Question of the Week

What do you think has been the most successful law firm merger, past or present?

There’s been plenty of talk about law firm mergers this year, from the continuing saga of the Dewey & Leboeuf collapse to the hopeful new combinations of Squire Sanders and Patton Boggs, Locke Lord and Edwards Wildman and the “nonmerger” of Morgan Lewis Bockius absorbing much of Bingham McCutchen. As…

Dec 10, 2014 2:00 PM CST

Do you check work email outside of business hours? If so, when do you unplug, if ever?

In Germany, Labor Minister Andrea Nahles has called for national “anti-stress regulation” that would, among other things, ban employers from contacting employees after hours via phone or email, NPR reported this week. Hanns Pauli of the Federation of German Trade Unions told NPR that advances in technology and growing economic…

Dec 3, 2014 1:51 PM CST

Ever have an encounter with the police that influenced your view of law enforcement?

Saturating the news this week is the report that a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Separately, a New York City high school recently invited the New York Civil Liberties Union to the school to…

Nov 25, 2014 3:10 PM CST

Has studying or practicing law made it more difficult for you to read for pleasure?

In the November issue of the ABA Journal, Black’s Law Dictionary editor-in-chief Bryan Garner writes about an encounter with a law firm partner who approached him with a problem: Ever since law school, she’s found herself scouring whatever she’s reading for most relevant, skimming “for the main point—as if for…

Nov 19, 2014 12:15 PM CST

Have you ever made a change in your day-to-day life based on a case you’ve worked on?

Last week, we noted how Seattle-based food-safety lawyer Bill Marler has decided to avoid certain foods based on what he’s learned representing victims of food-poisoning outbreaks. (Among them? Sprouts, raw oysters and prewashed lettuce.) So this week, we thought we’d put this question to you: Have you ever made a…

Nov 12, 2014 1:45 PM CST

Do you enjoy networking? Or does it make you feel slimy?

In this month’s Asked and Answered podcast, we spoke to a professor of organizational behavior and author of a recent Administrative Science Quarterly article titled in part: “How networking can make us feel dirty.” That got us wondering whether the “dirty” feeling is universal. Maybe some of you have always…

Nov 5, 2014 2:28 PM CST

How many bound law books do you have? Do you still use them?

Last week, we noted that law firm Kaye Scholer moved to new offices in Manhattan—without about 95 percent of its law books. Its new library has about 700 linear feet of shelf space, as opposed to the 10,000 linear feet its former location had. The firm did keep a set…

Oct 29, 2014 1:45 PM CDT

What questions do you always ask new clients?

A new client comes into your office for the first time. “At this meeting, it should be your No. 1 priority to launch what you hope will be a long, productive relationship by learning all you can up front,” Denver-based law firm consultant Merrilyn Astin Tarlton writes at Attorney at…

Oct 22, 2014 2:08 PM CDT

Which fictional character do you most strongly identify with, and why?

Earlier this month, for at least the third time in recent years, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia compared himself to Frodo Baggins, the hobbit who traveled to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings novel and feature films. “It’s a long, uphill fight…

Oct 15, 2014 2:55 PM CDT

What writing pointers do you rely on when drafting legal briefs?

This week, we noted research that found that lawyers who used intensifier adverbs—such as “very,” “obviously,” “clearly,” “absolutely” and “really”—in their briefs were more likely to lose their appeal than lawyers who avoided them. The exception? If the judge reading the brief also writes with a lot of intensifier adverbs.…

Oct 8, 2014 2:27 PM CDT

Have you ever had to break bad news to a client about a case? How did you handle it?

This week, we took note of some advice about how to share bad news with your higher-ups about your own shortfalls on the job. This prompted a commenter on that post to suggest that perhaps more useful information for lawyers would be how to talk to clients about disappointing results…

Oct 1, 2014 1:17 PM CDT

How do you describe to children what you do as a lawyer?

Your own children (or someone else’s) may have asked you what a lawyer is or what a lawyer does. Unlike many other occupations or professions, it might take more than one sentence to describe. So what do you say? Do you have different answers based on the age of the…

Sep 24, 2014 1:30 PM CDT

Do you work in a plush corner office, or nothing even close to that? Tell us about your workspace!

The law firm Paul Hastings said this week that while it plans to add up to 40 lawyers to its New York City office in the next few years, it will scale back its physical footprint there by 25 percent. Individual offices would be smaller, the firm said, and corner…

Sep 17, 2014 2:30 PM CDT

Do you have a fear-inducing cautionary tale about a legal mishap?

Last week, we noted a law review article positing that law professors’ use of fear-inducing cautionary tales (about making embarrassing or costly errors in briefs, etc.) is counterproductive. “Although some fear is productive and can motivate students to achieve,” article author and legal writing scholar Abigail Patthoff of Chapman law…

Sep 10, 2014 2:25 PM CDT

Tell us about your craziest classmate from law school

Nearly all students, from kindergarten through law school, have returned to classes at this point. In honor of that, we ask you to remember your time in law school—specifically, your fellow students. Tell us about your craziest classmate from law school, whether he or she was crazy smart; had crazy…

Sep 3, 2014 2:42 PM CDT