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Very few law firms fail because of bad lawyers. Even the best lawyers can watch their firms fail, often due to poor planning and poorer management. While several large firms have gone down in spectacular fashions recently, many smaller firms have disappeared quietly, failing for reasons that could have been avoided. Here’s an overview of the ways small firms fail – and how you can avoid their fate. Brilliant lawyers can be terrible businesspeople....

In 1979, Mary Ann Hynes became GC at CCH Inc., the first woman general counsel of a Fortune 500 company, according to Corporate Counsel. Since then, women’s ranks of general counsel at Fortune 500 compaines has grown. In 2014 the figure rose to 106, with women leading 21% of Fortune 500 company legal departments, says Corporate Counsel. Invariably, findings like this bring up questions and comments. Some praise the growth, while others think the “growth” is moving too slowly....

The Association for Corporate Counsel, a bar association for in-house attorneys, has honored its “Top 10 30-Somethings” at its May CLE training. These young in-house lawyers are good examples of the changing roles facing in-house counsel, as companies begin looking to their legal departments for more than just legal advice. The awards honored young lawyers, between 30 and 39 years old, who are “proactively approaching challenges and striving for innovation,” the ACC’s president said....

Friday, federal prosecutors asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a pretrial ruling limiting the reporter’s privilege in a CIA leak case, ABC News reports. While the scope of the reporter’s privilege is not explicitly defined, the Supreme Court ruled in Branzburg v. Hayes that reporters cannot invoke the First Amendment as justification for refusing to testify before a grand jury. The government claims that, under Branzburg, a reporter must testify about a crime that he witnesses, even if the crime is a source spilling state secrets to the reporter....

You spent years training your legal secretary (because an associate would’ve been too expensive, ungrateful, and wouldn’t have learned anyway), and your secretary is really good. But if you plan to go into semi-retirement while relying on your secretary to keep the wheels turning and profit machine churning, you might want to think twice about how hands off you go. Too much, or not enough, semi-retirement, could lead to full suspension or worse....

An Ohio man suspected of possessing child pornography was compelled to put his face in front of his iPhone X in order to unlock it for law enforcement. This is being reported as the first ever use, worldwide, of Apple’s Face ID in a criminal investigation. And while a warrant was secured, as a result of Apple’s latest security patch, investigators were only able to access chat logs, photos, and more for a brief period of time....

Note to Death Row inmates: nag your attorney incessantly - your life may depend on it. Robert Melson was convicted of three counts of capital murder in 1996. He burned through his direct appeals by 2000 and SCOTUS denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on March 5, 2001. Start the timer. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), an inmate must file a application for a writ of habeas corpus within one year of the date that the state court judgment becomes final....

I won’t wait till April. Now that we have that out of the way, how can you harness the power of modern technology and smartphone apps to make this year’s tax deadline suck ever-so-slightly less? For us disorganized procrastinators, we’re going to have to dig though student loan bills, online purchases, charitable contributions, and other potential deductions that we failed to track throughout the past year. Plus, maybe, just maybe, we should change things up and start tracking those deductions as we go along....

When should the in-house attorney handle a divorce for the company’s chief executive officer? Like never, unless the CEO is Elon Musk. That’s a fact, not an opinion. Musk’s divorce attorney is also general counsel for Tesla. As every lawyer knows, there are potential conflicts galore in that scenario. But if you can get around them, should you even try? Conflicts Galore In this case, Todd Maron is an exception to the “no way” rule....

In the United States, social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo Answers generally can’t be held liable for the content user’s post online. Responsibility for defamatory posts, infringing media, or crazy rantings generally falls on the poster’s shoulders, not on the platform that hosts the content. That’s not the case in other countries, however, where websites may have greater responsibility for user’s content. Case in point: German prosecutors are currently considering whether to force Facebook to take a more active hand in ensuring its user content complies with the country’s anti-hate speech laws by removing users racist and threatening posts....

Ohio Judge Harland Hale has sued the woman who accused him of sexual harassment, Brenda Williams. Also named in the suit is her attorney, Michael G. Moore, and another woman, Lynn Hamilton. Hamilton has also made accusations of harassment against the judge. Williams accused Judge Hale of harassing her. She used to work as a Spanish-language interpreter at the courthouse. Williams was fired in November 2010. She says that city officials helped to cover up the incidents....

The witness seemed to ignore a question so the attorney asked again loudly: “Isn’t it true you were paid $5,000 to throw this case?” “Oh, I’m sorry,” the witness said. “I thought you were talking to the judge.” It’s a joke, but there’s a lesson here. No matter what you think, don’t criticize a judge – at least not in court. “La La Land” Attorney Gino Giorgini learned that lesson the hard way....

Lawyers need as much help as they can get in order to stay organized and connected with other people. The amount of technology out there is overwhelming. Lawyers practically need technology to keep up with all the choices. One pretty popular program application is Evernote. Evernote has been useful to bloggers, researchers, and professionals as a quick and easy repository for online research ideas, URLs, and other information that can easily get lost....

For years, Volkswagen sold millions of cars designed to evade environmental controls. The company installed “defeat device” software which cheated emissions tests and disabled pollution controls when its diesel cars were on the road, allowing them to release 40 times the legal pollution limits. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling environmentalists! It’s safe to say that Volkswagen’s emissions fraud has been a complete disaster – and not just for the environment....

Quoting a price for legal services to a client is like playing a piano. It requires some skill, but more importantly it must sound good. If clients don’t like your quote, maybe it’s because it sounds like you are just beating a drum. You can’t tell clients the same old story to justify fees anymore. In the modern law practice, a little technology can help adjust your pitch. 3E Matter Pricing Robert Ambrogi, a legal tech writer and lawyer, says that budgeting legal matters is the “bane of many law firms....

What’s a Snapchat? It’s a simple app. It allows users to send self-destructing pictures to each other. It’s pretty much a glorified way to send pictures of your naughty bits to others, with the assurance that the image will delete itself after a few seconds. We recently cited the company’s rumored $4 billion valuation (the actual number is somewhere around $2 billion, per Business Insider) as a sign of the coming techpocalypse....

New Jersey. Wait, what? How could New Jersey be the best state to have a marijuana practice? It’s about the numbers. New Jersey handed out 10,000 new medical marijuana cards the first half of 2018, growing at about twice the rate from 2017. They don’t call it the Garden State for nothing. Growing the Industry While lawyers have been chasing the marijuana market in states like Colorado, California, and Washington, New Jersey has gone through an especially interesting transformation....

Limited-scope representation is becoming more and more common, as clients seek out alternatives to traditional legal services. But dealing with an opposing party who only has limited representation can raise serious ethical issues regarding communication. What can an attorney say directly to someone with limited representation and what has to go through their lawyer? Thankfully, the ABA addressed this conundrum in a recent ethics opinion – and we’ve boiled it down to the basics....

Purdue Pharma is reportedly exploring bankruptcy to deal with nearly 2,000 lawsuits that blame the company for its part in a national opioid crisis. In an exclusive report, Reuters explained that the privately-held company faces “significant liability” for OxyContin and its role in the epidemic of drug abuse. The cost of litigation and market losses are mounting, as plaintiffs attorneys look for billions of dollars in damages. The company has denied liability and deflected questions about bankruptcy, but an upcoming trial could change everything....

Law firms can often find themselves walking down the primrose path of disaster thanks to some common mistakes when it comes to client management. Despite being a service industry job, the legal client is not “always right” (and neither is the law firm for that matter). But if you aren’t skilled at managing your clients, you could find yourself facing angry clients, bad online reviews, or worse. Below are five common mistakes law firms make when managing clients....