North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Law firms seem compelled to focus marketing time and resources on where the money is not - constantly dispatching teams to give new business pitches for a wide variety of prospective clients, most of whom will not pan out. Certainly looking for opportunities with new clients is important. But it is far more essential for any firm to assess the clients it has, define the clients it wants and focus revenue generation on the optimum combination of the two.

Tagged with: Business of Law Client Relations Coach's Corner Practice Management Revenue

By ED POLL, Special to Lawyers Weekly edpoll@lawbiz.com The simple fact is that a lawyer who is a sole practitioner owns a family business – the law practice. And studies regularly document that small business owners do not plan well ...

Tagged with: Business of Law Coach's Corner Practice Management

Social media is not for everyone. And, it's not a magic bullet. Social media won't make you a great lawyer. Only hard work and experience can do that. It can, however, make you a better lawyer when used to bring relevant information to you that will help you stay up to date on your areas of practice.

Tagged with: Social Media

Disdain about "The Business of Law®" (a phrase I registered well over a decade ago because so few firms cared about it) may have been dealt a fatal blow by three years of law market recession.

Tagged with: professionalism

The envelopes started arriving just a few days after my husband learned that our license tag registration had expired. He was informed of this by a very polite Raleigh Police officer who nevertheless did what police officers do and wrote him a ticket.

Tagged with: traffic infraction Traffic Law Tried & Proven

I recently advised a very bright lawyer who was having difficulty with the math of seeking new office quarters. He wanted to understand the interplay between basic rent, common-area charges (charges for maintenance, taxes, etc. that the landlord assesses at the end of each lease year to cover the cost of operating the building [...]

Tagged with: Business of Law Coach's Corner Practice Management

It's the eve of trial and you've just determined that a key witness lied to you. You built your defense assuming the witness was truthful. You would have settled the case months (and thousands of dollars) ago had you known then what you know now. Sound familiar?

Tagged with: Employment Law Labor & Employment

Title and survey? Check. Environmental report? Check. Reconciled operating statements, 12 months trailing? Check. Rent roll, certified by the seller? Check. All of these items and many others are part of necessary due diligence associated with buying a property. Much of the drill is scripted and overseen [...]

Tagged with: commercial real estate due diligence

By ED POLL, Special to Lawyers Weekly edpoll@lawbiz.com In describing the human condition, some have used the concept of a “circle of life.” The general idea is hardly an uplifting one. It holds that we enter the world as helpless ...

Tagged with: Coach's Corner

One-hundred-fifty years ago, on May 18, 1860, history itself took a sweet and stunning swing to the good. On that day, on the third ballot at the National Convention of America's new Republican Party, overcoming all odds [...]

Tagged with: What I've Learned About Life On The Way To The Courthouse