The legal profession, like the world generally, is populated with scores of different personality types, talents, abilities, fears and passions. Generally, we try to employ our strengths and control our weaknesses in our efforts to make a living in this ever-more complicated world. Some efforts are more successful than others. Here are some of the best ideas for securing success, improving your performance and your success and comfort though a four-part analysis as follows:
The legal profession, like the world generally, is populated with scores of different personality types, talents, abilities, fears and passions. Generally, we try to employ our strengths and control our weaknesses in our efforts to make a living in this ever-more complicated world. Some efforts are more successful than others. Here are some of the best ideas for securing success, improving your performance and your success and comfort though a four-part analysis as follows:

1. Analyze Yourself: No one knows you better than you. We must each undertake a candid survey of our own strengths and weaknesses, abilities and faults. Integral to this analysis is a thoughtful listing of the things that make us happy. If you do not have, at least, a desire, hope and plan for happiness, any long-term endeavor in your life will ultimately fail. Ultimately, this is an ??existential?? analysis of why we do what we do.

2. Decide What Business You??re In: Understanding the business nature of your practice and circumstances. This involves the analysis of your financial macrocosm and financial microcosm. By that, every lawyer needs to understand how much you are going to need to earn almost on a daily basis to meet you personal goals for liquidity and, ultimately, happiness. Those lawyers who are trust babies and simply practice law because they like it may not need to take this as seriously as others. However, for most of us, law is our primary source of income and it??s important for us to have both a “big picture” and a “little picture” which validates our business plan.

3. Use the Right Equipment in Practice: Because we are all different personalities, we will need to concentrate on office systems that compliment our strengths and guard against overlooking something that exploits our weaknesses in interest or management style.

4. Evaluate Client Sources: Who is going to pay you? Evaluating your clients and sources of clientele is crucial. Once you??ve acknowledged that the practice of law is a business and, unless you are doing pro bono, you have to make sure that you are serving clientele that appropriately appreciate your services: in other words, they pay you.

Hang in there, while we discuss each of these concepts.

Part II: Self Analysis

It is important that you know your professional skills. At least once every few years, you should sit in a room when you have a good solid 30 minutes and ask yourself these questions:

1. Your World: What makes you happy? Things could be as simple as exercising, hiking, tending to animals or pets, hunting, performing, singing, simply spending time with family, spouse or significant others, reading or other activities.

Do you expect or seek fame?

How important are ??Creature comforts??? Cars? Boats?

What about your family??s expectations?

How are your personal relationships?

Do you make time for hobbies?

Is traveling important? Where? Why?

If you will write these things down, it will help you focus on the type of activities you are going to emphasize in your personal life to accomplish those interests. You will also see patterns emerge and ultimately you will find out how to do more of those things.

Many people have been brought up with a work ethic which indicates that happiness should only come as a secondary by-product of success at work. But it helps to remember: this is your one and only life. Make sure you minimize your regrets.

2. Your Skills. Ask yourself these questions:

a. What are you good at? List your skills.

b. Do you have good academic knowledge?

c. Are you good at finding the right answer?

d. Do you have good communication skills?

i.. Are you a good writer?

ii. Are you a good speaker and can you speak extemporaneously?

e. What are your memory skills?

f. Do you have interpersonal skills or ability to relate and empathize with clients?

g. What about your judgment when it comes to finding solutions?

h. Are you a ??detail?? person? Do you rely only on writings, or do you simply rely on memory?

i. Do you have technical or engineering skills that can be put to use in practice?

j. How much do you want to work?

If you are honest with yourself, it will help you to adjust your goals and income.

Part III: Seeing Law as a Business

1. The Concept of Practicing Law ??

a. What Impact to do you have on the work that you do?

b. What is your business model?

c. Will you only be performing hourly services?

d. Contingency Work?

e. Flat Fee for ??the whole job??? (How will you define it?)

2. Personal goals -

a. Do you want to be high profile, low profile?

b. Who will be your client base for this proposed business model?

3. Making it Cash-Flow- you can??t pay the bills with good intentions.

Lawyers are paid problem solvers (i.e., pro bono aside, you can??t work for free), so it is important that every lawyer understand his/her financial macrocosm/microcosm? Perform this exercise, which is dubbed the ??4 hour per day method:??

a. Create a monthly budget for everything, including your office overhead, your personal overhead, home mortgage, car payments, etc. and then add a comfortable amount of savings on top of that of not less than $1,000.00 per month.

b. Take that total monthly budget and divide it by 20. This resulting figure is the typical amount you will have to earn daily during the practice of law, given that there are approximately 20 working days per month.

c. Divide your daily amount by 4. In a perfect world that final number should be not greater than the usual and customary billing rate for an attorney of your experience. Any lawyer in private practice should be able to survive on about 4 paid hours per day.

