Competition

If practitioners want to maintain the status quo, they should explain how doing so will benefit the public.

* Paging Don McGahn. There’s a cleanup on aisle 1600. [Politico]

* Rod Rosenstein speaks. [Slate]

* Which SCOTUS briefs are the easiest to read? [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Paul Ryan may not be able to rally the necessary tax reform troops. [The Hill]

* Sally Yates thinks the Flynn controversy was a bigger deal than the White House does. No kidding. [New Yorker]

* You may be able to visit North Carolina with a clear conscience soon. [Huffington Post]

* Not everything is a competition. [Katz Justice]

* Dealing with the bad stuff. [Law and More]

Vote for some lawyers!

A growing in-house team can bring growing pains and tension.

Whether you’re representing a client in litigation or in a transaction, you’re tasked with making sure that your arguments for your clients’ interests are more compelling than those of the other side.

* Ivanka Trump is getting called out on Instagram. Seems one of the shoes in her eponymous line is a dead ringer for Aquazzura’s Wild Thing fringe sandal. [The Fashion Law]

* The billable hour actually makes law firms less competitive — not that this revelation will stop firms from conducting business that way. [Lawyerist]

* When people attack Judge Jane Kelly because she used to be a public defender, they are really taking a crack at the Sixth Amendment. [Slate]

* All the things that in-house counsel really want from their outside attorneys. [Ten Things]

* A contested convention looks increasingly likely, and the GOP establishment is busy planning for that eventuality. [Bloomberg Politics]

* Our friends at Solo Practice U turn 7! Don’t miss their anniversary special. [Solo Practice University]

* Word to the wise: when you start looking to House Of Cards for political tactics, you might be one of the bad guys. [The Slot]

* What it takes to pull off a career comeback. (Spoiler alert: it isn’t easy.) [Law and More]

Why do people strive to work for organizations (including law firms) that these employees know will require fierce competition and brutal hours?

If you -- or your firm -- has been making a living doing routine legal work that could be performed just as easily (and far less expensively) elsewhere in the world, then be afraid. Be very afraid.

Is this the year that some Biglaw firms will admit they can't keep up with the rest? Thoughts from in-house columnist Mark Herrmann.

What is the hardest part about selling services, and what can law firms do to better train partners on how to sell?

Does a law firm need to crush the competition in order to succeed?

Wherein small-firm columnist Brian Tannebaum explains why you should use your competition as a resource...

Brian Tannebaum explains why it pays -- literally -- not to worry about the competition.

Even at small law firms, administrative overhead is often a good thing.

Sometimes helping the "competition" might actually be helping yourself, too...

If not the money, and not the public good, then what motivates a trial lawyer to win? Tom Wallerstein says you need a fire in your belly...

For the next few months, small firm columnist Valerie Katz is working and living in San Francisco. It is safe to say to that it is a different world here than in Chicago. This difference, she has learned, is present not only outside of the office, but inside as well. How? According to several small-firm attorneys, this difference manifests itself in a work culture that stresses healthy competition in a supportive environment. Let's examine this difference in a little more detail....

Isn’t it annoying when the YouTube video you’re watching just stops loading right in the middle? Or when your Skype connection suddenly starts sucking in the middle of a video conversation? Well, it turns out that in Europe, sometimes stuff like that doesn’t happen accidentally. Internet Service Providers intentionally “throttle” certain kinds of web traffic. […]