Uncategorized

I will never forget this night. My former law firm had a partners’ meeting one night in a hotel suite. The agenda is clear:  before dinner, we will discuss case management, and after dinner, marketing and business development. During the first hour, I was criticized for excessive spending on expert witnesses and case preparation. This meeting more »

 Here’s a little secret. The highest-profile trial lawyers often do a poor job at depositions. Why?  The more experienced trial lawyers spend little time preparing for depositions (of course, they will never admit this).  Young lawyers spend more time preparing for depositions, but have no game plan and seem to wander aimlessly during the questioning. The more »

This is probably happening to you right now. One of our team members places a call to a referral partner to request an update about a referred case.  Our firm referred the client to our referral partner about 2 years ago and we just wanted an update. Then, we get the shocking news. Our referral partner reports more »

 ​You’ve heard other lawyers say this phrase often: “I don’t have enough time in the day.” There’s a reason for this—you don’t value your time.  That’s right, you are doing tasks that you should never do and as a result, you don’t have enough time in the workday and you are continually stressed out (I’m more »

 I have a confession: our firm’s top paralegal has not worked a single day in our office. Our amazing paralegal, Kelly Gonnelly, works from home in Tennessee. But that’s not all: many of our firm’s team members work from home and we rarely, if ever, see them in our office. Law firms look very different today more »

I wrote my new book, Win Today, to make one point: the small things you do every day matter more than anything. Do one little thing, every day, that will move you forward in the direction of your goals and dreams, and over time, miracles will happen. Consistency in small daily activities leads to amazing more »

Do core values really matter? Let’s find out. A senior reporter from the HuffPost (formerly Huffington Post) calls me to discuss a national story about a suicide case that our firm handled.  Before I said a word, I knew that I had to get the consent of our client.  Once consent was obtained, I still questioned more »

This story never gets old. The defense expert is on the witness stand and seemingly out of nowhere, the expert begins testifying about new medical records that you’ve never seen before.  You stand up to object to the newly disclosed medical record, and the defense counsel makes some feeble excuse for non-disclosure.  The Judge takes a more »

The meeting was not going as I had hoped. For the first 90 minutes of this meeting with a prospective client in her living room, I told her how our law firm could help in her wrongful death case involving the death of her husband.  Nothing I said seemed to resonate.  Our prospective client stared silently more »