Law And More

Lawyers Offered Freelance Assignments: Grab 'em

Freelancing has its own career path.  And more businesses are hiring from that pool of talent.  For example, according to the U.S. Census Department, 22.5 million U.S. businesses do not have any employees, reports BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK.  Increasingly they are recognizing the cost efficiency of the just-in-time workforce.  In addition, the odds are better for fresh thinking from freelancers who are plugged in to having to sing for their supper every day.

This path has been open to lawyers for a while.  Those who have been attuned to changing trends developed their own branding in the "temp market."  They made themselves known to those doing the hiring, ranging from placement agencies to the law firms themselves.  Also, they have established the kinds of work habits which ensure future assignments. Those include being available when needed, willingness to pull the all-nighter to get the job done, developing special areas of expertise, and providing insight about the clients' competition.

The work is there for lawyers who can adjust to leaving the status of a full-time job behind.  Also, since the assignments are so varied, contract lawyers could wind up more marketable than those locked into law firms.

Although many lawyers are unwilling to think this way, there can more overall security in freelancing than in the full-time space.  When freelancers lose one client, they still have their other clients and the know-how to acquire more.  As full-time lawyers lose their jobs in the legal sector, they often face not being able to find a comparable one - or any practicing law.  In addition, they have no idea how to put themselves out there as a freelancer.

Not that freelancing is a walk in the park.  The market keeps shifting. Last week, three clients hated my first draft for them.   Fortunately, I have a lot of experience "turning around" what isn't working for a specific client.  Here it is Sunday and I have three now-happy clients.

Caroline Kennedy: On jury in Manhattan Supreme Court for dealing crack trial

Jury experts can crunch and interpret the Big Data research on this one.  Will it help or hurt Nelson Chatman, accused of dealing crack, to have on his jury Caroline Kennedy?

Breitbart reports the Kennedy is sitting on that jury in the state supreme court in Manhattan.  What we know about this member of the Kennedy family is that she has a JD.  Her cousins have had a history of problems with illegal substances.  And, the family ideology tends to be liberal.

Chris Christie: Fat and magical thinking

Will Chris Christie, the politico once called "Governor Sandwiches," be able to keep off the weight he loses through lap-ban surgery? Time will tell. 

The odds, though, are against it.  History shows that we porkers tend to reach for panaceas which don't yield permanent weight loss.  For us Baby Boomers that magical thinking took the form of getting prescriptions for diet pills.  I was fat then. I am fat now.  The only approach which kept the weight off for years, at least when I kept with the program, was that developed by Weight Watchers. 

The NEW YORK POST reports that the medical doctor George Fielding, who did Christie's lap-band operation, is being sued for alleged malpractice here the U.S. and in Australia.  Fielding is Chief of the New York University Weight Loss Program.

NEWSWEEK Purchase a Mistake, Says Barry Diller - Should he have Tina Brown intern at Abovethelaw.com?

IAC head Barry Diller not only said it was a mistake buying print NEWSWEEK, overseen by Tina Brown.  He added that he didn't have great expectations for its digital compression into the Daily Beast.  If he wants to save the media property he may have a shot at that by sending Brown to Abovethelaw.com (ATL) as an intern.

Clearly, Brown, who uses the anachronistic term "zeitgeist," can't get with the zeitgeist of a digital era. For example, the articles for Daily Beast have too many ideas, as in the olden days, not one idea that is played with in brilliant and provocative ways.

At ATL, David, Elie, Staci, and Joe have down cold the minimalism of driving one message forward until readers are persuaded or resist so aggressively that the piece goes viral, then results in behavior change.  I have a hunch that it was Elie who is responsible for shaking Millennials out of denial that law school had a lousy ROI.  His rhetorical crusade was relentless and it worked, finally.  Applications are down.  

Also, ATL doesn't need the big bucks to operate which burdens Daily Beast.  It has a volunteer army of tipsters who in almost cult-like fashion pony up smug or abrasive memos from law firms.  And, thanks to the new rules on aligning the monthly repayment of law school student loans to monthly income the writers aren't going to bellyache too much about making a lot more.

What could Intern Tina pick up at ATL?  Plenty, including:

Keep it simple.  If the attention span of those who scored in the 99 percentile of the LSATs is low, lower is that of the demographics for Daily Beast.