Example: Monthly needs for all purposes (household mortgage, bills, office overhead) = $15,000 per month. Divided by 20 = $750 per day. Divided by 4 = $187.50 per hour.

Therefore, your economic microcosm is to be able to look at your output or time records each day and ask yourself: ??Will these clients I served today pay me for 4 hours of my time today??? Note, this doesn??t mean that you get to the office at 8:00 a.m. and get to leave at 12:00 p.m. everyday. But, for many lawyers a substantial portion of office time is not legitimately billable due to other obligations, volunteer work or events that infiltrate their time.

d. What if this process results in a billing rate that is too high?

If the use of this formula results in a billing rate that is higher than a lawyer of your age, experience or geography can support, you will at least see how many billable and collectible hours you are challenged to accomplish daily. It will force you to adjust your expectations accordingly, as well as, perhaps, your spending habits, or find ways to adjust overhead.

CAVEAT: Make sure you also have included in your monthly overhead plan, unless you are a salaried employee, to include and pay your taxes in a timely fashion and put away adequate money for retirement.

Part IV: Office Systems

Once you??ve assessed your skills, talents and weaknesses, adjust your office systems to maximize your potential. These include the basic systems:

1. Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses;

a. What is your firm capacity? How many staff do you have?

Bottom line: Do you have enough to respond promptly to client needs and office work-product output?

b. What is your state of technology/equipment?

Bottom line: Does your technology support your information needs?

c. Are you having any fun based upon the availability of staff and equipment?

Although stress is a regular by-product of practice, if your equipment or lack thereof causes you more, look at changing or updating.

2. Keeping files;

a. What numbering system?

b. How are they kept and retired?

c. How do you backup items on the office system?

Bottom Line: can you easily access client information, and is it safely protected?

3. Financial control:

a. Reviewing statements and checks;

b. Who is allowed to sign checks; and

c. Categorizing expenses for tax purposes: Do you do this daily? Monthly? Do you use codes? Or, do you enter it into a tax software system?

4. Managing phone calls: Always return phone calls (or have staff do so).

5. The Scourge of Managing Emails. Should you have a ??quiet time?? where you do not turn on your machine?

6. Communications;

a. How do you record outgoing communications?

b. How do you record incoming communications?

c. Correspondence: do you take extra care to craft your outgoing correspondence? Would everything you??ve written today look good as a 3 ft. x 4 ft. exhibit?

7. Work Product – Four Tips for Work Product

a. Get a mentor or a lawyer you trust to read you drafts of briefs. You will be surprised how your arguments will change if you take the opportunity to have another lawyer look at that work. Unquestionably it will improve you work product.

b. Preparing for a hearing. Make sure you make your argument to either a group of friendly lawyers or others first. Always talk to people as if you were sitting at a kitchen table. Ask how the argument sounded to them. Did they understand you? Always make sure you tell an interesting story and have a theme.

c. The Rule of Primacy: When requesting relief from a Judge in a hearing always tell the Judge what you want first before you go into any background: ??Judge, in this motion I am asking you to compel X to attend a deposition next Tuesday.??

d. Drafting contracts and other documents. Make sure you understand the law involved. Don??t simply borrow a form from another lawyer. Always look at two or three different forms and compare provisions.

Part V: Who is Going to Pay You? – Evaluating Clients

1. What do you know about this client that is coming in?

2. What do they want you to do?

3. Are you the first attorney to discuss this client??s problem? Are the you second? Are you the third?

4. Are you asking appropriate questions and are you finding out that the particular problem that this client is asking about is just ??the tip of the iceberg???

5. What is the likelihood of this client being able to pay you for the entire project? Hint: if the client is being sued for defaulting on a financial obligation, there is every danger that he will default on his obligation to you too.

6. Analyze your firm capacity. Do you have enough staff to handle a complex case? If you don??t, don??t attempt to do so.

7. Learn to say ??NO.??

Part VI: Working as an Ethical Lawyer: The Four Responsibilities

The Texas Lawyer??s Creed reminds us that we have four competing duties:

1. To your client;

2. To your fellow lawyer;

3. To the administration of justice; and

4. To yourself

All of your activities during the day should be vetted through these four responsibilities. Whenever you have a question or a difficult situation, consider applying a question of whether or not the responsibilities are being met through the proposed course of action.

