Taking a Charge

This weekend I am going to spend some time watching the NBA playoffs on TV. Some might say too much time, but that would just be an opinion, not a fact. I'm not alone in having this weekend plan in my state.

Perhaps that is one reason that I was inspired to write "Taking a Charge" for the Oklahoma Bar Journal this week. The column is not mainly about basketball, but refers to the fact that lawyers so often have to "take a charge" and absorb punishment on behalf of their client. It could be the lawyer defending a high profile client where the community is already convinced of guilt or any number of difficult things that happen in contested family law matters. It may be that a client has disregarded the lawyer's directions and now the lawyer is forced to take the heat for it. Over time taking all of this stress can have very negative consequences for the lawyer, including stress-related illnesses or burnout.

You cannot take care of your family and clients if you do not take care of yourself. I hope you download and enjoy this column. Try to take care of yourself. It is OK to take some time off to watch some hoops--or do whatever it is you enjoy. Download TakingACharge.Calloway.oklabarj

His First Jury Trial

Trial lawyers have great stories. Veteran Oklahoma City trial lawyer Rex Travis shares the story of his first jury trial. I pass this along not as a long practice management tip, but just because it is a great story. Download FirstTrial.Travis.OklahomaBar

Oklahoma Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference Combines Education and Fun

What Oklahoma event featured football legends Barry Switzer and Billy Sims, along with rock stars Tina Turner and Mick Jagger? The surprising answer is the 2011 OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. The football legends both attended in person, while the rock stars were there via homages from our outstanding musical entertainment, New Odyssey.

Solo and small firm lawyers wear many hats. They are management and labor. They are professional service providers who also have all of the roles of any small business owner. On any given day, they may serve as chief marketing officer, chief information officer, budget director and custodian.

Juggling all of these various roles while serving clients can be challenging. The OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference is designed to help these lawyers with information about managing their practices and updates on substantive law. Read the rest of this story at http://www.okbar.org/news/front/2011/06/21-solo-success.htm. 

Check out the photos from the conference at http://albums.okbar.org/2011/SSF-2011 Our photographers did a great job of capturing the conference this year. There are photos of many of the attendees and speakers, as well as our special guest presenters, Tom Mighell and Sarah J. Read.

Oklahoma Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference 2011

Next week many of us will be at the Oklahoma Bar Association Solo & Small Firm Conference at the Downsteam Resort near Quapaw, Oklahoma.

We have more choice in sessions than in the last several years. One of our guests will be Tom Mighell, longer time blogger and author of the new book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers. He will discuss several technology topics and even share the podium with me for some of them.

Another special guest is Sarah Read, who will be discussing client communications issues. While this will be my first time learning from her, she comes highly reccomended.

But we have a lot of great sessions and social events planned. Check out the CLE programming here and other event details here. it will be a great event.

The Attorney's Speech by Travis Pickens

Can you spot all of the ethcial violations in the relatively short telephone conversation in the attached article from Oklahoma Bar Association Ethics Counsel Travis Pickens?  Download The Attorneys Speech - Travis Pickens - April 2011 OBJ Reviewing this very short article might give you some good reminders about keeping out of ethical hot water in your client communcations.

OBA's Opening Your Law Practice Program

I'll be spending the day tomorrow speaking to impressionable young lawyers, along with some more experienced lawyers. The Oklahoma Bar Association is putting on our free program Opening Your Law Practice in Tulsa, with the Oklahoma City session scheduled next week. We do one program in the spring and these two in the fall. (We renamed our New Lawyer Experience Program to this more accurate title as about 1/3rd of the attendees were veteran lawyers, retiring judges and the like.) You can read more about the program here and see the complete schedule here. To my fellow bar association executives, you really need to offer one of these programs if you do not. In these economic times, many young lawyers are opening a law office directly out of law school, whether they intended to or not. If you help them with this major challenge, they will not forget it in the future.

Hot Legs(?) and Customer Service

Dan Hull, on his What About Clients?™ blog, featured a Rod Stewart video with his post Hot Legs: Great--and Enduring--Customer Service Sites. I am honored that he included my blog in a fairly long list of blogs that "feature useful models, ideas, best practices and tips on effective customer service" in Dan's words. Check out these blogs, which include many of my "must read" blogs.

This morning a number of new Oklahoma lawyers are being sworn in as new lawyers. Some of them have jobs, but too many still do not. On the next two Tuesdays, some of them attend a program called Opening Your Law Practice, which is provided as a free service from the Oklahoma Bar Association. One of the messages that they will hear from me is about providing great client service. Most lawyers do their jobs well. One of the distinguishing factors between lawyers is superior client service. Whether your clients will refer others to you, "dis" you or just forget about you after their matter is over depends more on their perception of how they were treated than on any other factor. Doing great legal work in the mimimum requirement. But for you to succeed with your future plans and goals, all of your clients should receive courteous, timely service. They should clearly understand what is happening with their matter as free of legal jargon as possible. They should be regularly informed of the status of their matter. And they should know that you care about them and their matter.

New Lawyer Experience Program Set for Oklahoma City

Today 65 new lawyers were sworn in as members of the Oklahoma Bar Association.  Next Tuesday, April 27,  many of them will be attending a free program we put on called The New Lawyer Experience. You can see the complete program schedule online here. Several states have these these "transition to practice" programs and we feel like we have a good one. But it is not only brand new lawyers who attend this program, but also experienced lawyers. Some are leaving employment to set up a practice for the first time and others have been in private practice for a long time and think a "refresher" law office management course might be good. Oklahoma lawyers can still enroll for our program here and those of you from other jurisdictions should feel free to pass along this info to those who might help set up a similar program in your state.

Debate on the Free Access to Law

Apparently there is a fairly robust online debate about the state of the free access to the law. As we know the law is generally found in case opinions and statutes, which are, generally speaking, in the public domain by their nature. Scholarly treatises and law reviews provide analysis and commentary. Other research tools provide help in finding the applicable law.

A professor with long-term ties to West Publishing praised the free access to law movement for increasing competition, but also downplayed free legal research tools as being second rate. (One wonders if the esteemed professor has ever paid for legal research out of his own pocket.) Needless to say his statement provoked responses and you can find links to view his initial video and the responses here.

Well, the free access to the law movement is thriving in Oklahoma. Years ago, our Oklahoma Supreme Court decided that the law should be free and available in Oklahoma. The court's website, OSCN.net, has available to anyone all of the court opinions in a searchable format, back to statehood and even before. The online law library there includes the statutes as well as the case opinions, links to the administrative code, fee and bond schedules and many other resources. The largest counties already have their case files online and work is underway on the other counties.

Any citizen can also go to the local county courthouse and find the county law library and use Westlaw with a subscription paid for by the state.

For legal research in other jurisdictions, the Oklahoma Bar Association provides its member-lawyers access to Fastcase for the other states and federal courts. Last month OBA members had over 30,000 transactions on Fastcase.

There may be a debate about free access to the law in other jurisdictions, but not in the Sooner state. OSCN.net is recognized as our Website of the Week.

150 attend OBA Tech Fair & TECHSHOW Roadshow

We had a great time at the OBA Tech Fair this week. Thanks to Tom Mighell, Debbie Foster and Adriana Linares for taking the time to come teach our members. I have gotten lots of great feedback. And for those of you who didn't attend, from Oklahoma or anywhere else, please consider attending ABA TECHSHOW 2010 March 25-27, 2010 in Chicago.