Last week, I spent 3 ½ hours in a courtroom in the Milwaukee County Public Safety Building. I needn’t tell you cats how tedious – I mean thrilling – that was.
Most attorneys will recommend that when starting a business, a client should form some sort of entity to limit the personal liability that the business owner may face.
Is Supreme Court search decision applicable to drunken driving cases?
In Arizona v. Gant, 129 S.Ct. 1710 (2009), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a police policy of searching the vehicle of every person arrested, without consideration of whether there is any danger to police or whether evidence is likely be found in the vehicle.
You see the signs — your executive director is darting around the firm attending countless committee meetings and finance committee members are spending more time together in boardrooms than families do during the holiday season. It’s budget time.
Timekeeping. I can’t think of a single person who enjoys it. In fact, most hate it. But without it we wouldn’t get paid, so it must be done. And believe it or not, it’s actually a bit of an acquired skill.
Commentary: Sometimes it is personal: Reflections of a criminal attorney
When most of us graduated from law school and started out as attorneys, we were charged with a sobering task — to uphold the law. We were taught that no one principle of the Constitution was more important than another, and that because something is popular does not mean that it is right. We should fight for what is right, not for popularity.
A few months ago I wrote about cloud computing and the emerging field of software-as-a-service (SaaS). Highrise from 37 Signals is a SaaS offering that can help a busy law office coordinate efforts and communication for ongoing matters.
For the legal profession, the impact of the current recession has been felt the most by the nation’s one million-plus lawyers who are sole practitioners or members of small firms.
Commentary: Crisis management is opportunity for attorneys
Few organizational crises are unexpected. More than likely, advance warning signs existed, were acknowledged somewhere along the chain of command, but were ignored or not reported to leadership.
Commentary: Cheap entertainment for the cost conscious
Lawyers are working harder these days. In 1965, associates typically billed 1,400 to 1,600 hours annually, while partners billed 1,200 to 1,400. Forty years later, associates’ hours were up to 2,000 annually, according to an ABA Law Practice Management Section magazine article from 2006.
So one of your long-term employees, Bob, comes into your office and tells you that he no longer identifies with the sex assigned to him at birth and that in two weeks he will begin the process of “transitioning” from male to female.
In my last column, I discussed a key criticism of bar associations: That they sometimes seem to be working counter to the interests of their members. This week’s installment will offer some positive suggestions for bar associations to improve services for their members.
There is no shortage of allegations of investment fraud since the stock market tanked last year. Last month attorney Marc Dreier was sentenced to 20 years in prison for heading a Ponzi scheme that caused investors to lose more than $400 million. Are there more investment scams occurring, or have market conditions just led to the discovery of more of these schemes? I’ll guess the latter, although no one really knows for sure.
Technology consultants Joseph Ulm and John Wilets of Information Technology Professionals, LLC, in Milwaukee offer their insights on the technology issues facing lawyers today.
