Solos/Small Firms

Would solos take a hit if limited licensing of nonlawyers were allowed?

While the recommendations in the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education’s draft report (PDF) regarding law schools is what grabbed the most headlines, it also called on courts, state bars and bar-admitting authorities to come up with frameworks for licensing of limited legal service providers. But Richard…

Sep 27, 2013 3:30 PM CDT

Law firm associate disciplined for helping suspended partner practice

When Minnesota attorney Louis A. Stockman had his license suspended last year for client neglect and other misconduct, an associate took over his Duluth law practice. That got attorney Brian Campbell Fischer in ethical hot water, too. In a Friday order he was put on probation for two years by…

Sep 10, 2013 6:05 PM CDT

Midwest firm to acquire Los Angeles legal shop, plans further growth there

A nearly 350-attorney Midwest law firm is planting its flag on the West Coast with the pending acquisition of a 10-attorney Los Angeles legal shop. Thompson Coburn plans to finalize its merger with Freedman Weisz in early October, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The Thompson firm currently has offices in…

Sep 10, 2013 2:40 PM CDT

Law firm splits, but partners will still share office space

Partners of a Colorado law firm found they had different ideas about how to market their disparate practices. So they decided to split Donelson Ciancio & Grant into three law firms. However, they will still share the same Broomfield offices and continue to work together when cases draw on their…

Sep 4, 2013 4:30 PM CDT

Ex-client’s ex-husband gets probation in law firm threat case

A former client’s ex-husband got probation after making angry threats over the phone to an attorney at his wife’s Minnesota law firm a couple of months after their divorce was granted in March 2012. Fred William Messig, 44, could have gotten as much as five years in the Washington County…

Sep 3, 2013 5:45 PM CDT

They started their own firm right after law school—and so can you (podcast with transcript)

Unlike fellow graduates in the Class of 2012, Katie Kizer and Amanda Graham weren’t worried about finding jobs after law school--because they had decided a year earlier that they would start their own criminal-defense firm together. It’s been liberating, they tell ABA Journal Podcast moderator Stephanie Francis Ward.

Sep 3, 2013 2:13 PM CDT

Attorneys are federally indicted in claimed multimillion-dollar law practice frauds

The feds announced indictments this week against attorneys in two different states who are accused in claimed multimillion-dollar frauds concerning their law practices. In Illinois, attorney, radio talk-show host, author and financial adviser Kathleen Niew, 57, is accused of bilking a suburban Chicago couple of $2.3 million, the Chicago Tribune…

Aug 29, 2013 8:00 PM CDT

Suspended lawyer accused in claimed $1M-plus client extortion scheme takes mail-fraud plea

A prominent South Carolina lawyer accused of extorting over a $1 million from his clients pleaded guilty Wednesday to mail fraud in federal court in Columbia, one of 10 charges he had faced. As part of his plea deal, Richard J. Breibart, 62, will get a recommendation from prosecutors that…

Aug 28, 2013 8:50 PM CDT

See the video: Law firm puts fake associate to work with summer hires, urges actor to stir up office

In what may be the best prank of the season, a Chicago law firm put an actor to work as a purported summer associate among its actual hires during their first week of employment. Partner Jay Edelson tells the ABA Journal the idea was to to help break the ice…

Aug 19, 2013 3:17 PM CDT

How boutique firms can take on BigLaw (video)

Michael De Chiara, founding partner at Zetlin & De Chiara LLP talks to Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia about guiding his boutique construction law firm through turbulent times in the legal profession. “As goes construction, as goes the U.S. economy,” says De Chiara. “We all know what happened in 2008. As…

Aug 15, 2013 5:52 PM CDT

‘My sentencing instincts suck,’ blogging judge admits, wishing ex-con-turned-law-student well

This week, we noted that Shon Hopwood—who wrote a rare winning certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court while in federal prison for bank robbery and has since been released and entered law school—has been hired as a clerk for Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals…

Aug 9, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Lawyer, 65, opens own solo firm, says ‘I should have done it 25 years ago, but couldn’t’

Corrected: A former dairy farm manager, Mark Breneman always wanted to be a lawyer. For decades, working as a financial planner seemed as close as he could get to his lifelong goal. But in his 50s, he found a way to begin attending classes part-time at Hamline University School of…

Aug 5, 2013 5:55 PM CDT

Lawyer says going to lunch saved his life in office shooting spree

Timothy Upton usually doesn’t go home for lunch. But the Louisiana lawyer did on Tuesday, a decision he credits for saving his life when a disgruntled former client broke into his Covington office and fired some 60 bullets. Police say Roderick Risk, 47, was looking for Upton. The office manager,…

Aug 5, 2013 3:30 PM CDT

Blogger says farewell to tech expert who treated solos with respect, not like ‘desperate morons’

Ross Kodner, a legal technology expert who died this week at age 52, could have set his sights on large firms and large paychecks, Carolyn Elefant wrote at My Shingle. “With his talents and energy, Ross could have easily abandoned the solo and small firm community to focus on helping…

Aug 2, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Ex-client committed suicide after breaking into law firm and firing dozens of rounds, say police

The owner of a small Louisiana law firm says a former client broke through its security system Tuesday and “started shooting everything” inside. The shooter is dead in the Covington incident, and partner Tim Upton told the Times-Picayune he believes the shooter committed suicide. The shooter was identified as Roderick…

Jul 30, 2013 9:35 PM CDT