The Red Velvet Lawyer

Enjoy the evening, and I will see you soon.  Don't forget about my postings about  resolutions  and will power, the  3-word approach to goal setting, and designing your future with 5,000 goals . Jan. 1, 2014 Update:  Here's some additional coaching about how to pick your 3-word goals.

Distinguished Alumni  of the  Appalachian School of Law: Magistrate Zachary (Zack) A. Stoots Magistrate Zachary (Zack) A. Stoots, a life-long resident of Southwest Virginia, has served his community in many capacities.  Like many of our graduates, he is the first generation of his family to graduate from college and the only member in his family to attend graduate school. In December 2011, he joined the Magistrate's Office in Tazewell County, Virginia. Interestingly, he served as a Magistrate immediately after law school in July 2010. After six months in that position, he moved to the Russell County Commonwealth Attorney's Office as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney.   Zack left the part-time position at the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office for full time employment back with the Magistrate's office . The Magistrate Manual describes the position this way: The office of magistrate is probably more important today than it has been at any ot...

It's Not Enough to Keep Abreast of  Changes in the Substantive Law Robert Ambrogie, blogger at LawSites, lists the 10 Most Important Legal Technology Developments of 2013 .  Two entries on the list especially caught my eye. The first entry discusses the ethical obligation to be competent in the use of technology.  The second entry discusses increasing efforts by some law schools to teach students about the use of technology in law practice. 3.  Competence in technology turned from dalliance to necessity.   In August 2012, the American Bar Association voted to amend the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology . Specifically, the ABA voted to amend the comment to Model Rule 1.1, governing lawyer competence, to say that, in addition to keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, a lawyer should keep abreast of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant...

More on Legal Marketing: Especially for You Visual Learners I really like these infographics about web-based marketing for lawyers over on The Rainmaker Blog .  Check out all twelve covering the following topics: How to do Keyword Research. 7 Website Essentials to Land You More Leads. How to Get More Likes on Facebook. How to Create Perfect Posts on Social Platforms. Increase Traffic to Your Website. Using Social Media for Lead Generation. SEO Copywriting: 10 Tips for Writing Content that Ranks in 2013. 14 Ways to Make Google Love Your Site. Breakdown of a Person's Google Results: How People Look in Google -- And How to Look Better. Mobile is the Future . . . Is Your Website Optimized?  How to Build a Credible Blog. Getting Past Your Social (Media) Anxiety. And,  here is a wonderful video depiction of how marketers can make it harder for your customers/clients to "buy" on line. 

The Droid Lawyer Speaks So, I've been watching ALL the episodes of The Good Wife on Hulu over the winter break.  Yes, I know. They've been populated with ads for Chromecast, but the ads don't tell you a thing. So, you will find more information about Chromecast  here  and here  with descriptions of how lawyers can use it in their practices.   For a 2013 round up of articles on Droid and Android use in law practice, see Jeffry Taylor's blog: The Droid Lawyer   here . Dec. 30, 2013 Update:  Here's the 11th infographic :  How to Build a Credible Blog. 

Distinguished Alumni  of the  Appalachian School of Law:   Assistant Attorney General  R ebekah Baker Legal Career Mrs. Rebekah Ann Baker serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the Tobacco Enforcement Division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of Tennessee .  The Tobacco Enforcement Division, one of five consumer/crime protection divisions, enforces the provisions of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and handles other tobacco–related matters.  In that position, Mrs. Baker not only represents the State in civil litigation matters involving tobacco, but she also helps track and review all tobacco-related legislation introduced in the General Assembly each year.  She also drafts legislation and legislative amendments when necessary.  In addition, she works on regulatory matters involving tobacco companies doing business in Tennessee.  Mrs. Baker serves on several working groups within...

