Inasmuch as 2018 was a year of personal growth and development for my book choices, 2019 ... is not. Last year, I read books like Ian Cron's The Road Back to You and Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. I wrote mini-reviews of all the books I read last year. The tone of what I'm reading in 2019 has been -- it's just been different. And fun. Here's what I'm reading in 2019 In 2019, I've been reading gobs of science fiction and fantasy. I've re-read the entire Harry Potter series and...
I'm attending the Alabama State Bar's annual conference this week. One of the sessions yesterday was with a panel of judges sharing with lawyers what they wish we knew and did differently. Most of them are pretty straightforward, but the first one caught me off guard. What judges wish you knew and did differently Don’t wear flip-flops to court - this was not gender specific, and I was embarrassed for the entire profession that this needed to be addressed. Don’t use lengthy string cites in briefs without explanatory parentheticals. Judges aren't putting great weight on cases that we don't bother...
For the first time in 6 1/2 years of practicing law, I didn't take an outline with me to a deposition. It wasn't intentional, mind you. I had my accordion folder with all my exhibits and the documents I'd taken notes on. I just forgot to print my deposition outline before heading out the door. When I got to the office of plaintiff's counsel and began unloading the contents of my folder onto the conference table, I realized I was without my deposition outline. I was immediately flustered by this. But I took a minute and sorted myself out, and...
Over the weekend, my first book Building a Better Law Practice had its first birthday. Of course, I didn't have much time to revel in its launch last year since our second kiddo was born a couple of days later. It was rather a busy few ... months for us after that. Actually, things haven't really slowed down since then. We've just gotten acclimated to how much busier things are with two kids. Nevertheless, it's a book that I'm proud of. I learned a great deal, not only in the writing of the book but also in going through the...
My basement was kind of a disaster. Boxes haphazardly strewn about. Tools and equipment that had not been organized in the last 18 months, despite the best of intentions. Kids toys that had been played with and discarded. A pile of things to take to the landfill. So after months of trying not to notice the mess, I picked up and organized the basement. Now I have a tidy basement. But if I just focus on the result that now I have a clean and well-organized basement, I will turn around in a few months to discover it has devolved...
Sometimes at trial, the only way to get certain facts or statements into evidence is through the emails that contain them. But this situation occurs infrequently enough that most of us don't know off-hand how to go about authenticating emails for use as admissible evidence. Fortunately, a path has been paved for this in Alabama that makes it clear how we need to authenticate emails. Authentication under Alabama Rule of Evidence 901 Alabama Rule of Evidence 901 provides the requirements for authenticating evidence. The purpose of authentication is to enable the court to be "satisfied by evidence sufficient to support...
When I launched my new book, Stop Putting Out Fires a couple of weeks ago, I ran a giveaway in which I gave out free copies of my first book, Building a Better Law Practice. Doing this cost me time, money, and arguably, may have cost me sales from people who had purchased Stop Putting Out Fires and may have later bought Building a Better Law Practice, but instead I gave it to them for free. So what is the upside of giving work away for free? Maybe I’ve instilled more loyalty among my readers. Perhaps I have built up...
A friend of mine named Oliver recently told me a story about getting stiffed by a client. This is a problem common to many lawyers when they either don't get a retainer or don't collect a large enough retainer before starting to work for a new client. Because of the prevalence of this issue, Oliver and others who heard the story asked me to share it. Getting stiffed by a client is likely to happen to all of us at some point, but this is just a reminder to do what you can to minimize that possibility. Here's Oliver's story:...
A few weeks ago, Curt Runger of Attorney Mentors sent me a text message saying that he had been seeing my posts on LinkedIn and that if I would do one thing differently, LinkedIn's algorithm would like me better and increase my visibility. I've known Curt for a while now and trust that when he tells me something, he knows what he's talking about. So I implemented the change. Over the past three years, I have never had particularly good results from sharing my blog posts on LinkedIn. Usually about 140 folks see the post on LinkedIn and a few...
You likely know by now that my second book, Stop Putting Out Fires (Amazon), launched on Thursday, May 2. Thanks to the support of my regular readers, my friends in LawyerSmack, and others out there who have come across it, the book has had a pretty successful first few days in the wild. While I don't know the exact sales numbers yet, I don't mind telling you that between orders and pre-orders, Stop Putting Out Fires has already sold more copies than my first book, Building a Better Law Practice, did in its first two months of existence. Reviews of...
