, and I'm around a wi-fi center, I can use that to turbo-charge work on my iPhone; and because of the super-duper battery life, that doesn't mean I run out of juice instantly!

So, overall, I am overjoyed with the new iteration of the iPhone.

Now, here's the bad news; if something new comes out that is better, including a niftier iPhone, me and mine are stuck on a new two-year contract.

On the other, other hand, maybe that's okay.

I'm not sure how much better the, you know, telephone experience can get!

p.s. I also want to give credit where credit is due; the last time my staff needed to upgrade, or switch widgets, or whatever, we all trooped to the local ATandT, and the customer service there was first rate! Now, that was a huge improvement over the awful customer service we'd received previously, and when I get a round tuit, I'll give you the name of the phone guy, as well as the location, where the great service was obtained.

p.p.s. Do not try to upgrade your iPhone at a Radio Shack; very nice people, inadequate training on the iPhone 4.0 upgrade process.

p.p.p.s. My next technological adventure is going to testing the iPhone Kindle app; I'll let you know if it lets me read in bed without the nightlight. Woo-hoo!

Find People Who Got What You Want to Get: Ask 'Em How They Did It!

2010-12-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

There is a very powerful technique that will save you a decade or two in your growth curve as a professional.

Find ten people who have done what you want to do. The folks I'm talking about are at the top of their game, and have remarkable incomes, reputations, and lives.

Call and invite all of them to lunch, and don't be mysterious; tell 'em that you want to grow up and be them.

Half of 'em will tell you to pound sand; ignore them.

The other half will go to lunch with you and give you the Keys to the Kingdom, along with a roadmap to the door, and recommendations on which restaurants to hit on your drive to the Kingdom. And answers to the riddle that the Sphinx guarding the door will ask you before you can put the keys in the big ol' door.

Or don't do it, and spend the next decade re-inventing the wheel.

Your choice!

Did You Know that There Are Search Engines Designed Primarily for Social Media?

2010-11-09T16:17:00.001-08:00

Neither did I.

But apparently, there are!

Do What I Did! What the Heck Did I Do???? I Seem to be Number One. If that Surprises You, You Are in Good Company!

2010-11-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

You will recall that I build this little blog to help lawyers (and even attorneys) who were hard hit by the Depression. And I also wanted to help baby lawyers who just came out of law school and couldn't find a job.

And I have discussed the online marketing techniques that have been useful to me, because I'm an Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney, and I love my job. It may not be easy, but I love it.

I have suggested that baby lawyers and lawyers establishing a practice do what I did, in order to get the results that I obtained.

Apparently, that was pretty good advice. I am now Number One on the Martindale Visibility Index.

Here is a screenshot, and before you scroll down to look at the Martindale Visibility Index, be aware of the following: I don't know how it happened! But as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know how I did it!

Joseph C. McDaniel

- Lawyer Profile

Joseph C. McDaniel

Attorney

Joseph C. McDaniel is a Former Chair, Arizona State Bar Bankruptcy Section, and a Former Chair of the ABA Bankruptcy Committee for the GPS; rated AVVO 10, and Peer-Review rated AV, he is board-certified in Bankruptcy Law by the Arizona Board of Legal Specialization. At this time, his practice focuses primarily on debtor representation, ranging from simple to complex, including Chapter 7, 13, 12, and 11 cases.

Joseph C. McDaniel, P.C.
6245 N. 24th Parkway, Suite 112
Phoenix, Arizona 85016
(Maricopa Co.)

Telephone: 602-297-3025
Fax: 623-321-1562
http://www.josephmcdaniel.com/

Profile Visibility

#1 in weekly profile views out of 7,210 lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona

#1 in weekly profile views out of 1,142,079 total lawyers Overall

p.s. Okay, I've gone back to check on my Martindale Visibility Index again, and this one makes more sense to me (and today is December 12, 2010) because number one in the United States...seems too darn high, you know? This I can buy, however:

Profile Visibility

#4 in weekly profile views out of 7,705 lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona

#68 in weekly profile views out of 1,306,196 total lawyers Overall

p.p.s. Do you think that my Findlaw buddies, who built me a nifty little Facebook Professional Profile, had anything to do with my making it into the top Bankruptcy Attorneys in the United States category? It's hard to say, but my guess is that it didn't hurt!

p.p.s. Here's my MVI for the last day of 2010, so you can see that these things go up, and they go down, kinda like barometric pressure:

Profile Visibility

#3 in weekly profile views out of 8,183 lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona

#108 in weekly profile views out of 1,383,659 total lawyers Overall

p.p.p.s. up and down!