Part VII: Bad Things Happen ?? How to Handle a Grievance

Every Lawyer should know where to find the Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure. The easiest place to instantly access them are at www.txethics.org, which is the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism. Outside those rules, however, here are the three most important tips, which lawyers familiar with the system will impart:

1. Always respond timely and completely;

2. Never respond pro se. Always have some lawyer you trust review your response or write it for you;

3. If the Grievance Committee finds ??just cause,?? know your deadlines: must make election within 20 days of receipt to either have an evidentiary panel or District Court.

Part VIII: Know What Clients Want

Few lawyers are aware, because we often do not listen to them, of what our client??s value about our services and advice, and want THEY want from us. A survey performed almost ten years ago revealed this desires, in this order of priority:

1. Collaboration (we try to achieve their goals);

2. Accessibility (we keep them ??in the loop??);

3. Good Listener/Effective Communicator (we make them feel that we hear their concerns);

4. Accountability (we don??t blame-shift, even to office staff or other team members);

5. Respect and Courtesy (remember, they??re the customer); and

6. Competence (isn??t that odd? Our professional competence is LEAST important!)

Part IX: Three Cardinal Rules for Success

Years of law practice inform me that these concepts are inviolate:

1. Always tell the truth. (Ultimately, there??s far less paperwork with the truth)

2. Treat every client like they were going to live next door to you for the rest of your life.

3. Never sue a client. It is fraught with peril.

Part X. Improve and Defend Your Profession: Give Something Back

As attorneys, we have both a professional duty not only to improve the profession, but to defend the profession from unwarranted attacks. We hold a public trust, at the very least:

a. to support the fair administration of justice;

b. to make sure people understand the judiciary is the third branch of government; and

c. to speak out as a true professional when you see undue criticism.

Part XI. Define Your Own Success:

Follow the Rules and Your Heart, and You will be a Success: Here is a definition for ??success:?? (attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

??To laugh often and much; to win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.??

Part XII: Resources Available from the State Bar:

1. Join the Texas Center for Legal Ethics & Professionalism; www.tethics.org. Cost is $100.00 per year and comes with 3 free hours of online legal ethics per year.

2. Law Practice Management ?? www.texasbarcle.com/cle/lphome.asp. This is the homepage for law practice management. It includes the following:

a. Resources on how to start and build a law practice;

b. Flying Solo;

c. Startup Kit for Small Firms;

d. The Ten Minute Mentor;

e. Hanging Out Your Shingle;

f. Opening and Managing a Law Office;

g. Secrets of Success;

h. The Guide to the Basics of Law Practice (also accessible through Texas Center for Legal Ethics);

i. The New Lawyer Course;

j. The Self-Assessment Tool.

The resource also includes the following sections on law practice management:

a. Professionalism, ethics, discipline and malpractice;

b. Where to practice;

c. Administrative and financial assistance;

d. Technology, including a product specific technology review and legal research advice;

e. Marketing client relations and business planning;

f. Practice areas;

g. Mentors and professional development;

h. Minority issues;

i. Quality of life issues; and

j. Non-traditional career paths. This includes a complete guide to contract lawyering.

Sept 2008

Over a wonderful respite weekend last month, I read Jeffrey Toubin’s book on the Supreme Court, “The Nine.” It was terrific, and just “gossipy” enough to keep your attention for hours at a time.  Holy smokes, the reader is alternately amazed by some of the intellects which have occupied those hallowed halls, and chagrined by the pettiness and self-importance of the egos which all-too-often usurp their judgment.   But I loved the “insider” stuff:  according to Toubin, Justice Kennedy’s colleagues criticize his flowery opinions; written with an eye toward quotation, as if he envisioned certain passages forever “highlighted” as precedent in law books.   Rhenquist wrote considerably more temperately: it’s about the decision, not the literary composition adorning it.   But ultimately, greatness requires communication.  The reader is reminded of the majesty of a well-written opinion, and how remarkably some justices have expressed our common goals, our fears and our quest for justice. Obviously, nearly all this scribendi has taken place before television and the digital age robbed us of both our attention spans, and the need to communicate with something other than electronic grunts.  Yo! Know-whu-I’mtogginbout?