Throw high earnestness, not money, into coverage.  Human beings are suckers for a wrong that needs to be made right, not sophistication created with money.

Show you're having fun.  Everyone wants to be a part, in some way, of ATL because it seems a throwback to the heady days of the ad business in the 1960s but without the undertow of sadness of "Mad Men." 

Be accessible.  Staci told me it was good to hear from me.   Would the folks at Daily Beast make me feel like a pest?

Who should supervise Intern Tina?  Joe has the ideal temperament for that. In return? Intern Tina can pay off all the ATL members student loans.

 

Gray Economy: Liberals don't cry for us poor

The tenements where we lived in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey buzzed with economic activity. My uncles sold pink plastic umbrellas and shoes they swiped from the docks. The yenta across the street earned commissions on getting your brother out of prison. 

Officially, though, most of us were so poor that we qualified for free clinic visits at the Jersey City Medical Center and two weeks at the  "fresh air" camp in Butler, NJ run by do-gooders. But we had no trouble ponying up tuition for Catholic school, frilly communion dresses, cash for new cars, lavish weddings, and eventually single-family homes in the suburbs. 

The reason was the underground or gray economy. In THE NEW YORKER,  James Surowiecki estimates it's currently worth about $2 trillion, none of which is taxed or figures in employment figures.

Liberals, don't cry for the poor. We always manage to manage.  And, if the officially jobless Millennials, including recent law graduates, get a hang of how to get work in the gray economy they will not turn out to be the lost generation. The trick is understanding how the networks underground operate and conforming.  Unlike those based on Ivy League credentials, measurable income, and conspicuous consumption, gray networks function via instinct, especially about who to trust.  For example, it's well known the snitch winds up in the ditch.

JDs could quickly get up to speed on earning a good buck doing whatever if they move to marginal urban areas.  Everything in terms of services and products is for sale and nothing has a fixed price. Satisfaction is guaranteed with baseball bats.  What the government loses in tax revenues it could gain in eliminating functions like consumer protection performed now by Richard Cordray.

In contrast to marketing, "public relations is closer to relationship building," Brian Tannebaum, on Abovethelaw.com

Too many law firms have signed contracts with social media "experts' for myriad services which have not brought in new clients or prevented existing ones from defecting. 

It's not so much that the "experts" were cons.  More often the law firm didn't invest the time in shopping around and getting up to speed on the right questions to ask.  Therefore, just as happens with uninformed consumers, they feel "cheated."

The timing, therefore, is great for Brian Tannebaum's column on Abovethelaw.com explaining the key difference between various kinds of marketing, including those focused on social media, and public relations. Depending on the law firm's promotional needs, public relations might be the better investment long term.

From the get-go, Tannebaum points out that public relations is very different from marketing per se.  It's, he points out, "closer to relationship building." The competent public relations firm puts the law firm leadership in contact with the right people, both possible clients and media, and events and steers them clear of the wrong ones.  Regarding the latter, a good public relations agency will know that the managing partner shouldn't deliver the keynote speech at a conference which will produce more controversy than the firm can handle.

Since law firms want to connect with possible clients they will need to focus on the commercial sector, not other lawyers.  One way to do that is for the leadership to position key partners as thought leaders.  Once that is established, they will not only receive myriad invitations to speak at influential business forums.  They will also be sought after for submitting bylined think pieces and for interviews and background information for brandname business media.

Searching for a public relations agency, as Tannebaum notes, requires putting in face time with at least a few, listening, asking questions, and investigating track records.  To find out about the firms in your area you can check out O'Dwyer's Public Relations Directory.  Please click here for free access to that database.  It could be useful to become "PR Literate." One easy way to do that is to get a paid subscription to O'Dwyer's Public Relations Daily Online Newsletter.  Here are the details about subscribing. 

As a ghostwriter/speechwriter, I research and create materials for thought leaders which resonate with the right constituencies. For a complimentary consultation, please contact mgenova981@aol.com.

Rehab: Fairy tale of drunken prince/princess who lives happily ever after

The fairy tale in America is that addiction, ranging from alcohol to food, can be cured through the seemingly progressive but expensive institution of "going to rehab." Pack the prince/princess or oneself off to those 28-day stays and the light will be turned on.  The once-addicted will live happily ever after. The monsters of the mind have been slayed.