The Red Velvet Lawyer Mentioned in AmLaw Daily In the ongoing discussion about when law graduates and available law jobs will reach equilibrium, Matt Leichter, of the  Law School Tuition Bubble  blog, has continued to work with the  numbers  and published in the AmLaw Daily  here  a story called:  No, It's Still Not a Good Time to Apply to Law School . (You may need a subscription to read the story but his blog posting covers all or most of the same data.) He mentions my launch of this conversation and concludes that Prof. Merritt may have the better analysis. He looks at several more data-bases to reach that conclusion.  As I've said before, I want prospective students to make decisions about law school using informed decision-making.  The more we talk about the numbers, the more information they have to make better choices about the careers they want to pursue. I'd invite Leichter to expand his analysis...

Enhance Your Willpower  and  Reach Your Goals Robert Hatch, owner of Human Business Works , a business coach, and an author, sent me some advice this morning on making and achieving New Year's Resolutions. I can sum it up with a quote from Wayne Dyer:  "Once you begin working on your problem areas with small, daily, success-oriented, goals, the problems will disappear." What I like about Hatch's iteration of the way you must operate to reach a specific goal is the acknowledgement that we only have a certain limited reserve of willpower. He is so in to the idea, he eats the same thing for breakfast every morning. It limits the drain of will power and reduces, by one, the decisions he must make as entrepreneur through the rest of the day.  Ok, not me.  But, interesting. For the science on willpower, take a look at this Stanford School of Medicine blog .  Two things can enhance your reserve of willpower: Meditation and regular exercise, part...

Arbitration Fairness Act And, now a look into the debate about pre-dispute arbitration clauses found in consumer and employment contracts. Several witnesses testified about the problems with these clauses. Then, Senator Al Franken questioned a U of Georgia Law School professor, Peter B. Rutledge , who planned to support the clauses. Watch the video here . From the Consumerist : Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on mandatory binding arbitration clauses, those fun bits of contractual language that take away your right to sue a company and force you into a resolution process that is heavily weighted in the company’s favor. The hearing was chaired by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, who earlier this year introduced the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act , and so he obviously has a thing or two to say on the topic. * * *   Starting at around the 1:55 mark in the above video, Franken cites the professor’s own previous statements that...

Merry Christmas! To my family, friends, colleagues, and students: I wish you a wonderful time with your family and friends this week. 

My Picks  from the  7th Annual Blawg 100 In December, the ABA Journal published its  7th Annual Blawg 100 issue listing those law blogs it identifies as hosted by dedicated, creative, and engaged bloggers. Polls closed for voting on the current list, but I've used it to update my blog roll. One of the unanticipated benefits of having a blog is the opportunity to build a blog roll. Postings on the blogs I track keep me inspired and up-to-date.  I also hope the list gives you a quick way to link to some of the top law bloggers that may be of interest to you. So, here are the blogs I'm adding: Arbitration Nation Dewey B Strategic JD Careers Out There Jotwell Law School Cafe The Legal Watercooler The Legal Whiteboard Real Lawyers Have Blogs Small Firm Innovation Technology & Marketing Law Blog And, I am dropping nine blogs from the roll.  After a year of tracking them, I find that I did not like the quality of the content, the in...

"Folks, the change is here.  We’re living it." Jordan Furlong, a partner in Edge International, a leading management consultancy, describes the "revolution" that is ongoing in the legal field and in legal education in a recent posting he calls: You say you want a revolution?  He opens his posting this way: If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m convinced of a couple of things: (1) Fundamental shifts in the legal services environment will spawn a diverse population of new providers that will expand access to those services while destroying lawyers’ market exclusivity; and, (2) This is, on balance, a good thing. I’ve never been more certain than I am today, at the close of 2013, about the first — but I’ve never been less certain about the second. After summarizing evidence of the revolution, he offers some predictions for the future, and asks regulators, bar associations,  law schools, courts, and lawyers to take action n...

Appalachian School of Law  Offers Two Courses  Over the Winter Holiday Break  January Intersession Introduction to Natural Resources Law ASL will offer this 2-credit hour course on its campus the week prior to the resumption of January classes (January 6-10, 2014). This intensive course will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 9:00 a.m. to noon on Friday.  The course will familiarize students with the legal, business, and environmental aspects of the natural resources law. Although broadly covering natural resources, the course will include a basic introduction to the U.S. legal and governmental system relating to environmental, natural resource, and energy laws, including hard mineral law, oil and gas law, water law, environmental law, energy policy, land use law, renewable energy law, and issues related to climate change and sustainability.  Four faculty members will co-teach the course. More specifically, ...