Despite our best efforts to stress the importance of organized and thoughtful written communication, student writing skills are declining faster than Hummer sales.  The idea of actually writing a letter or pleading in longhand (as Justice David Souter still drafts his opinions) would reduce most lawyers to sniveling wrecks.  Yet Souter, according to the book, doesn’t even have a television! And get this: he doesn’t use a Blackberry, he still eats blackberries!

As far as our own prospects for advancing the art of communication, I can only quote Clark Griswold, from the “Christmas Vacation” movie:  “Look around you, Ellen. We’re at the gates of hell!”

It didn’t start recently, I agree, but our deterioration is accelerating: For example, in the 70’s, the contest was to see which college athlete could throw in the most “you know’s” into a post-game interview:

“The coach was you know telling the team that you know we should come out you know strong and you know not give up yards so that we could you know move the ball forward and you know win the game so we all you know pulled together.”

I still remember Professor Reuschlein, the distinguished former Dean of Villanova Law School, losing his temper during my class on partnership law, saying to the offending law student “No, I don’t know and I never will know until you stop insisting that I know!”

From dumb to dumber: we had the “Valley Girls” who [any parent of a teenager will confirm] continue to influence entire generation with their liberal distribution of “likes:”

“He’s all, like, I didn’t do anything and I’m, like, yes you did and he’s, like, you’re not the boss of me and I’m, like, well you need a boss because you’re, like, stupid or somethin’, and he’s, like, what—everr!”  [Where’s the duct tape when you need it?].

But now, the Generation X-er’s have really hit a new stride in contemporary colloquialism:  turning every declarative sentence into a question.  You’ve all heard it:  you’re getting a report from a 20-something about what they did over the weekend and at the end of every declarative sentence, the intonation goes up higher as if they’re asking you a question:

“So I was going to the maaaaaaaaall?  And my friend couldn’t come wiiiiith me? But, I was depending on her to loan me moneeeeeeeey?  So I couldn’t buy the shoes I waaanted?”

Don’t you feel like grabbing these little morons on both shoulders and asking them “What the hell are you asking me for?  Weren’t you there?”   One can only reasonably interpret the interrogatory nature of their report to mean, “Are you minimally bright enough to understand these communications?”  Grrr.

One can only imagine what damage these “digi-dults” (digitally-influenced young adults) are doing to the language with text messaging, which uses shortcuts like “UR” for “you are.” OMG! LOL!  God save me from these idiots.  They will never be my BFF.

A friend of mine says that his high school son had more than 1200 text messages last month alone, meaning he “texts”  more than 40 times a day.  Have you ever timed how long it takes to send a text message versus picking up the phone and calling someone?  Jay Leno actually got two 20-somethings to stand on either side of the stage next to two Morse Code operators.  Leno turned over a message at the same instant and told both sides to see who could communicate the message faster, the dot-dash guys or text- messagers.  The Morse Coders got the message through in one-half the time.  You could die of starvation before you could text your order to the pizzeria (apparently, there’s no shortcut for “pepperoni”).  Between the wasted hours playing video games and text messaging, it’s a wonder than anybody has time to get tattooed.

I’m beginning to feel the same way about sending emails.  Not only are we consistently seeing how emails can be taken out of context and used against us at trial, it actually takes much less time to make a private phone call to the other party and say the same things, with no digital trail!

Okay, I realize that I’m somewhere between social commentary and being a cynical old grouch, but I treasure and enjoy a great intellectual conversation in the company of friends, sometimes even judges.  So, do we socialize better over the Internet and by text-messaging?  Nope.  Psychologists are saying that people that communicate only through email are definitely stilted in their in-person social interactions.   (But you can always check their “blog.”  But shoot me first.)

Okay, so I’ll need a plan.  Perhaps I’ll follow David Souter’s lead.  He simply refuses to communicate that way.  Doesn’t watch TV, and doesn’t “do” email.   Any ideas on the best marinade for my Blackberry?

Keep the faith.

Editor’s Note:  In spring of this year, Claude Ducloux, who has written his award-winning “Entre Nous” column since 1992, traveled the State as a Candidate for State Bar President. Under State Bar rules, the Austin Lawyer’s Journal was prohibited from publishing his normal Entre Nous column in our March issue. He wrote this while campaigning.]

ENTRE NOUS

May 2008

As I sit here in yet another Southwest Airlines gate in one of many Texas airports, I have no idea how this adventure will end.  I’m nibbling on yet another little packet of peanuts that have become a staple of my campaign diet. By now, “Spirit Magazine” has long ceased to hold my interest.  I’ve just finished another day of campaigning for State Bar Prez, walking through a gaggle of law firms, corkscrewing through dozens of floors of high-rise office buildings, shaking hands and passing out brochures to lawyers who politely greet you, many of whom can scarcely mask their discomfort with the intrusion to their workday.

