Government waste

This article highlights one of my biggest peeves about government. $20 million down the drain. It's amazing how you'll spend money when it's not your own.

http://newsok.com/article/2850644/1208946167?

"Memorial" Day

It's April 19. Today Oklahoma City remembers the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. If you stop in OKC, visit the Memorial and museum (plan on 3 hours).

Sorry for the delay

I know, each of the two people actually religiously waiting for each post have been thoroughly disappointed by my lack of updates. I've been doing that which everyone, especially those studying/practicing law should avoid, computer upgrades & server maintenance.

I'll post another one tomorrow.

Lost history

Here's a great article I found. Some of the glamor associated with older times is gone with all the new technology.

The thematic message

If you're not reading Susan Cartier-Liebel's blog, Build a Solo Practice, L.L.C., you're certainly missing out on several crucial pieces of information. That's especially true if you're reading this blog, in lieu of hers.

She recently made this post, outlining the several different things she has discovered in her 18 months of posting.

One of the suggestions she made is to "Define the mission of your blog, and stick to it."

This struck me, because I don't believe that I've ever specifically defined this blog's mission. I think this is particularly tragic, especially since I seem to blog about several different topics, all of which I believe to be connected.

So, here's my thematic message:

This blog is about my experience moving from work as a 3rd year attorney, and into legal practice. Remember, I am planning to enter solo practice directly from law school. I aim to give meaningful advice to other students/lawyers regarding my experiences, and some of the products or solutions I've tried. I'm not going to discuss law school, unless it's particularly meaningful (i.e. how law schools help students prepare for practice). I may occassionally discuss Oklahoma or national cases, when they have particular relevance on my areas of practice, although I prefer that you defer to someone more knowledgable than I.

You will get a lot of technology reviews, although others are more capable/knowledgable, because I love tech gadgets, and think that a great number of new lawyers want to know alternatives. In that same view, hopefully you'll get some information that can help, if not, please comment, and I'll see if I can fix that.

Finally, I'm simply one guy who's taking the opportunities, or stuggles, I've been given, and trying mix a particular quality of life and profession. From my view, there's someone out there who is in a similar position, looking for similar answers that don't seem to exist.

Take this as an open invitation to criticize my work, ask any questions you'd like, or more productively, offer meaningful advice that will help me build my practice, provide high quality legal services, and achieve my goals.

Thank you for reading, and keep on.

Let's get it started

I meant to write about this awhile ago, but alas, too many other things became a priority (see this post for a scathing remark about performance).

If you're a newbie, like me, here's a great article written by David Masters discussing how to easily move to a paperless office. I LOVE the idea given in number one to insert the date at the front of the file. Where I'm working, our filing system is so "skiwampus" that it's hard to tell what came first (don't even get me started on the correspondence).

Masters also notes that you should print to PDF. I agree, and can't emphasize enough the benefit of this. I use templates for nearly every document I create. Some templates, such as letters, have an automatic date adjustment or other feature, which adjusts with each new document created. While you can rename the document, and preserve some attributes, when you reopen the file on another day, the features adjust accordingly. Therefore, it's very difficult to determine when the original document was actually created. While I realize there are other methods like using Properties, the big concern is how do you prove the document was created at that time? Do you say, "Look Judge, the computer says I created this document on January 1, 2008," and try to appeal to the Judge's sincerety? Ever heard of the Competence rule? Good luck. (P.S., don't even get me started on the vulnerability of such methods).