The Greatest American Lawyer

Client Teams: The Five Pillars of Client Service

Larry Bodine over at the Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog disucsses Which Clients Deserve a Client Team with David Freeman, author of the CMO Playbook audio training program and Jason Maeder, a product manager at Lexis Nexis. 

Was Katie Billing by the Hour?

As I kept a watchful eye on my iPhone as my partner Brian’s wife Katie started into her 36th hour of labor, I felt a twinge of concern.  “How is she handling all that labor?”  “How is Brian holding up through all those contractions?”

And then it occurred to me.  I quickly picked up my iPhone and sent Brian a text.  “Are you sure Katie is not billing by the hour?” 

I laughed to myself raptured in my own wit.  The more I thought about it, the more I laughed.  In many ways, practicing law to a set of minimum hourly billings is like endless labor.  You and your client endure the pain of it.  But the baby never seems to come. 

Congratulations to Brian and Katie who welcome a beautiful little girl into the Traverse Legal Family!

Some Bad and Good News for Lawyer Blogging

According to an article in The New York Times, use of blogs are declining as social networking groups such as the well-known Facebook and Twitter attract more and more users. 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that blogging among all age groups continues to decline, according to report. The bad news is that lawyers are sharing less of their expertise online. The good news is for those lawyers who continue blogging, or those lawyers who wish to share their expertise online, the competition is diminishing. 

Over 3500 Pages of Blog Content for Traverse Internet Law

We are just about to embark on our very first SEO project.  One of the interesting things I discovered is that our traverselegal.com and tcattorney.typepad.com website blogs contain over 3500 pages of content showing off our expertise across a variety of internet issues ranging from trademark infringement, copyright infringement, cybersquatting lawsuits, stolen domain names, patent infringement, trade secret theft, internet defamation, website agreements, and a host of other practice areas.

Obviously, the internet attorneys at our firm like showing off their expertise.  Moreover, our law firm prioritizes quality niche content as part of its online marketing efforts.

How many posts exist on your blog?

Juror Sues Judge, State of California, Facebook and Defendants Asserting Privacy Rights Concerning His Facebook Postings

In a recent article called “Juror’s Facebook Postings During Gang Trial Lead to Legal Morass & Suit Against Judge” on Courthousenews.com, a juror filed a federal lawsuit against California Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny for violating his privacy.  Here’s another case concerning the social media tool Facebook being used during a court proceeding.  However, in this instance, a juror allegedly posted comments on Facebook about evidence during the trial.  Here is what is stated in the complaint:

"During the criminal trial, while acting as jury foreperson, plaintiff posted on various occasions on his Facebook page to advise his friends that he was serving on jury duty. He occasionally posted updates that he was 'still' on jury duty and, on one occasion, posted a comment that he was bored during the presentation of cell phone record evidence."

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has adopted new rules regarding juror communication and the use of social media during the course of trial, as discussed in this previous post.  Is your state keeping up with technology? 

Related Stories:

• Judge Receives Reprimand for His Comments Made on FACEBOOK
• The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Adopts New Local Rules Addressing Jury Use of Social Media

Attorneys Need to Learn to Invest in Their Clients’ Success

Oftentimes, attorneys are so focused on minimum billables and hourly billing that they forget that their clients can’t pay them if their clients don’t do well.  There’s a big difference between responding to a client’s phone call for help, and actively helping a client protect and grow their business.  Providing value to a client means much more than simply putting out a fire which grew so hot that it started to burn.

Celebrity Attorneys? See Which Celebrities Attended Law School

Check out this interesting article on Masters Degree website called “11 Surprising Celebs Who Went to Law School.”  Prior to becoming famous television, movie and sport celebrities,  here is the list of celebrities that attended law school:

1. Jerry Springer
2. Julian McMahon
3. Kevin Hagen
4. Jerry O'Connell
5. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. Justin Deaber
7. Hill Harper
8. Marv Levy
9. Vince Lombardi
10. Samuel S. Hinds
11. Greg Raymer

If you know of any other celebrities that attended law school?  Feel free to comment below. 

Big Law Firm Set to Review Client Base & Set New Client Minimum Billing Threshold of $200,000 a Year

In a recent article on WiredGC, John Wallbillich reports on a recent report on legalweek.com that the global law firm DLA Piper has set out to require minimum annual legal spends by its clients in order to have access to the firms legal services.  Existing clients will be dropped sometime in the future if they fail to meet the prescribed minimums. 

It is hoped the move... will help reduce conflicts where the firm has been prevented from taking on large instructions after previously accepting smaller mandates.

The firm will also assess all existing clients over the next three years to ascertain which companies it should target for more work and which it should consider dropping.

Wallbillich provides several thoughts on this new global framework below:

Law School Graduates Flooded with Student Debt

From The New York Times: Is Law School a Losing Game?

Law schools’ rosy statistics say most graduates are working. The problem is, many aren’t working as lawyers, or making enough to pay back their student loans.