Profile Visibility
#4 in weekly profile views out of 8,177 lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona
#173 in weekly profile views out of 1,415,179 total lawyers Overall

AVVO.com Just Became More Important to Lawyers! Because It Now Lists Doctors, As Well!

2010-11-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the deal: AVVO.com, the premier directory for finding the right bankruptcy lawyer, and for that matter, the right lawyer for any reason whatsoever, just became more important by a multiple.

Because now it lists medical doctors, in a format similar to attorney listings; that format includes (for lawyers) client reviews and lawyer endorsements and education and experience and employment history and rating.

Now, there's a small, unimportant way that lawyers can use AVVO.com better, and that's because it will make it easier for attorneys to find pre-eminent, best-credentialed, best qualified doctors to fix their sore throats and sprained ankles.

A larger way is that when a lawyer needs a doctor as an expert witness, for whatever reason, it's going to be a lot easier to compare the database of professionals nationwide by education, credentials, experience, industry recognition, and AVVO.com score, The Algorithm of Champions.

But wait! There's more!

AVVO.com is now, with the addition of medical doctors, the MOST IMPORTANT DIRECTORY, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, for lawyers.

Here's why: most people go their entire lives without needing a lawyer. Everyone, eventually, needs a doctor. The flood of people who visit AVVO.com to find a doctor will be Biblical in it's size and effect. And as a result, when it's time to find a lawyer, who ya gonna call?

That would be AVVO.com, I think.

There is an action step hidden here someplace, and now I'll make it explicit: if you have not yet looked at your listing on AVVO.com, this would be a good time to do so. Other lawyers have done so, and not claiming your profile means that there are more clients for the rest of us!

And thank you!

Sometimes When You're a Lawyer, You're the Windshield. Sometimes, The Bug!

2010-10-27T09:20:00.001-07:00

Recently I liked being a lawyer.

It happens.

I got a happy email from a client talking about life after bankruptcy, and it just plain made me happy.

So, How About Those Law Firms? And How About that Law Degree? Do You Think Law Schools Will Close? Oh, Yeah.

2010-10-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

I hate to publish the obvious, but law students are generally pretty smart.

The kids who apply to law school are pretty smart.

And the kids who apply to law school are going to stop applying to law school if they can't make enough money as lawyers to pay their huge student loans and buy beanie-weanie.

And law firms will continue their lava-lamp dance of growing and collapsing, as they try to find configurations that have the correct balance of rainmaking senior partners, worker bees, and efficient ways to outsource legal work to lawyers in India, which is happening at a remarkable rate.

How do I know law schools and law firms will close? Well, I read an article from the ABA.

How do I know that Indian Law Firms are running to pick up work from U.S. Law Firms?

Well, partly because of the solicitation I received from India, offering to do work for my firm for low, low prices.

The times, they are a'changin'.

No Jobs for Attorneys? Hey, Plenty of Work for Social Media Managers!

2010-10-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows that the job market for lawyers is the pits.

The Wall Street Journal has written about it, and so has USA Today. That makes it official.

The dive in jobs for new law school graduates, who are now in direct competition with AV Rated, Board Certified, AVVO 10, highly experienced and well-known lawyers in every field (because those guys were fired from their huge law firms, partly because of no work, and partly because their work can be done more cheaply by lawyers in India), has been bemoaned in some of the best lawyer blogs in the United States.

The loss of lawyer jobs is a double-whammy for recent graduates, because they emerge from law school with great hopes, great brains, great knowledge, and a great big student loan debt.

Lawyers from wonderful schools with wonderful educations now can get wonderful jobs as a Temporary Attorney, a lawyer blog that describes some of those wonderful jobs (all of which remind me of my time digging ditches in the hot, hot sun in Arizona for my boss, Pancho Willis).

The GIGANTIC student loans can't, currently, get scraped off by filing bankruptcy. Because student loan debt is currently nondischargeable in bankruptcy cases, unless you have overwhelming hardship, which is remarkably difficult to demonstrate (and I know that pretty well, because I'm a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona, and people ask me that one with a certain amount of frequency).

