Web & Tech Web & Tech

My New Favorite Blog

If you like cars, check out The Truth About Cars, my new favorite blog.  The editorials are great (check out this one on the failure of niche marketing by US manufacturers), but if you like good car writing, you gotta read the reviews.  Here are just a few passages that made me laugh out loud:

On the Jeep Commander:  After five minutes in the Commander’s tippy-up “theater-style” rear seats, full-sized adults will wish they weren’t. Thanks to a foot well that’s shallower than the British Royal family’s gene pool, even polypeptide deficient three-year-olds sitting in the way back run the risk of giving themselves a pair of shiners with their knees (try explaining THAT to social services). The Commander’s third row is like the Porsche 911 Turbo’s cupholders: you may be glad they’re there, but you’d be foolish to use them. And yet you do.

On the Ford Fusion:  If customers swim into their local Ford dealer’s fishbowl to spawn between $17k and $21k on behalf of a new Fusion, they won’t be doing so because the sedan’s sheet metal haunts their dreams-- unless it’s a nightmare about being pursued by a giant razor. … Fire-up the Fusion and it’s immediately evident she’ll do the fandango. Just don’t expect thunderbolts and lightning.

And on the Hyundai Sonata:  You know what I love about the new Hyundai Sonata? Nothing. You know what I hate about it? Nothing. In other words, it’s a hit. Out there in the real world-- away from the elitist, over-educated automotive palate of a professional car reviewer-- any vehicle that asks nothing whatsoever of its owner is guaranteed a place in the average American motorists’ affections. If the automobile in question is cheap, reliable, comfortable and inoffensive, millions of people will buy it, love it and, eventually, buy another one. The new Hyundai Sonata is all that, and more. Not much more, but some…

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Innovation, Resolutions/Goals Innovation, Resolutions/Goals

Lisa's Daily Practice

Lisa Haneberg is starting up her 2 Weeks 2 a Breakthrough coaching program again.  She requires her students to do this “Daily Practice” everyday:

Each day:
- Tell two people about your goal.
- Take two actions that support your goal.
- Make two requests that support your goal.

It is a bit late to include this in my resolution series, but think about how it could help you get off to a great 2006.

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Law Office Economics, Practice of Law Law Office Economics, Practice of Law

Temping in BigLaw

Temporary Attorney writes about temping in BigLaw.  The blog’s author, Tom the temp, has been thinking a lot lately about how law schools report their employment numbers:

Isn't the legal profession and the law schools one big "Enron" kind of scandel? Think about it. Every year thousands of college graduates decide whether or not they want to "invest" in a legal education. (often a $100,000 proposition). They decide the feasibility of this investment not by relying on a 10(k), but rather by relying on the career statistics put out by the schools. The career statistics are standardized not by the SEC but rather by something called the NALP.

…

Whether law schools "outright lie" on their NALP forms Tom the temp wouldn't know. This did get Tom the temp thinking about something he heard recently concerning a recently unemployed 2004 tier 2 law school graduate. Supposedly this woman was unemployed after passing the bar exam. Her career center wanted to know what she was up to because it was time to file their annual NALP employment report. At the time she was working a two day temp job stuffing envelopes in a law firm for four hours a day. Guess what the school reported? They took her hourly rate multiplied it by 2000 and claimed that she was an attorney in a 20-30 person law firm making a "projected" income of $50,000-60,000 dollars per year. Wow! Talk about an arithmetic trick. Under this mathematical model maybe Tom the temp isn't doing so bad after all. If only the mathematical illusion matched the reality of Tom the temp's unfortunate existence.

 

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Extras Extras

links for 2006-01-06

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Law Office Economics, Practice of Law Law Office Economics, Practice of Law

Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned

Rob May at BusinessPundit has given up entrepreneurship (for now) and gone back to a regular pay check.  He shares some of the lessons he’s learned in this fabulous post.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Know how you make money. Ideas are great, and I'm all for doing cool things, but cash is still king. How do you get cash?

Your estimates are wrong - Yes, even your worst case estimates.

You aren't your own boss - Your customers are way more demanding than any corporate boss could ever be.

Nobody cares that you are smart or knowledgeable (and you need to know if you really are) - Why not? Because everyone thinks they are smart and knowledgeable. Everyone is convinced they are good at business. Everyone thinks they can hire a talented team. Everyone thinks they can sell. Everyone thinks there is something special and different about them that will make them successful. But accruate self-evaluation skills are critical to entrepreneurial success. You have to know what you are good at, what you aren't good at but can learn, and what you will probably never be good at. I think this is a major reason businesses fail.

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Client Service Client Service

As Our Clients See Us

In his promising new blog, Brian Ivanovick , gives some advice to small business people on dealing with their lawyers.  I found his advice on billable time the most interesting:

Lawyers make their living by tracking something called billable hours. That means every interaction with the client is billed. If you just want an opinion about some non-legal facet of your deal - seek out the advice of friends and colleagues first. Your network should be able to give you some guidance when it comes to how to solve non-legal issues. As mentioned above, a mentor is another perfect place to turn. Treat your lawyer as a specialist - not as a sounding board. Remember that you’ll pay for literally every minute of their time.

