Continuing Legal Education / CLE

Legal Technology Leadership Summit: Getting Feedback from the Judges

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It has been almost six years since the ESI parts of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective on December 1, 2006. In this new age of technology, judges have a lot to say about the level of technical competence of the lawyers appearing before them.

The Legal Technology Leadership Summit at Amelia Island, Florida, from September 6 – 8, will feature a panel of distinguished judges who will offer thoughts on what steps can be taken to have technology-assisted review be deemed defensible. If you attend, you’ll have the chance to hear from these panelists:

  • U.S. Magistrate Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia, D. New Mexico
  • U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig M. Kellison, E.D. California
  • U.S. Magistrate Judge G.R. Smith, M.D. Georgia
  • U.S. Magistrate Judge David J. Waxse, D. Kansas

You can take a look at the full agenda here. Feedback from federal judges isn’t all that you will receive if you attend the Legal Technology Leadership Summit. We have been approved for CLE credits in the following states:

  • Alabama
  • Illinois
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • South Carolina
  • Pennsylvania

Accreditation requests are pending in the following jurisdictions:

  • California
  • Florida

Please sign up to attend. We hope to see you there!

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CLE Offering of the Week: Elusive Ethics Credit — and a Discount for ATL Readers

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Just like Flannery O’Connor’s good man, ethics credits for Continuing Legal Education can be hard to find. Luckily, today’s highlighted CLE offering, handpicked by your ATL editors from the extensive CLE catalog of our friends at ALI-ABA, offers the opportunity to fulfill the requirement.

It’s a course called Lawyer Professionalism: Identifying the Fundamental Values of Law Practice, and it’s being offered as a video webcast tomorrow, December 14, from 12 noon to 2 p.m. (EST). It’s also one of ALI-ABA’s Daily Deals, so it has been marked down from $169.00 to $89.00 (until midnight tonight).

Speaking of discounts, we’ve arranged for a special discount on ALI-ABA offerings for Above the Law readers. Now through the end of the year, ATL readers will enjoy a 30% discount on (1) live webcasts and (2) telephone seminars. Just enter the coupon code MCLEATL in your shopping cart.

To check out the ethics course for tomorrow, please click here. To look through all of ALI-ABA’s offerings, including the live webcasts and telephone seminars that are subject to the 30 percent discount, please visit their website.

Happy Holidays!

Lawyer Professionalism: Identifying the Fundamental Values of Law Practice [ALI-ABA]

Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 1)

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Business development: What works?

I was on the other side — the law firm side — of the business development coin for 25 years. And those 25 years taught me this about generating business: Raise your profile; stay in touch with people; and get lucky.

I was never once retained by dint of good looks or charm. (Anyone who’s seen or met me won’t find this to be surprising.)

And I don’t play golf.

So what’s a lawyer to do? What business development efforts worked for me, and what might work for you?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 1)”

CLE Offering of the Week: Networking Professionally and Ethically

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We’ve repeatedly discussed the importance to lawyers of networking. It matters whether you’re at a small firm or at a large one. It’s a necessary skill, in terms of getting the best assignments, making partner, and remaining a partner — no longer a guaranteed outcome, in these challenging times.

But networking also raises some ethical issues. When does it cross the line in to unethical solicitation? What are the limits on entertaining clients? How can you ethically handle referral fees?

This week’s Continuing Legal Education offering, handpicked by your ATL editors from the extensive CLE catalog of our friends at ALI-ABA, is all about how to network effectively and ethically. It offers those elusive ethics credits (required in many MCLE states), it’s reasonably priced, and it’s a telephone seminar — so you can participate from the comfort of your own office or home.

Check it out, and sign up, via the link below. Happy networking!