To limit their pain, I’ve honed my campaign pitch to a sentence or two which I can utter in a single breath. I hand the brochure, shake the hand, ask for support, and poof, I’m gone.  Moving on… next office.  My gracious handlers who have offered (or have been ordered) to walk me around are unfailingly impressed with my speed and efficiency.  I add a throw-away gag every now and then to break the monotony: “Check it carefully: Every tenth brochure has a $10 bill.”   My visit invariably provokes a series of uniform responses.  Usually a smile to acknowledge the effort, or a chuckle followed by a “will do” or “I’ll take a look” followed by the appreciated show of Texan courtesy, “Good luck.”   Occasionally, I just get a stunned look, as the listener, suddenly torn from intense concentration, tries to unravel the message:  “wha… the hell?”   To those lost souls, I try to work in an apology and my appreciation for their time.

The most gratifying things are hear are from those lawyers, who actually review the brochure and find common ground.  Often, I’m four offices down the line, when a head pops back out of an office and says, “Hey, I was in the 1^st Cavalry Division, too!” and I raise a fist in their directions, acknowledging the message.  Others comment as fans of the Bar & Grill Singers or relate another experience we have in common.  It’s always a great feeling when lawyers remind me that we worked together on something in the past.  My single negative comment came while touring a big firm when a lawyer looked me straight in the eye and said, “You represented my husband in our divorce.”  Sorry, I snap. I’m lost for a reply. I eke out “How’d I do?” with a crooked smile.  For the life of me, I can’t remember the case, but it reminds me that it was still a emotional event in her life.

One really wonders how significantly this whole “out of office” campaigning affects the election.  By time this is over, at the end of March, I will likely have personally met or dropped brochures in the chairs of almost 8,000 lawyers from all parts of the state.  Still, that’s only about 10%.

So much simply depends on how people like the candidate’s brochure and experiences, and (I surmise) the type of practice each candidate has.  So, although I have generally experienced very warm welcomes and good feedback, the outcome is certainly anybody’s guess.  I have not the foggiest. The message I’m facing is that Austin has had too many regular State Bar Presidents, and my opponent’s city, Fort Worth, hasn’t had one in 52 years.  Hmm…

Visiting over 6,500 lawyer’s offices also left some impressions about the immediate environment lawyers choose to create. I’d guess that at least 20% of lawyers now already use two monitors, or much larger monitors where two documents can be viewed simultaneously.  Some overachievers have three screens.  By the time you add the ubiquitous Blackberry, Treo or other PDA, it’s a wonder we get anything done.  A never-ending inundation of data. Now, I’m a pretty good multi-tasker, but I have no idea how anyone gets anything requiring intense concentration completed, given the multitude of distractions, unless you turn that stuff off.

Observations: Tons of lawyers eat lunch at their desks, like I do most of the time. And office décor:  I have seen the most beautiful offices (like Steve Stodghill’s, the managing partner at Fish Richardson, Dallas, who definitely had the coolest office), and some of the scariest:  a lawyer in one large firm could not see over the mess on his desk, nor was there room for anyone to sit in his office due to the 5 foot his piles of paper everywhere!  It looked like a Hollywood set decorator had been instructed to create “the messiest office in the world.”  All of those lawyers always say, “But I know where everything is….”   That, sir, is crap.  No one could know what’s under that blanket of documents.  Jimmy Hoffa could be buried there.  There could be a Buick in here somewhere.

Sadly, I am asked far more often about my sanity to doing this than I’m asked about my vision for the State Bar. “Why in the world would anyone want to do this?”

And that attitude is likewise reflected in the turnout: only about 30% of lawyers bother to return their ballots, and that’s on a big year (usually having a Dallas/Houston interplay).  That’s a shame, because I believe that, in the next 5 years, there will be huge changes which will affect the practice of law.  The powerful lobbies which desire to emasculate the rule of law with new limits, regulations and impediments which will put more nails in the courthouse door, are moving in again.    How many more absurdities like the Texas Residential Construction Commission can be forced down our clients’ throats?  We better be ready to fight for our rights.

Another problem:  the vast majority of Texans can’t afford legal services, despite the fact that we’re continuing to churn out thousands of new lawyers each year.  How do we make sure everyone has access?   The cost of litigation is choking the goose which has laid that golden attorney-fee egg.