That's the mythology.  The reality is presented in the book "Inside Rehab" by Anne M. Fletcher.  The author previously published "Sober For Good."  Her research for this book included staying in more than 10 rehabs.

Essentially, "going to rehab" means bcoming a consumer of a largely unregulated industry whose methodologies are unproven and success rate frequently not measured.  Yet since science and society know so little about the causes and "cures" for the chronic disease of addiction, the industry continues to thrive.  That could be easily changed if Congress, insurance companies, and employers demand transparency about approaches and outcomes.

One theme in "Inside Rehab" is the high relapse rate of rehab alumni, although each stay might cost from $28,000 to $40,000.  Often alumni return to the same rehab several times.  Those of us in 12-step programs, which cost nothing but also have no hard data on outcomes, hear constantly tales of those multiple stays, without results, that is long-term sobriety or being free from all addictive substances.  The tragedy of that is the illusion of help. 

Since lawyers have a higher than average rate of addiction they might, through their trade associations, push to get some answers about this approach which might have promised them and their colleagues a second chance and hasn't yet delivered.

Amanda Knox Reveals She Considered Suicide: Does that help/hurt the brand?

Suicide remains a taboo subject in America, a nation built on super-human notions of optimism despite the odds. 

So, we wonder if it will help or hurt Amanda Knox's book sales that she revealed, reports USA TODAY, that during her incarceration she considered suicide.  To be exact, her plan was to swallow broken glass or suffocate herself with a garbage bag.

Americans might prefer to envision her as a young woman who never wavered in her hope that her name would be cleared in the court of law and the court of public opinion.  Books about that kind of emotional strength become best sellers.  An example was "Sea Biscuit."

The Knox memoir will be released at the end of this month.

Cold Calling: ROI better than for responding to help-wanted ads

Around that conference table of seven lawyers who can hire you is one or more who might be attracted to your unsolicited pitch for a full-time position or contract assignments.  You have a better shot approaching that professional directly rather than through a help-wanted ad.  Here's why:

No Competition.  Hundreds reply to ads.  Your application is framed that way, that is one among hundreds.

Shows initiative.  You hunted that person down, including getting the email address and some information.

Not linear.  Your pitch can take any form since it is not in response to the particular items specified in an ad.

Flatters.  Every human being craves attention and you have given it.

Way back in the 1970s, "What Color Is Your Parachute?" documented that more work comes through unsolicited resumes or cold calling than through answering ads.  Also, what's now the bible of job searching, it stressed that the best at applying for work gets the work, not necessarily the best qualified.

The trick is to create a pitch that grabs the recipient by the eyeballs, heart, and soul.  That takes practice.  For that reason, target your early versions of a pitch letter to positions and contract work you are neutral about.  We all get better with practice. 

In the past two months I have earned more money from assignments from cold calling that I have earned from all the ads I answered in the past two years. 

Reputation Rehabilitation: Easier for politicos than lawyers

Former elected leaders Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford, reports POLITICO, are trying for comebacks. They will probably pull those off.  It is simply easier for politicos to make it back than it is for disgraced lawyers.

Politics requires the ability to raise money and get votes.  End of story.  If the politico who has fallen from grace can do that than that's that.  However, in the field of law, where so many lawyers are getting nailed for embezzlement or not paying their taxes, a license is involved. 

Getting that license in the first place demanded evidence of high character.  For example, former NEW REPUBLIC journalist Stephen Glass, who was found to make up stories, wasn't admitted to the bar in New York or California.  He is appealing the second turn-down.  Those following that chronicle wonder why in the world he studied for law when he knew that in order to practice it he would have to be admitted to the bar.

Disgraced lawyers, especially those who serve prison time, could come back in another line of work.  The classic example of that was former Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon Chuck Colson who received his law degree from George Washington University.  In prison he found spirituality and went on to become a famous religious evangelist.

Given the 24/7 media cycle and the fierce competition for traffic, likes, shares, comments, and tweets, a professional's misdeeds or even stupid moves become public property quickly. That's the new normal.  So, another bit of emerging new normal has been the art of reputation rehabilitation.  The rules for that are different for each line of work.