Horne v. Town of Blowing Rock Although our statutes and case law generally favor the application of governmental immunity in the operation and maintenance of public parks – particularly when the municipality derives no income from operating and maintaining the park – there remain issues of fact as to what revenue, if any, the defendant-town derives from its operation of the park in which the minor plaintiff was injured. Therefore, the town was not entitled to summary judgment on the issue of governmental immunity.

Tagged with: Insurance Revenue sovereign immunity Tort/Negligence

The N.C. Court of Appeals issued a cautionary tale for lawyers last week in an opinion involving a Fayetteville law firm that formed a PLLC but didn't bother to file an operating agreement. The resulting breakup wasn't pretty.

Tagged with: law firms N.C. Court of Appeals operating agreement Revenue

I recently spoke with an executive whose company makes software to help lawyers record billable time. He discussed failure to record time as a "time leak," because time is lost (and therefore not billed) when an attorney fails to make contemporaneous notations of work being done. Surveys done by the company suggest that at least one in five timekeepers consistently fails to record time contemporaneously, and almost 80 percent record their time days or even weeks later.

Tagged with: Billable Hour billing Coach's Corner Practice Management Revenue

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