The Red Velvet Lawyer

Teaching Students to Serve Future Clients This week, I've been designing my class that will be a part of ASL's Introduction to Natural Resources Law course.  We are offering the course as a one-week intensive before regular classes start in January. Through it, we hope to encourage students to earn our Natural Resources Law certificate .   My day-long class will focus on shale gas production in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays located in mostly Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York.  The class will include an overview, presentations by a couple of guest speakers, and then a simulated negotiation of a mineral lease.  I am expecting it to provide good coverage of the topic and a fairly interesting way to spend an 8-hour day of class. I am trying to frame perspectives from the industry, the environmental protection community, and health officials.   My slide show is almost done.  I've really enjoyed the required research and my discussions with

Then, Living with Purpose Tom Asaker, who blogs on business and marketing, takes a  look at the difference between finding your purpose and creating it. He says: [P]urpose isn't discovered. It's created. It isn't a carefully considered and crafted image. It's a bold statement. A way of believing and behaving that grows and evolves and enhances people's lives. Purpose isn't something we pull out of our brands. It's something we passionately build into them. Out of our experiences and values.                             * * * Purpose means progress. It's movement towards a more ethical and meaningful way of being. Purpose creates a new world. I teach at a purpose-driven school.  We exist to create opportunities for Appalachians who are often the first member in their immediate families to attend college or professional school.  On to that purpose, we have layered  our commitment to community service and to producing graduates who w

Positioning your Law Firm  as an Expert Blogger Mark Beese, at Attorney at Work , reports on several presentations given at the recent conference of legal marketing professionals.  This story about "valuable free content" offered to energy law clients caught my eye.   Paul Grabowski , CMO of Bracewell Guiliani, gave a behind-the-scenes tour of what it takes to produce an award-winning mobile app. Targeting energy companies, Bracewell’s free “ShalePlay” app provides a stream of news, analysis and legal commentary on the hydraulic fracturing industry segmented by geographic shale “plays” throughout the U.S.   The process of creating the app took 14 months, and was a cross-disciplinary collaborative effort of in-house staff, attorneys and outside designers that required strong project management and a good budget. More than 10 software tools were involved in development, design and usage metrics.   Grabowski’s lessons learned?  Create a usef

Ad Featuring  our  Educational Program Dear ASL Community: Thanks to the generosity of one of our founding Trustees, Joe Wolfe, the Appalachian School of Law will be featured in a Super Bowl commercial. The 30-second spot will air during the second half of the game on WEMT, the Fox affiliate in Bristol, Virginia: http://www.wcyb.com/fox-tri-cities/super-bowl-xlviii/-/23965940/-/expsyf/-/index.html . I have the honor of introducing the commercial, which features a photo montage of the law school and our students, and which emphasizes our focus upon community service, non-traditional students and natural resources law. At the insistence of the Other Professor Harris, it also features the ASL Softball Team. After the Super Bowl, the spot will air extensively for several weeks, both on WEMT and on its sister station, WCYB, the NBC affiliate in Bristol. I hope that you can catch the commercial during the game, but, in case you miss it, I’ll be posting a v

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, they have designed the c

"What Hot's and What's Not in the Legal Profession" Red Hot practice areas?  Energy, regulatory, health care. Hot practice areas?  Financial services, IPOs, litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property, real estate, and corporate. Getting Hot?  Interns rights, privately held and family business, education, elder law, and ADR. So says Bob Denny in his 25th trends report released on December 3, 2013. Bob Denny, founder of Bob Denny Associates, Inc., identifies trends in the legal profession at least once a year.  His last report came out in June 2013. His consulting firm, founded in 1974, provides management, marketing and strategic planning services to over 800 companies, professional firms, and non-profit organizations throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and the Caribbean. His report also identifies practice areas seeing less action (cooling off), the hot geographic areas for law, marketing and business development

Appalachian School of Law Students  Help Build the Great Eastern Trail Students at the Appalachian School of Law organized to help with the title work associated with building the Great Eastern Trail Project . In August of 2007, the trail groups involved in the effort incorporated as the Great Eastern Trail Association and held an organizational meeting in Virginia in November of 2007. Project organizers intend to establish an organizational structure that will encompass the entire length of the trail and to begin filling in the gaps in the trail. About the GET Project The Great Eastern Trail (GET) Association, working with American Hiking Society and local trail partners, is creating America's newest long-distance hiking trail.  This path runs for 1800 miles across nine states.  It runs roughly parallel to the Appalachian Trail, but follows the ridges on the Western side of the Appalachian Mountains.  Its path takes it close to Buchanan County and the la