Was this campaign worth it?  I’m too tired right now to tell, but yeah, probably. Ask me again after you read this.  I’m sure to be in a better mood regardless.

Editor’s Note:  Claude lost the election statewide by 127 votes. Although he won 83% of the Austin vote, 60% of Austin lawyers(4000+) didn’t return ballots. Your vote counts!

When I was in law school, studying under Hammurabi I, the notion of  lawyer advertising was abhorrent; it was obscene. “Goodness, we’re professionals, not appliance salesman!” my professor told us, the edge of his lip quivering with anger.  Instead, with duplicitous temerity, law firms instead regularly published and shared “fee schedules” guiding lawyers on how much to charge a client for various legal services, a practice which the US Supreme Court found a bit…anticompetitive.  Lawyers violating the law?  Shocking.

I love irony.  Which reminds me: in a matter related to lawyer competence, we all need to appreciate the greatest irony of the now fabled Hopwood decision, which threw out UT Law School’s admissions program.  All these brilliant law professors couldn’t design an admissions program which could pass legal muster.  Hey, Timmy Tenure, not so easy here in the real world, is it?  Truly, many of these men and women are brilliant.  But I’ve been acquainted with more than one to whom I wouldn’t entrust defending a parking ticket.  But I digress.

The next whistle stop was Bates v.State Bar of Arizona,  in which the US Supremes said in 1977 that even lawyers have right to commercial speech.  And the real advertising began.  As we know, some of it is dreadful, stupid, and demeaning.  I cringe when I read that dopey ad,  “It helps me sneak up on ‘em.”  Does that really work?  Regardless of my nausea, the State Bar has seen, curiously, in the disciplinary cases that although the public doesn’t particularly embrace advertising, they’re not offended by lawyer ads.  Surveys of jurors who’ve rule for respondent lawyers say, “we’re bombarded with every type of ad all day long, from drugs to dogfood.  So, if a lawyer advertises… eh…no big deal.”

So now, it’s really on, and now the “deep rug” firms are now huckstering it up (albeit in an incredibly dignified way) with expensive marketing, public relations, and the best part… slick slogans!  Don’t you love it?

Hughes-Luce:  “Know-how to Win”

Haynes-Boone:  “Setting Precedent”

Thompson-Knight:  “Impact”

On the downside, apparently, is that when you get a slogan, you lose your ampersand.

Now, obviously, somebody’s making some money on these firms.  I can see a young marketing grad, meeting with the firm partners, his cropped hair spiked with gel, his blue serge suit hugging his figure except for the bulges caused by the complement of wireless accessories which are de riguer for anyone under 30.  We’re talking theme, we’re talking attitude, It’s about public image, baby. It’s big bucks.   And I want in.

It’s time I found a new gig, something that doesn’t require doing anything more than selling a dream. Promising self-imposed importance surrounded by the fog of dignity.  It’s marketing.  I’ve come to cash in.

But I refuse to lie.  Every one of these proposed slogans are unfortunately tainted by my experience as a lawyer. So, here’s my sampling of proposed big firm slogans.  The firm names are fictitious of course, so don’t try to figure who it fingers.  Just be amazed. And don’t ask me how I do this.  I couldn’t teach it.  It’s a gift.  Here they are:

Halfbright & Jawalski:   “Billing a Better Future”

LockBox Libell:  “Your Money is Safer With Us”

VanGogh & Ellens:  “Vision… to See Beyond Conflicts.”

Winled:   “More Words for your Dollar.”

Wackson & Johnson, Anti-Trust Litigation:  “The Rainforest is Overrated”

Graves Doughnut:  “Building Chinese Walls since 1948”

Fred Berry, Family Law:  “She’s a Tramp, …and We’ll Prove It!”

Bigger, Staff & Clever: “Raiding the AG’s Office since 1982”

Curshnuts & Flimmer, Personal Injury: “You’re not Cured until They’re Insured”

Brown & McKing, Personal Injury defense:  “Overstaffing at Reasonable Rates”

Alex, Jones, & DuBonnet, Appellate Law:  “Briefly Speaking, We’re the Best”

Sheiss & Merdant:  “Courage to Go Deep”

So remember, in a culture which treats the truth like a pedestrian on a crowded freeway, image is everything.   I’m also available to help you choose website colors and how to smirk for the photos.  Have your people call me.  I’ll be wireless.

Keep the faith.