April 2012

Inside Straight: The Ten Rules For Writing Articles To Generate Business

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I mentioned last week that I recently moderated a panel of in-house lawyers at Schnader Harrison’s annual retreat. Always happy to share, I’m gathering here my existing thoughts on writing articles to develop legal business plus some new ideas suggested by the panelists. And, because handy lists get clipped and saved, I’m putting those thoughts into a list.

What are the ten rules for writing an article that will generate legal business for the author?

1. Write about a substantive issue, not a procedural one.

No one in the history of the world has retained a lawyer because the lawyer was the world’s greatest authority on Federal Rule of Evidence 403 or how to remove an action to federal court. People hire 10b-5 lawyers, not removal lawyers. If you’re writing to generate business, write on a substantive topic, not a procedural one.

2. Write about a niche area of the law.

If you write an article about some clever provision that a real estate lawyer should put in a lease, potential clients will read your article, send your article to their existing real estate lawyers, and ask the incumbents whether the incumbents have considered this idea and are able to put it to use. Your article thus educated the world and may have generated business for incumbent counsel, but it didn’t generate any business for you.

Niches are better. If you write about a niche area of the law — I’ve previously suggested that Colorado escheat law is wide open — the client’s incumbent firm won’t be able to provide the service that you’ve written about. If you’re writing to generate business, you don’t want to just suggest ideas that other lawyers can easily use.

3. . . .

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Morning Docket: 04.30.12

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* He may not have authoritah to respect! George Zimmerman received more than $200K in donations for his legal defense fund, but Judge Lester isn’t going to increase his bail just yet. [New York Times]

* Is Joe Amendola’s client, Jerry Sandusky, rubbing off on him? First he advises people to call a gay sex hotline, and now he’s spilling loads (of info) on boys all across Pennsylvania. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Thanks to an inquiry by the New York Post, Columbia Law has changed how it reports its post-grad employment statistics. Perhaps more publications should get their b*tch-slappers out. [New York Post]

* If every day were filled with science experiments, laser demonstrations, and art projects at Crowell & Moring, then maybe lawyers would think twice about allegedly embezzling millions. [Washington Post]

* Lawyers need to know how to be lawyers before they can be lawyers? “Way too meta, dudes,” say law school deans in California. Maybe next time, bar examiners, maybe next time. [National Law Journal]

* “With these grades, you could be a stripper.” That’s quite the report card! Guys Teachers in my high school used to allegedly sexually harass former students all the time, it was no big deal. [Connecticut Post]

* Walter L. Gordon Jr., a groundbreaking lawyer in the era of segregation, RIP. [Los Angeles Times]

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Dewey Have Good News To Report? Quite Possibly

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The law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf, which is currently fighting for its life, might have good news to report — and we’re happy to share it with you. It seems that LeBoeuf is not yet cooked.

As we’ve previously mentioned, tomorrow, April 30, was supposed to be the deadline for Dewey to reach a new deal with its syndicate of bank lenders. The firm owes its banks a reported $75 million pursuant to a $100 million revolving line of credit.

So what’s the latest — and relatively upbeat — news about Dewey?

UPDATE (4:30 PM): Additional, less cheerful Dewey updates — about the talks with Greenberg Traurig, and about embattled ex-chairman Steven H. Davis — have been added after the jump.

UPDATE (6:00 PM): More Dewey debt news — good news, happily — has been added below.

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During Finals, Even The Toilet Paper Can Offer A Moment Of Clarity

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Isn't this what the toilet paper looks like at your law school?

Shouldn’t Bar/Bri or somebody sell toilet paper with property rules on it so people could take an easement on the throne? Perhaps one could adversely possess the toilet in an open, hostile, and notorious manner?

Sorry, I don’t usually go for toilet humor, but students at Case Western Reserve University School of Law have inspired me. Somebody at Case has been using TP in very interesting ways.

But the toilet paper isn’t trying to save your GPA, it’s trying to save your soul…

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.27.12

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* The Am Law numbers are out. PPP is up 3 percent. Dollar, dollar bill y’all. [American Lawyer]

* Hasbro — the makers of Nerf guns, a.k.a. the best toys ever — apparently hired some Baker & McKenzie attorneys to intimidate a guy who runs an Australian Nerf fan site. I hope they “intimidated” him with Nerf guns, because it would be funny, and no one would actually get hurt. [Crikey]

* At 85 years old, Congressman (and Georgetown Law grad) John Dingell learned that “teabagging” doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. Better late than never! [The Daily Dolt]