Robin, Launch, & Wealth During the past month, I've talked about goal setting twice: here and embedded here .  I just found this interesting discussion on how one successful entrepreneur works with goal setting.  Among other things, he picks three words to guide him over the next year.  They help keep him focused on his priorities. Take a look here .  I'll wait. For 2014: My three words for 2014 are these: Robin :  I am referring to Robin Wright Penn, the actress who plays the wife, Claire Underwood, to Kevin Spacey's character, U.S. House Majority Whip Frank Underwood, in the TV series, House of Cards .  As Claire, she portrays a strong, independent, ambitious, powerful, effective, kind-hearted, stylish, and fit woman who is trying to change the world through her non-profit foundation.  This, folks, is what we all want "50" to look like (even if she is actually 47).  Robin, the actress, has been choosy about the projects ...

And, a Decade of Added Capacity  No Longer Needed? Yesterday, I linked to the ABA report showing the drop in applicants who actually enrolled in law school in 2013. By one blogger's  calculation , enrollment (average per law school) has not been this low since the late 1960s. The ABA Journal  reported: Law school enrollments nationwide are down 11 percent this year from last year and 24 percent from 2010, new figures show.  The nation’s 202 ABA-accredited schools reported that 39,675 full- and part-time students were enrolled in a first-year J.D. program this fall, according to figures released Tuesday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.  That’s a decrease of 4,806 students from the fall of 2012, when 44,481 students began their law school studies, and a decrease of 12,813 students from 2010, when an all-time high of 52,488 first-year students were enrolled in an ABA-accredited school. (Emphasis added.)  In...

Distinguished Alumni  of the  Appalachian School of Law: Commonwealth's Attorney  Andrew Nester Andrew Nester graduated from the Appalachian School of Law in 2005,  suma cum laude , and, in a mere eight years, assumed leadership of the Commonwealth's Attorney Office for Henry County, Virginia.  The county is located on the southern border in the middle of the state.  He works out of an office in Henry County, where he supervises a staff of eleven, including four Assistant Commonwealth's Attorneys, an office administrator, three support staff, and three members of the victim-witness program. As the Commonwealth's Attorney, he prosecutes felonies and misdemeanors in the Circuit and District Courts.  The cases include complex financial crimes, arson, robberies, vehicular manslaughters, and larcenies.  He also serves on the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Voters elected him to...

Big Drop in Law School  Enrollees So the big story this week is the significant drop in enrollees in law school. In other postings here and here , I've tracked the drop in applicants and applications. The ABA has finally released a report showing the drop in the number of applicants who actually enrolled in law school for the year beginning in Fall 2013.  The ABA explains that:  "The last time enrollment was so low was in 1975, when 39,038 students were enrolled. And, at the time, there were only 163 ABA-accredited schools." By one blogger's calculation , enrollment (average per law school) has not been this low since the late 1960s. And, with applications to law school expected to drop this year compared to last, we could expect further erosion of the number of law school enrollees for Fall 2014. This new data allows us to better predict job equilibrium, which I have discussed here , here , and here .  It is good news for graduates and s...

The Bell Curve  and  The Spike First, forgive the look of this blog posting.  I have reproduced the chart from the NALP website , and this blogging platform makes me keep the original formatting (in this instance). Now, I saw this chart for the first time at the conference of the Midwest Association of Pre-Law Advisors (MAPLA).  LSAC General Counsel, Joan Van Tol, included it in her slides along with data on applications to law school.  She explained that the chart showed two salary patterns.  The bell curve on the left hand side of the chart shows the starting salary for most (reportng) law school graduates 9-months after graduation.  Most of the jobs held by new grads pay $40,000 to $65,000.   The second pattern appears on the right side of the chart and reflects starting salaries of graduates who land jobs with BigLaw.  Van Toll called this part of the chart "the spike."  The spike moved away...