So what to do, what to do, if you're a graduate with a great brain, and a great degree, and a great big student loan?

Well, there's a new industry in town. And a new job associated with that industry.

In fact, I've heard that there's a new NUMBER ONE most posted job available on Monster.com; the job description?

Social Media Manager.

I kid you not.

Here's one example. Here's another. Here's a page with several of 'em.

Now, publicly traded companies are not known for their ability to do subtle shades of analysis.

Somebody on the board of a public company will hear that social media is the NEXT BIG THING, and that it can cause massive marketing benefit to a company that sells "Old Spice", which was sort of a moribund brand with a hugely elastic market.

Which means that nobody buys that product of necessity. In a deep enough depression, nobody buys a lot of pretty smelling goop to smear on themselves, because they can't afford to buy either that, or the dinner to which they want to take a date, or the gas to put in the car, or the....you get the idea.

But that made the success of the odd social media explosion driven by Old Spice when the commercial and the social media marketing push "went viral" so much more impressive.

And now all the big kids in publicly traded companies want a "social media manager" who will magically make their advertising budget shrink, and their sales soar. And so do little companies.

I feel a little sorry for the new hires, by the way.

"Our sales haven't gone up yet! What kind of miserable excuse for a social media manager are you?"

Nonetheless, it's a new job description and new job opening for folks who have the huevos rancheros to try it.

So if you're a law school grad without a job, and you're thinking alternately about suicide and reinventing yourself, I have some actual advice for you.

Suicide makes you feel horrible the day afterward, so put it off.

And consider reinventing yourself into a, you know, Social Media Manager!

The next big thing!

.

I Built a New Bankruptcy Video Blog: Feel Free to Steal My Design Ideas!

2010-10-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly figuring out how to build a blog.

Because it's going to be filled to bursting with videos about bankruptcy, it has a working title: The Bankruptcy Video Blog!

Feel free to look at it, and reverse engineer!

A Judge Sent a Lawyer to Jail for Refusing to Pledge Allegiance. GREAT!

2010-10-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

There's a Judge in the United States who did the right thing.

A lawyer only eats because of the laws of the United States; therefore, a lawyer better be willing to pledge allegiance. Putting it another way, the ability to practice law in the United States is a privilege, not a right. It is a privilege that comes with conditions, including a fealty oath.

A real fealty oath. No kidding.

That lawyer should be in jail until he recants, or gives up his ticket to practice.

And, yes, if I'd been the Judge, the lawyer could have had free room and board forever, or until the world shall end.

Whichever comes first.

p.s. you may want to check why Shakespeare has his bad guy say let's kill the lawyers first.

Just for Lawyers by Joseph C. McDaniel

Jay Fleischman Explains It All!

How Not to Do a Television Interview, if You're a Lawyer!

Law Students, Beware!

TV Interview: Debunking Arizona Bankruptcy Myths

Do Law Schools Take Advantage of Law Students?

A Job Opportunity for New Law Graduates!

Using Google Scholar for Legal Research, for My Favorite Price!

Whitey Bulger Gets Lucky

So Maybe WordPress Is Pretty Cool. Maybe. I'll Get Back to You on This.

Justia, Justia, Justia! Woo-hoooo! And a FREE Website? It Doesn't Get Better than That!

Should You Accept Paid Advertising on Your Legal Blogs?

The Lawyerist Wants to Help You Start a Law Practice. For Almost My Favorite Price!

Gimmie a Hand, Okay? Go "Like" My Facebook Page!

Do You Have Clients Who Want to Be Television Stars?

Would You Like a Suite of Free Software to Start Your New Law Firm? AVVO and Sam Glover to the Rescue!

The Price of Success in Blogging, or Your Practice, Explained by Remarkablogger

AVVO, LexBlog, Justia, TypePad, MoveableType, Blogger and WordPress: Comparison of Legal Blogging Platforms, and a Spirited Controversy!

The Easiest Way to Start Blogging without Fear, or Even Brains! Call Justia, and Do It Now!

How To Port Blogs from One Platform to Another, As in From Typepad to Wordpress, or Blogger to Typepad

Top Ten Most Popular Posts in my Just for Lawyers Blog this Week!

Most Popular Posts on Just For Lawyers this Week!

