What Lawyers Appreciate...

Julie Fleming-Brown and Stephanie West Allen have a bit of a meme going in the blawgosphere (and far be it for me to let a meme go un-participated-in). They've asked us to offer "any kind of content at all" on the subject of what lawyers appreciate.

Lots of people have talked about how much and in what ways lawyers appreciate clients. This is the first year in a long time I have not been affiliated with a large law firm at the close of the year, but memory still serves enough to note that lawyers at such firms in particular appreciate clients who bring their outstanding accounts current by year end. By and large there's enormous pressure (translating to various strong-arm tactics, both inside law firms and outward to clients) to make that happen.

Me? I've never been able to discern why December 31 was should be a day any more magical for collection purposes than any other day of the year. And moving away from how much we appreciate our clients (whenever and however they compensate us), I think lawyers who *are* with firms appreciate the ones that recognize a person has yet to emerge from law school with the goal of subordinating their existence to that of a firm. (A client? of course, and frequently; but not a firm.) Today's law firms face a considerable challenge, because there is no such thing as a typical lawyer, and no cookie cutter answer as to what those in the profession will consider worthwhile and fulfilling over the long haul. The only way of meeting that challenge is by offering a lot of options — something clients, incidentally, appreciate as well.

Though there's not much time to get in under the December 31 deadline appointed by the mistresses of this particular meme, I'd certainly enjoy hearing what Howard Bashman, Ruth Edlund, and The Anonymous Lawyer have to say on the subject.

[tag: lawyers appreciate]

Food In My Family

There's a Raffi song that begins with the lyric, "All I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly, and love in my family." Tyler tends to transpose the words a bit, but it's a sweet song and I have the feeling his version will be as accurate a description as any of the next couple of weeks for us, which will involve lots of family and probably very little blogging. Here's hoping you have a wonderful holiday season and New Year's, and a very lucky number '07!

Blogtagged

David Weinberger recently spread the blog tag meme my way, and I have found it best to take a subservient chicken approach to any of David's edicts. To play along I have to blog five things most people don't know about me, then tag — in worst possible chain letter manner — five further victims. (Whoever came up with the notion of asking bloggers to disclose five things people don't already know about them is brilliant, by the way. It prompts the tag-ee to either say something they've probably made it a point not to say, or come up with something new or unique they haven't got around to yet, or both.)

Five things you probably don't know about me:

1. I played the tuba fairly capably in our elementary school orchestra.


2. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings cover to cover every summer from 1974 - 1980.


3. For reasons I ascribe variously to divorce, death, and not ever being able to return to childhood, music from The Kingston Trio, George Winston, and The Little Drummer Boy will inevitably, even during the happiest of holiday seasons, reduce me to tears.


4. There's a better than 50-50 chance I'll wind up doing a stint as a yoga instructor during the next decade.


5. On the parent paranoia scale, I'm not so bad I insist on not flying with my husband, but bad enough I made Tyler get off the Newport Pier yesterday because the railings were too far apart.

I hereby tag:

Kevin Heller

Lisa Stone

Evan Schaeffer

Colette Vogele

Sabrina Pacifici

Tag: blogtag

Timely (If Not Appropriately Named)

After you get done chuckling about the fact Baker & McKenzie partner and privacy expert Theo Ling has guested on a podcast called "LyingOnTheBeach," and about the fact Baker seems utterly to have missed Ernie Svenson's post about better photos for your law firm Web site, do be sure to listen to the show, which looks important and timely:

Theo Ling, Partner of Baker & McKenzie a leading International law firm, talks about how the world of electronic storage and transmissions have dramatically changed the way corporations and individuals have to deal with privacy issues. There are many new laws people are unaware of and new laws in the making that everyone has to be know about if they want to be legally safe. Every new electronic invention opens up a whole new set of rules that we never had to be concerned with when we dealt just in the world of paper.

Cranky It Up

I caught my first two episodes of Cranky Geeks this morning while running with Tyler (who now likes to get out of his jogging stroller and run alongside). Loved: the hokey Bavarian-beer-garden theme music, the tone and pace, and Lisa Stone and Stowe Boyd on Episode 39. It'll be fun to perhaps actually watch the video some time (ha! my life is rapidly becoming a video-free zone). Didn't love so much: all the ads. But, they're worth putting up with, and of course eminently skippable on an iPod.