Networking Professionally and Ethically [ALI-ABA]

CLE Offerings of the Week: Estate Planning and Public Speaking

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As we mentioned last week, Above the Law, in cooperation with our friends at ALI-ABA, will be assisting you with your Continuing Legal Education needs. We regularly review the comprehensive CLE offerings of ALI-ABA and pick out selected courses that look particularly interesting to us. Here are the two for this week:

  • Estate Planning 101: Practical Strategies for Estate and Gift Planning: Due to the demise of the estate tax in 2010 and the resulting complications, this area of law has gotten very tricky. Not every client has the impeccable estate planning sense of George Steinbrenner. If you’re new to estate planning, if you’re a seasoned attorney looking for a refresher, or if you just want a basic working knowledge of estate planning and related tax issues — perhaps you expect to come into an inheritance in the next few years? — you should check out this course.
  • Public Speaking and Oral Advocacy: How To Do It Well: Effective public speaking is a skill that every lawyer, regardless of practice area, needs to possess. This reasonably priced course will teach you what you need to know. And really, knocking off some CLE hours while also learning how to speak nicely — in a bar or at the bar — is a no-brainer.

Both of these courses are taking place this week, so don’t delay on registering. You can take them live, in New York City (Estate Planning) or Philadelphia (Public Speaking), or you can access them as live video webcasts. To learn more, click on the links below.

Estate Planning 101: Practical Strategies for Estate and Gift Planning [ALI-ABA]
Public Speaking and Oral Advocacy: How To Do It Well! [ALI-ABA]

Earlier: The Financial Services Regulatory Revolution: Are You Ready?

The Financial Services Regulatory Revolution: Are You Ready?

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Vive la Révolution!

In cooperation with our friends at ALI-ABA, Above the Law will be helping you out with your Continuing Legal Education needs. We’ve combed through the extensive CLE offerings of ALI-ABA and picked out a few courses that struck us as particularly interesting, even sexy (at least by the standards of CLE). Today we bring you the inaugural offering; others will follow in future posts.

The new Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has been described as “the biggest expansion of government power over banking and markets since the Depression.” It overhauls rules and regulations “touching every corner of finance, from ATM cards to Wall Street traders.”

How will the new law affect your broker-dealer and investment adviser clients? If you’re free this Thursday and Friday, you should take advantage of this course, offered by ALI-ABA in partnership with Above the Law: The Financial Services Regulatory Revolution: Navigating the New World.

Even if you do not specialize in financial services, this is the kind of information that makes lawyers look intelligent and educated at cocktail parties. It’ll give you something to talk about when your crazy uncle (played by Michael Moore) starts rambling about the evils of Wall Street during Thanksgiving dinner. And it’s a much better way to fulfill your CLE requirement than 90 minutes on seafaring tax law in the post whaling age.

This is a course that you won’t want to miss. You can take it live, in Washington, D.C., or you can access it as a live video webcast. To learn more and to sign up, click here.

The Financial Services Regulatory Revolution: Navigating the New World of Broker-Dealer and Investment Adviser Regulation, Supervision, and Sales Practices [ALI-ABA]
Law Remakes U.S. Financial Landscape [Wall Street Journal]

Non-Sequiturs: 06.04.10

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* How would you react to a Biglaw intern walking around with a $9,000 handbag? [Corporette]

* A young attorney’s review of the new iPad app, iAnnotate PDF (Version 1.1.1). [Young Lawyers Blog]

* Personally, I like my bar exams with a full bust and nice curves, but I suppose it is time for a format-neutral exam. [Law Librarian Blog]

* What, the hell, is the crime of “affray”? [Underdog]

* If Wal-Mart had listened to their lawyers at Akin Gump, maybe they wouldn’t be in such hot water right now. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Short on CLE credits? Here are some events worth checking out. [Above the Law]

CLE: What, You Have Something Better To Do?

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Continuing Legal Education CLE.jpgIn lieu of Wednesday’s ATL / Lateral Link featured job survey post — lolcat lover Justin Bernold is on vacation — we bring you a questionnaire about a topic near and dear to your hearts: Continuing Legal Education (CLE).

