Lawyers USA Your Business Partner

Not the retiring type: Lawyers fight back against mandatory retirement policies

By: Dick Dahl
Published: January 19, 2009

Tags: 20 things, employment, retirement

For a variety of reasons, law firms are changing their thinking about retirement policies.

Increasingly, partners are staying on after they turn 65, 70, and even older.

Some of them, however, are encountering problems with established law firm policies that specify an age by which they must retire.

The law profession ‘going green’

By: Dick Dahl
Published: January 19, 2009

Tags: 20 things, going green, Your Practice

In the burgeoning green culture, law firms’ eco-responsible practices stretch from the courtroom to the kitchen.

The escalating energy costs and climate change concerns that have spurred the society-wide green movement in the U.S. have also prompted clients to expect a commitment to green practices from their lawyers.

Med-mal by the numbers

By: Dick Dahl
Published: January 28, 2008

Tags: medical malpractice

An Iowa economist has launched a new statistical service aimed at assisting medical malpractice lawyers – for plaintiffs and defendants alike – in evaluating their cases.

All in the (video) game

By: Dick Dahl
Published: December 3, 2007

Tags: First Amendment, video games

Business has never been better for lawyers doing video-game law, in any of its varied manifestations.

Bringing the sleuths in-house

By: Dick Dahl
Published: November 19, 2007

Tags: fact-finding, private investigator

When the Dallas law firm Bickel & Brewer decided to send two people to Asia on a fact-finding mission for a complex intellectual property case, there was no doubt about who would get the assignment.

The firm didn’t send any of its lawyers. It sent its investigators.

The eyes (and nose and chin) have it

By: Dick Dahl
Published: November 19, 2007

Tags: jury selection

Most lawyers view jury selection as an inexact science, but Mac Fulfer, a lawyer and jury consultant in Fort Worth, Texas, claims to have found a surefire way to pick the men and women he wants to empanel.

The secret: Look prospective jurors squarely in the face – and read what that face tells you.

Share and share alike 

By: Dick Dahl
Published: November 5, 2007

Tags: office, solo practice

Lawyer office sharing is proliferating in many parts of the country – especially in high-cost cities where attorneys who want to leave large firms are finding the high cost of office rental prohibitive.

Turning over the reins

By: Dick Dahl
Published: October 22, 2007

Tags: law practice management, practice management

For years, large law firms have been turning to non-lawyer professionals to handle more and more of their management functions.

The trend is now becoming apparent in smaller firms as well.

Going offshore

By: Dick Dahl
Published: August 27, 2007

Tags: outsourcing

Law firms and legal departments looking for ways to cut their costs are turning increasingly to other countries – primarily India – to take over some of their work.

Big firms pay for the privilege of providing services pro bono

By: Dick Dahl
Published: July 30, 2007

Tags: pro bono

Pro bono work has long been viewed as a form of charity – one lawyer representing one needy client on one case in an effort to “give something back” to the community.

But that model is changing.