My blawgospheric and geographic neighbor Chuck Newton (read his blog for ideas on being a "third-wave lawyer" without much of the overhead and inefficiency that lawyers have traditionally had) had a post this weekend about Time, Toil, and Talent, which are the things that we, as lawyers, should be selling. If we aren't selling our time, toil, and talent, we're selling a commodity -- "divorces," in Chuck's

Sometimes -- often -- usually we prepare for trial only to have it not happen when we're expecting it to. ("Usually" because almost no case ever goes to trial the first time it is set.) We prepare and prepare and find ourselves ready or at least ready to announce ready, our loins girt, our witnesses subpoenaed, our files organized, only to be told to come back again

Apropos of resilience, What About Clients --> Geeklawyer --> I/P Updates post on the lawyer personality. It turns out that most of us are INTJ according to the Myers-Briggs Inventory. I'm eNFj. Fifteen years ago I was ENTP. What are you?

When we react with anger to someone else, we're generally trying to teach them a lesson. A judge once told me that anger is usually the result of either a loss of control or a perceived loss of dignity; I think that he got it right. When we try to teach another person a lesson, we're trying to show them that they can't take away our control

This article from Saturday's Houston Chronicle just came to my attention (thanks to Houston criminal-defense lawyer Steve Halpert for the assist). In a nutshell, it's an opinion piece (thinly disguised as news) about how the Harris County DA's office should be working harder to put homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill veterans in jail for longer terms. Here's the response I emailed to Peggy O'Hare, the author of the

I am not in trial. My misdemeanor possession of marijuana case, set for trial on Monday, settled. My client's dealer turned up to testify against him (Bad dealer. Bad!) and seemed to be a fairly solid witness; discretion being the better part of valor, my client chose not to risk a full conviction. Next up is a murder / aggravated assault case next week. I've learned that

Texas Penal Code section 9.04: The threat of force is justified when the use of force is justified by this chapter. For purposes of this section, a threat to cause death or serious bodily injury by the production of a weapon or otherwise, as long as the actor's purpose is limited to creating an apprehension that he will use deadly force if necessary, does not constitute the

I used to be an apostle of lawyers starting their own practices. I think it's the best way for a young lawyer to make a living and keep her soul. But it's been long enough since I started my practice that I'm not sure I know the environment well enough to recommend that course. This article from the Wall Street Journal makes the picture look pretty bleak

We trial lawyers often pooh-pooh the importance of business skills. "I'm a professional," the thinking goes, "not a businessman. I need to be spending my time honing and exercising my skills rather than running a business." The problem, of course, is that the business end of the law practice doesn't take care of itself. If the business isn't running smoothly, we face distractions that make us less

In a comment to my Anger and Fear post (in which I advocate trying cases in the moment and without fear), Oklahoma criminal-defense lawyer Glen Graham wrote: I disagree with the story. To me, it seems like the guy should being thinking about life. He should look for crevices in the rocks to grab onto and he should fight, fight, fight !!!. A lawyer who is thinking