When you’ve decided to enter a contract with another party, I would suggest that you come up with a detailed agreement in principle before you get the lawyers involved. Then employ your lawyer to codify your intentions in legal speak. A lawyer is absolutely necessary - but only involve them when you and the other party understand exactly what you want to accomplish.

Pretty sad that our predominant business model discourages our clients from talking to us, isn’t it?  (BTW, I had some problems with the direct link to the post.  It is broken, go to the blog and scroll down for the Lawyers and Contracts post.)

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Law Office Economics, Practice of Law Law Office Economics, Practice of Law

Doing Business with Friends and the Cost of Creativity

As the New Year begins, I admit I’m still in a bit of a reflective mood.  Here are some brilliant insights in this post from Speak Up:

Art and commerce have an uneasy balance in all of our lives. Costs and figures and negotiating have a way of blurring the focus we should have towards the work. It is why pro bono work can be so fun. It is why creative directors have so many other things to do during their day besides create.

The stresses. The paperwork. The bad dogs, sick kids, missed busses and fights with our significant other can all factor into a job. Every job brings with it a new set of challenges. Some of which will not come from the work.

Just like there is a cost of doing business, there is a cost of creating. I am still learning how to put a price on that.

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Extras Extras

Focus Exercise

Having a hard time focusing?  Finding your mind wandering as you interview a potential client or take a deposition?  Try this exercise (from the Communication Nation blog) that “will help you heighten your attention and improve your awareness of your surroundings”:

1. Get a digital camera or sketchbook. If you don't have either one, you can use a stack of index cards and a paper clip. The digital camera is my favorite for this: one of the reasons I love digital cameras is that there's no such thing as wasted film -- you can take a thousand pictures for virtually the same price as one.

2. Choose a subject -- something you intend to notice that day. Your subject should be something you will be likely to see several times during the day, but that you rarely pay attention to. It could be windows, or letters of the alphabet, or triangles -- anything that you can search for in your immediate surroundings.

3. For the rest of the day, keep your eye out for your subject. Whenever you see it, take a close look at it and see what you notice. If you have a camera, take a picture of it. If not, draw a quick sketch or make some notes about what you noticed.

You will find that if you choose a new subject each day, you will quickly become far more finely tuned to your surroundings, and you will notice many things that other people simply don't see.

This is great advice.  I’d highly recommend it to lawyers about to start a trial.

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Resolutions/Goals Resolutions/Goals

Resolutions for Lawyers Redux - Day 31

OK, now that you’ve seen (counting last year’s) almost sixty resolutions, I expect you are a bit overwhelmed.  I’ve got just one more.  For our final resolution, I’m going to share this advice from Steve Harper:

Rather than do a wish list of all the things you want to change or achieve, why not start off with a moderate but attainable list of ONE thing you want bad enough to actually work your tail off to achieve it. Write it down, print it out, put it on the bottom of your mirror so you see it every morning, put a copy in your billfold, put one on your dashboard and on your desk at work. Surround yourself with the very public declaration that this is what you plan to achieve. I believe when you do this, you sort of create a public and private cheering team that will encourage you when things get hard (and they will). It's easy to let ourselves down but I haven't met one person that will allow their image to be that of a loser or a quitter when it comes to how others perceive them. It becomes a great motivator and benchmark to stay the course until the goal or resolution is achieved.

If you have more than one thing, write them down and throw it into a folder that you’ll review once each month.  Once you’ve achieved your ONE thing, pick another.

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Resolutions/Goals Resolutions/Goals

Resolutions for Lawyers Redux - Day 30

Take this test, and then pull out your calendar right now and schedule an innovation weekend.  Last year, I did it solo.  This year, my wife will join me as we take a few days  to think about how to innovate in our own personal life.  I’m looking forward to it.

Here is last year’s resolution:

I’ve written about this before:  Is you work area comfortable?  Is your assistant’s?  Read this study, then take a look here for some tips to make it better.

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Resolutions/Goals Resolutions/Goals

Resolutions for Lawyers Redux - Day 28

This one is a Steve Nipper two-fer.  Resolve to declutter your computer:

A few weeks ago I blogged over at Rethink(IP) about how I manage my RSS aggregator by putting RSS Feeds on Probation.  Michael Hyatt (Working Smart) takes a similar approch with the applications on his computer, blogging on how he has a Death Row folder where he moves programs/program shortcuts.  If they don't get used in the next thirty days...they get sent to the electric chair, er recycle bin.

Here is last year’s resolution (also via Nipper):

Keep track of the nice things people say about you, and of the people who are exceptionally happy with your work.  When you are having a hard time at the office (or want to use some testimonials in your marketing materials) you have a list handy for a quick pick-me-up. 

And in case you think it is a bit conceited to keep track of the people who love you, remember that you will build a far more successful business by marketing to your happiest customers than your unhappy ones.

Thanks to my friend, Steve Nipper, for the tip.

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