“If a generation is going to arrive in the jury box that is totally unused to sitting and listening but is using technology to gain the information it needs to form a judgment, that changes the whole orality tradition with which we are familiar.” November 2008, Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, Sir Igor Judge. So begins [...]
While researching something completely unrelated, I came upon a brief article by Justice Maria Rivera (First District Court of Appeal, Div. 4, CA) regarding writing briefs for appeals entitled: The Ten Commandments of Brief Writing. Before delving into the “Ten Commandments”, Justice Rivera leads off with the following quote from Mortimer Levitan from the article, [...]
Final day of Productivity Week here at An Associates’ Mind. As such, I thought I’d take a moment to highlight a couple of older posts on productivity that you might have missed in the past: Remember Everything, Find Anything This was a post detailing my use of the Evernote software. It’s great stuff: cross-platform, cloud-based, [...]
It’s been a long case/matter. There were a number of false starts and wrong turns. Mountains of discovery documents. The client was difficult. The opposing counsel was worse. Long periods of research and late nights at the office drafting voluminous documents. After two years: the case is finally resolved, the shucks are out of your [...]
“Lawyers have two common failings. One is that they do not write well, and the other is that they think they do.” This line is from Wayne Schiess’s (of Legalwriting.net) “Legal Writing Is Not What It Should Be.” It focuses on producing better legal writers at the law student and new lawyer level. The 9 Failings [...]
Just saw this over at Overlawyered. (You read them right? They’re great.) “Deposition Tricks: The Dirty Dozen” by Neil Dilloff of DLA Piper. The following practice tips probably will be of the most use to younger litigators. To the more senior lawyers who use these tricks, this litany will resonate loudly. The Big Pause How Boring [...]
When someone mentions Cornell to a lawyer or law student, I would imagine most of them immediately think of Cornell’s excellent Legal Information Institute, which maintains the most robust and well designed catalog of US law freely available online. However, they also offer one of the more robust collections of open project management templates online. Like I mentioned a [...]
I wanted to highlight a bit about developing the initiative necessary to make changes in our environment and personal habits. Often times people mis-manage their time in all areas of their life – personal, work, housework, emotionality, physically, etc. Or worse, they are not even aware that they need to be actively managing certain areas of their lives. Management is [...]
What follows is a raw data dump of my first month of blogging, sans details and analysis. If you want details, analysis, breakdowns, graphs, charts, etc, then you’ll need to download the (free) PDF version of the report at the end of this post. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I put a good bit [...]
A problem often facing new lawyers involved in litigation is a lack of planning and organization at the outset of a case. When presented with a new legal problem, it is useful to organize one position and develop a strategic plan before diving into the deeper technicalities and nuances of the issue. It’s also much easier [...]
Keith writes and speaks on Professional Development, Law, Technology, and Net Culture. Alabama lawyer. Interests: running, food, martial arts, Classics.
