Do you want to make your writing and your presentations more effective? Do you want people to pay attention to what you say? Then, see 5 simple tools that will help you.
Thank you to Lisa Solomon for this lead.
Carolyn Elefant was interviewed. If you are interested in learning how a well-known sole practitioner views the world, read her interview. And, better yet, read her blog. (more…)
Phishing scams – What are they? And some suggestions from my bank on how to avoid them:
Phishing attacks are "spoofed" e-mails and fraudulent websites designed to fool recipients into divulging personal fianancial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, social security numbers, etc. By "hijacking" the trusted brsands of well-known banks, online retailesr and credit card companies, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them.
I’ve been tempted on a number of occasions and, having been burned a couple of times with credit card fraud, have learned to think twice about who is seeking this information. Even now, if in doubt, I forward the information to my web master or my accountant to ask their advice. Most recently, this occured with an e-mail from the Internal Revenue Service — NOT — and my accountant told me to delete the e-mail. (more…)
A Standing Committee of The State Bar of California has proposed new rules: Rule of Professional Conduct and Rule of Court. The public comment period expires September 15th …. My opposition to this proposal follows below. (more…)
If you purchase ads on the Internet to boost your web site or blog traffic, you may be overcharged. Business Week.
This is a major challenge for Google Ads and Yahoo ads, but, of course, they are financially benefitted.
In today’s Los Angeles Times, on the front page, is the headline that our top spy agency is outsourcing! More than half of our spys, in a government department opened only 2 years ago, created to prevent another 9-11 tragedy, are not government employees! They’re employed by the private sector!
Hmmm, must be an interesting idea whose time has come. <g>
If a tall skyscraper can be built under a fixed fee contract, clients frequently ask why the cost of their “simple” matter can’t be estimated before beginning work. A lawyer generally responds that he/she doesn’t know enough to prepare an estimate of costs.
Outsourcing — having work done outside of your own office, or your own firm/company — is not new. For years, companies have been expanding operations to other cities and even other countries. It’s called "division of labor" or "economies of scale" or, today, the dreaded and feared "outsourcing."
A new term to describe the phenomenon of having work done most economically and most efficiently.
In an apparent attempt to protect the public, a State Bar committee is proposing a new rule of professional conduct and rule of court: This would require all lawyers in California to tell their clients if they do not maintain professional liability (malpractice) insurance.
The problem: The 30,000 lawyers in this category (who don’t have malpractice insurance) are primarily sole practitioners and attorneys of color.
The following is the Statement of Opposition filed on September 14th with the committee: (more…)
Ms. Cookie Lewis of askinfomania.com reports on a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive®.
They report, among other things, that: “Two out of three U.S. adults today have used a lawyer at least once in their lives, about the same percent as in 2000 (65% in 2006 vs. 68% in 2000)… (T)he single biggest reason lawyers are hired today is to handle estate planning. Forty-six percent of those U.S. adults who have hired a lawyer say that is what drove them there, a similar percent as in 2000 (51%).”
This is a statistic that, frankly, surprises me, given the big push to eliminate estate taxes altogether … and the fact that 2010 is a year when there will be no estate tax.