Typepad vs. Word Press, from an Expert. But Remember, You're NOT an Expert on Blogging Platforms or Technology!

What Blogging Platform Should You Use if You're a Beginner and a Non-Techie?

Which Blogging Platform Should You Use?

High Paying Prestige Jobs for Law School Graduates? Fuggeddaboutit, Says Law Professor, Who Then Does a Buddha.

The Rainmaker's Networking Meeting at Monti's Tonight

Killing and Destroying and Jumping Up and Down on Blogging Writer's Block, by Copyblogger

I'll Be Back!

Dan Gukeisen, former Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer, Sentenced to Five Years in Prison in Manslaughter

So If "Murder", "Shrewdness", "Dissimulation", "Implausibility", and "Mischief" are all used up, What is the Plural Noun for a Buncha Lawyers?

The Top Ten Just for Lawyers Articles this Week!

The Top Ten Just for Lawyers Articles This Week!

OH, NO! Not an Algorithmquake!!

How Much Is a Solution Worth?

How Awful Is Your Website?

Anti-Cyborg Software! The Terminator is not the Only Cyborg Out There!

Yeah, I'm Running for Office. Fortunately, My Chances of Winning are Slim!

Should an Article About a Physical Attack on a Lawyer Go in this Blog? Or the Other One?

Outsourcing Legal Work from U.S. to India is a "Big Historical Movement"

A HUGE Mistake You Don't Have to Make!

What Is a Virtual Law Office, and How Do I Build One?

Should Non-Lawyers Be Permitted to Own Law Firms?

You Need a Tax-Deductable Vacation in Florida, Don't You? How About If You MUST Learn This Stuff?

Which Lawyers Deserve the Most Pity?

Debra R. Bruce Helps You Decide WHICH Law Practice Management Software

RealPractice Gives You FREE PRACTICE MANAGEMENT AND WEBSITE SOLUTION; and it Partnered with AVVO, So It's Probably GREAT!

The BuzzMachine; Lessons for Newpapers, and for Lawyers in the United States

Top Ten Most Popular Just for Lawyers Articles This Week!

Top Ten Most Popular Just for Lawyers Posts this Week!

I like it When a Lawyer Gets Press for Doing Good!

How to Find Guest Posts for Your Blog. On Facebook. While Playing Zynga Poker.

Blogging Like Michelangelo; Set that Angel Free!

Time Management for Lawyers

iPad vs. Xoom vs. Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor vs. Kindle on Amazon

Making Professional Quality Videos Is No Big Deal!

$250 Xoom, and a Beautiful $300 Website? Hey, Bargains Galore!

The Lawyerist.com Tells You How to get Great Low Cost Graphic Design for Your Law Firm

Wix is a Free Website Builder that Looks Great for Lawyers! For My Favorite Price!

LibreOffice: An Open-Source Office Productivity Suite! For MY FAVORITE PRICE!

Michael Martine at "Remarkablogger" is a Funny, Useful Read! Especially About How to Blog!

Law Practice Management Expert Jay Fleischman Gives You a Checklist for Starting a Bankruptcy Practice!

Tim Stanley Knows His Stuff! Justia Puts Your Blog on Steroids!

iPad or Motorola XOOM or Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor? Your Choice! Mobile Computing for Lawyers on a Budget!

A $250 iPad? Sign Me Up!

Alcohol and Attorneys: Article in the Lawyerist

Why Are We So Darn Lucky to Have Stephen Fairley in Arizona?

A Video Resource for Lawyers, Courtesy of AVVO.com and ABC

"Noble Calling" Paradigm Being Discarded? Where Are the Torches and Pitchforks?

Just When American Lawyers Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse!

Who is attending Global LPO Conference London?

iPad Launch Coming Up: Is My Long Wait Over At Last, Apple?

On Days When You Feel Bad About Your Decision to Become a Lawyer, Look at this Photo!

The Beginning of the End for the Lawyer Manufacturing Industry

Alex is Getting Better!

Fistfights Are Apparently the New Courtesy Among Lawyers!

Free Websites for Lawyers? FREE? LawFirm911

Avery Crossman is a Smart Lawyer in Arizona, and I Really Like Her Website and Blog!

The Lawyerist.com is a Nifty Survival Guide for Lawyers, and You BETTER Listen to THIS Advice; Don't Say I Didn't Warn You!

Attorney Uninvited to Law School