In my book, The End of Lawyers?, I claim that the future for lawyers could be prosperous or disastrous. I predict that those who are unwilling to change their working practices and extend their services will struggle to survive.
I appreciate being invited to participate in this “Rebel-Fest,” but want to start by taking issue with the notion of being a “Rebel.” My first boss was Senator Moynihan, D-N.Y., and he used to say that “words matter.” Labeling folks who want to restore the best part of the legal profession as “Rebels” is, I would suggest, part of the problem.
Besides being an executive at a multinational mining and resources group, Leah Cooper is a wife and mother to two young boys. She meets all of those obligations with creative solutions, friends say, and that experience influenced her recent outsourcing plan that sends basic legal tasks to a team of lawyers in India.
Even early in his law career, Evan R. Chesler came across as the go-to guy. Senior partners at Cravath, Swaine & Moore remember, when he was a junior litigation associate, that he was the one saving documents that disappeared in the teletype machine—even when the steno staff couldn’t. And today’s clients say he’s the first one they think of when faced with a complex legal problem.
GC Jeffrey W. Carr went looking for a few good lawyers this year—lawyers who want to earn more than their hourly rate. By early August, he had them.
For the past four years, Jeffrey Carr says, FMC Technologies Inc. has been using versions of ACES for 100 percent of its legal work in the U.S. and for most of its international work. Carr says the company pays its lawyers with a Visa purchasing card, which ensures payment can arrive in as few as three days from invoice.
On the prowl last year for a merger partner in Germany, Ralph Baxter of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe approached Hölters & Elsing’s Siegfried Elsing through a legal consultant with an invitation to meet in Paris for dinner.
Capture the energy of a border collie—that intelligent working breed known for nipping at cattle heels, almost pulling the herd ahead with an invisible string—and you’d get a sense of the spirit of Erica Moeser.
See related post, “Erica Moeser: A Bar For All.”
Below are sample questions from the three sections of the multistate bar exam offered by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Answers for the multiple-choice questions follow the question.
On Oct. 14-15, as part of 24 Hours of Rebels, some of the most creative minds in the legal profession will be talking on LegalRebels.com about how the practice of law needs to change in the next five years – from law school to big firms, from solo practice to the demands of clients, from legal ethics to how lawyers use technology.
It was the perfect setup: a momentarily empty office at Sun Microsystems, the unattended computer of a new attorney. Mike Dillon just couldn’t resist. A few keystrokes and the deed was done—a resignation e-mail to the unsuspecting new hire’s supervisor: “It’s not working out.”
Rex Gradeless graduated law school with more than 67,000 followers on Twitter (@Rex7). Below is a question and answer on Twitter and Phonevite about why social media matters to lawyers.
Rex Gradeless has a unique ability to pinpoint useful information for a variety of audiences. That probably explains why the recent St. Louis University School of Law grad has more than 71,000 followers on Twitter, where he’s known as @Rex7.
Suzanne E. Turner didn’t expect to reinvent herself, but she did, starting in 1999.
Her husband, corporate and securities partner David E. Schulman, needed to go to England for his practice, and Turner went too, with their daughter.
Friends say Brooklyn’s top prosecutor, Charles J. Hynes, has the mindset that only psychopaths belong in jail, and that other defendants oftentimes just need some extra help.
The last stop of the Rebels Tour ‘09 was in Washington, D.C., visiting with Rebel Cynthia Calvert, co-director of the Project for Attorney Retention.
Cynthia Calvert stood in her office in January 2008, the file for her last client sitting on her cherrywood desk. She wondered whether she had made a mistake.
A number of blogs and mainstream media outlets reported about the Rebels Tour this week. Here’s a look at some of the highlights:
Yale University recruited Rodney Smolla for football, and he credits athletics for developing his character and discipline. Smolla, 56, says lessons from the gridiron—“self-confidence, focus and a willingness to work hard for something you believe in”—also contributed to his boldness in trying new things.
We said goodbye to our tour vehicle today, but not before giving it one final whirl.