* I’m surprised that there are enough businesses horrible brave enough to ask for potential employees’ personal electronic information that it necessitates legislation. But I’m not complaining. [RedTape / MSNBC]

* Finding out that repeated concussions and head injuries may cause long-term brain damage is only surprising to people who have suffered repeated concussions and head injuries. [LexisNexis]

* A 14-year-old Georgia girl and her parents have sued some of her classmates because they acted like bitches on Facebook. Are these girls bullies? Yep. Is it the proper solution to turn the situation into 90210: Courtroom Edition? I still don’t think so. [Threat Level / Wired]

* Support local businesses, like your high-end neighborhood brothel. The Manhattan Madam is now accepting donations… to help her make bail by Mother’s Day. [Dealbreaker]

* Vote for Lat as the most likeable lawyer of 2012! [Likeable U]

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Caption Contest Winner: California Dreamin’

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Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

On Monday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest….

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We Don’t Have Any Summer Associates, Dewey?
(And additional info about a possible criminal probe.)

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Elie here. In news that should shock no one, Dewey & LeBoeuf has canceled its 2012 summer program. Honestly, if you were a 2L who was planning on going to Dewey this summer and you are just now figuring out that it’s not going to happen, you should probably spend more time reading Above the Law and less time sniffing glue. (Pro tip: sniffing glue + reading ATL = total awesomeness.)

We’ve also got some additional information about a possible criminal probe into the Dewey situation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. (We briefly considered the headlines “Dewey Have Any Lube for this Probe?” or “Dewey Know Any Good Criminal Defense Lawyers?”)

Let’s get into it. I’ll turn the floor over to Lat….

UPDATE (5:25 PM): Additional info, appended after the jump.

UPDATE (4/30/2012): We’ve added some material to the memo about the cancellation of the summer program that was initially missing when we first published this post.

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(And additional info about a possible criminal probe.)”

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Moonlighting: ‘Til Death (or Upon the Occurrence of Certain Termination Events) Do Us Part

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Business relationships are kind of like marriages. In the beginning, everyone’s excited, and life is fresh and full of promise. “Things are really going to change around here,” you think. You know that you’re going to need to make some adjustments, some compromises, but it’s all going to be worth it. You ignore small warning signs, such as the fact that your partner sometimes seems to spend a lot on discretionary items. (But at least he only bought nine pairs of Prada shoes during the trip to Italy instead of the 23 he really wanted.)

Then, as you settle into a routine, you may find that, well… things aren’t exactly as you had expected. There are minor annoyances — things that make working together take more time, communication, and effort than you had thought.

And unfortunately, like some marriages, one or more parties figure out that the benefits of the relationship don’t outweigh the negatives, and decide to part ways. You decide that 18,000 pairs of designer shoes is definitely an indication of a problem. Sometimes, the decision to separate is fairly mutual. Other times, one partner is desperately clawing out from under a pile of fancy footwear that the other only continues to build up.

Also like many marriages, at the start of the business relationship, nobody wants to think about how it will end. Ninety-nine percent of engaged couples won’t touch a prenuptial agreement with a ten-foot pole because they absolutely KNOW that they’re truly in love, and no way are they in the group of the more than 50% of married couples who will part before death.

Similarly, nobody likes to think about the business “prenup” (i.e., the termination/transition provisions in a contract) for more than a few microseconds. For example, there’s the uber-lazy version of a catchall survival provision that makes it into some contracts. It basically says as follows: “Everything in this agreement that’s intended to survive termination will survive”….

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Attempt To Overturn Judge Peck’s Controversial Predictive Coding Ruling Denied; Robots Win the Day

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It has been a busy week in the e-discovery world. On Wednesday, a county court in Virginia ordered litigants to use predictive coding, despite the plaintiff’s objection. Last week, the plaintiffs in Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe et al. tried to boot Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck from the case, as well as roll back his landmark ruling, which endorsed the technology for the first time.

Well, despite the haters, no one can stop the march of progress. A federal judge weighed in on Da Silva Moore yesterday. It looks like the score is Robots 1, Old-school Attorneys 0….

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The 2012 Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms According to Yale Law

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If you’ve been thinking about having a family while working in Biglaw, most would have these words of wisdom for you: GFL. However, if you’ve decided to “pull the goalie,” then we’ve got some good news for you: at some firms, you can truly have it all.

The Yale Law Women are out with their annual list of the top ten family-friendly firms. We cover this list every year (click here for our posts in 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008). This year’s list has changed dramatically from last year’s — only four firms have returned, with six new firms joining them.

But which firms made the cut? Which firms had the best options available to both men and women? Let’s take a look at the latest ranking for the most family-friendly firms….

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