Our Legal Rebels project—profiling 50 of the profession’s leading innovators—gets under way today. (Learn more about why we launched the project and what we hope to accomplish at LegalRebels.com/about.)
Jeffrey J. Hughes’ business card is printed in a conservative font—with black ink, of course—on nice, white card stock. It looks distinguished, like he’s someone who will come to court in a pinstriped suit and rescue you, if need be.
But he’s not wearing a suit today. If he were, the espresso machine he’s operating might blow steam on it.
On New Year’s Day 2007, Patrick J. Lamb was calling from Chicago, and his message to the lawyer on the other end was clear: “One year from today we’re starting our firm.”
Then Lamb hung up and quickly dialed two more numbers. His next commands were even shorter. “We’re on the clock,” he told litigators Nicole Auerbach and Mark Sayre.
Laurel Edgeworth prefers the driver’s seat. Tall, slender and athletic, her light blond hair cut into a sleek bob, the Sacramento, Calif., native is a master of control.
Within four months of graduating from law school, she passed the California bar exam, stepped into a full-time position at her firm, and launched an online business: Law Clerk Connection.
Richard Granat doesn’t smile or show much facial expression when he talks—often for long periods of time—about his numerous online ventures, all of which focus on using the Internet in legal services delivery to underserved firms and clients.
If you’re searching for David Van Zandt, look for the tall, blue-eyed man in a purple shirt.
Pride in your product, Van Zandt says, is crucial to a successful business. So as dean of Northwestern University School of Law, he wears something with the school color or a Northwestern logo every day.
Every day in private practice, Roderick A. Palmore thought about how he could distinguish himself as a lawyer. As the first black partner at Chicago’s Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, some say he had little choice.
Now executive vice president, general counsel, and chief compliance and risk management officer at Minneapolis-based General Mills, Palmore is judging how law firms outpace their competition.
It’s midnight, and corporate paralegal Denise Annunciata sits in her corner office, bleary-eyed, staring at her computer screen. There’s no view to relieve the tedium—her office being in the corner of her back bedroom in Framingham, Mass.
As she tackles a mountain of securities matters (aka blue sky work) in front of her, the other half of her brain rapidly sifts through ways to handle the unending influx of work.
We’re hitting the road, and we want you to ride shotgun.