If you’re at a firm that’s experiencing a slowdown due to the downturn, with many free (and non-billable) hours to kill, now is a good time to rack up CLE credits. In Notes from the Breadline, Roxana wondered: can CLE credits be rolled over, like cell phone minutes? In some jurisdictions, yes.

To take the survey, which serves both editorial and marketing purposes for us, please CLICK HERE. You can also share your thoughts on CLE in the comments.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

CLE survey for ATL [SurveyMonkey]

An Update on Hydrangea-gate and Little Miss Party Pants

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Lots of good stuff in the comments to our Lawsuit of the Day. It’s well on its way to becoming an official Comments Clusterf**k. This comment might be our favorite:

Wedding flowers: $27,000.

Damages sought for wrong color wedding flowers: $400,000.

Being delinquent in your attorney registration, while filing a public lawsuit on your own behalf: Priceless

It appears to be true. From the New York State Attorney Registration site:
Elana Beth Elbogen Elana B Elbogen Elana Glatt Kelley Drye Warren LLP Above the Law blog.jpg
Maybe Elana Glatt should spend more time attending CLE courses and less time suing florists. We recommend the City Bar class on Service, Therapy, & Emotional Support Animals (which we once sat through, even though it had nothing to do with our practice, ’cause we were desperate for CLE credits).
But Elana “Party Pants” Glatt, predictably dubbed “Bridezilla” by many of you, has her defenders. Read on, after the jump.

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Biglaw Perk Watch: CLE, Yeah You Know Me

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Continuing Legal Education CLE Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgWe’re not yet done talking about Biglaw perks and fringe benefits. Today’s topic: Continuing Legal Education, or CLE.
Let’s go back to Kirkland & Ellis (which pays a $50K clerkship bonus, in case you hadn’t heard, and gives you a $350 office decorating budget). From a tipster:

K&E associates get something like $5,000 a year to go on CLE. It covers everything: airfare, hotel, food, etc.

You can go on those boondoggles with Justice Scalia, at the Ritz-Carlton in Colorado. Or you can go to Amsterdam and party.

A CLE allowance of five grand sounds pretty great. Is our tipster correct about this? And is any other firm similarly generous?
P.S. CLE is on our mind because we just paid our New York bar dues (and filled out our CLE certification). We still keep up with our CLE requirements, ’cause you never know. And we’ll be scooping up some CLE credits on Friday and Saturday, when we’ll be covering the 2007 ACS National Convention here in DC. Marsha Marsha Marsha!!!
Update: Yeah, we know we aren’t required to stay current with our New York CLE. But doing so gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, that’s all.

Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell: Best. CLE. Ever.

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Zachary Fasman Zachary D Fasman Zack Fasman Paul Hastings.jpg(Yes, we know. According to Gawker, the formulation “Best. [X]. Ever.” is a blog-media cliché. But we don’t care. And we doubt that this cliché has ever been deployed in the context of Continuing Legal Education — so we get a free pass.)
If you’re (1) short on New York CLE credits, and (2) as transfixed as we are by the Biglaw train wreck called Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell, have we got a suggestion for you.
A reader tipped us off to this CLE event, taking place on March 8 at the Princeton Club in New York:

Employment Law for the General Practitioner and Corporate Counselor
Thursday, March 8, 2007

7.5 TOTAL CREDITS: 6.0 credit hours of practice management and/or professional practice; 0.5 credit hour in skills; 1.0 credit hour in ethics

This popular, basic-to-intermediate level program, updated and revamped from previous years, is structured to cover on a practical basis the issues and problems typically arising in today’s workplace on which corporate counsel, or a private practitioner with a general practice, may be called to handle on behalf of the company or the employee.

What’s so interesting about this? The presenters. Two of the lecturers are A-list celebrities of L’Affaire Charney: Zachary Fasman of Paul Hastings (at right), who represents the embattled megafirm; and Theodore Rogers of Sullivan & Cromwell, who is working on the case in-house.
We have advice for Mr. Fasman on how to structure his CLE presentation. Check it out, after the jump.

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