The MSBA High School Mock Trial program is a great way for Minnesota lawyers to give back to the local schools. Volunteers are needed to judge the trials this winter, held at local courthouses across the state. The time commitment is minimal but the payback, terrific.

Time Commitment – 8 hours, max
Volunteer judges are asked to spend three or four hours preparing for the trial;  the trial itself lasts two hours. Volunteers are assigned to a trial in pairs. Judges Jim Dehn & Pete Cahill will facilitate a training on December 16 at 3:00. You can attend in person at the MSBA offices or by teleconference. The training has been approved for 1.5 CLE credits. For more information on judging, check the Mock Trial website.

Payback – be amazed, appreciated and meet some people too
The students and coach participants clearly spend hundreds of hours preparing the cases and learning how a trial really takes place beyond what they hear in media clips or on sensationalized television shows.  Certain students master the Mock Trial Rules of Evidence. I was amazed to hear them argue evidentiary rules using the case facts and law.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and judge trials with lawyers from throughout the state.

The students really appreciate the judges’ time and effort, and it is a great way to give back to your community.

Contact Emily Reilly, MSBA Mock Trial Manager at 612.278.6306 or email her, ereilly@mnbar.org,  if you want to volunteer or get more information. Please join me and volunteer to judge. Working with dedicated high school students is a tremendous privilege.  I cannot wait for another great High School Mock Trial year in 2012!

© Andrew Steil for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mock trial, Volunteer

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Based on the number of calls we get at the MSBA, even experienced lawyers get all the boards and offices dealing with lawyers confused. So for them and especially for the approximately 600 new lawyers sworn in October 28, this post is for you. Here’s what we know:

Minnesota State Board of Law Examiners - Contact for information regarding applications, admissions, bar exams, and bar results

The Minnesota Supreme Court created this Board in 1891 to act on its behalf to license attorneys. At the time, the license fee was a whopping $5.00. For many years, law school was not required, rather an individual need only pass a written examination. Not so these days…

Minnesota Lawyer Registration Office - Contact to pay your annual registration fee (Hint: the fee exceeds $5.00)

The Office website allows you to pay your current registration statement online (or you can mail it in), update your contact and insurance information, or request a replacement license or Certificate of Good Standing.

Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) – Contact to join this voluntary professional association

The Bar pools the talents and experiences of lawyers, judges, and legal professionals across the state to improve the practice of law, advance the goals of the justice system, and benefit the community. Your state bar membership is tied to county bar membership; you must join one of the county bar associations when you join the MSBA. The MSBA offers lots of ways to help you practice – low-cost continuing legal education through its sections, free legal research, free forms, checklists and other practice resources, a reduced price on a document automation system, access to member list-servs, and Colleague Program to name a few. Bench and Bar and Legal New Digest keep you up-to-date. Click here for a membership guide.

Minnesota CLE  - Contact for continuing legal education opportunities

Minnesota Board of Continuing Legal Education (MBCLE) – Contact to report your CLE attendance

In 1975 Minnesota became the first state to require continuing legal education. At that time, the Board was created to administer the Supreme Court Rules for Continuing Legal Education. As such, the Board accredits courses, keeps CLE compliance records, and reports non-compliant attorneys.

Minnesota State Board of Legal Certification - Contact for information on the certified specialist designation

Created in 1985, this Board oversees the process by which an attorney can become a certified specialist. Certification is one way for the public to identify those attorneys who have demonstrated proficiency in their specialty area.The Board has accredited the MSBA to certify attorneys as Certified Real Property Law, Civil Trial Law, Labor and Employment, and Criminal Law Specialists. Click here for more information.

Lawyer’s Professional Responsibility Board - If all goes well, you will contact them for advice. If not, they’ll call you.

This Board investigate complaints against attorneys. Enough said on that.

In addition the Board promulgates opinions to interpret some of the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct and issues advisory opinions upon request to licensed attorneys and judges. A request can be submitted by phone or email and a staff attorney will call you to discuss your question. The Board’s policy is to treat inquiries as confidential.

Now if you’ve got all that and can keep it straight, you’ll find law practice a snap. If not, we’re here to help.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
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Or are you still looking for a job but starting to think about opening your own firm instead?

This week we’re welcoming many new graduates to our profession. If you’re one of them and are thinking about flying solo, we want to help you get started on the right foot. 

Whether you’ve already taken your first steps or are still considering your options, we’d like to cordially invite you to join PracticePack, a group created exclusively for new solos by the Minnesota State Bar Association.  PracticePack started last year and is a great resource, giving new lawyers a chance to learn the ropes from experts and from each other. Our new year kicks off at our next meeting in November.

Who?  PracticePack focuses on lawyers going straight from law school to solo or small firm practice, whether they’ve just graduated or have been job-searching. If you’ve already been working as a lawyer, this might not be the group for you since we not only work on getting your firm off the ground but we also provide support for those who have never practiced before.

What? Monthly meetings with your peers and guest speakers to get your firm up and running. At our November meeting we will cover the practical basics of actually getting your firm in place (filing with the Secretary of State, setting up a bank account, malpractice insurance, etc.). Members from last year’s group will also field questions about what they’ve learned about the realities of solo life such as budgeting and dealing with student loans.

Some of the topics we have planned for future meetings include: trust accounts and bookkeeping; tech on a budget; building your own website (we’ll be building them at the meeting); and practical ethics. In addition, there’ll be time to ask questions about what’s happening in your practice (including that question that you think is “too dumb” to ask other lawyers).

In between meetings, the MSBA will sponsor a private forum (sort of like a Facebook feed) just for PracticePack participants where you can chat, network, and ask for help.

When? November 15, and the plan is to have all meetings on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. This meeting is planned for 7:30-9:30 am. We may revisit the time for future meetings, but the meetings tend to take up a full two hours and we don’t want to eat half your day.

Where? TBD.  Sign up (link below) and we’ll keep you posted by email.

Why? Because we want you to succeed!

How? Sign up is located at this page:  www.mnbar.org/practicepack

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: PracticePack

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I’ve collected my thoughts and want to share my top takeaway points:

Marketing & Practice Management

• Get involved in your community. Show that you care, that you aren’t there to just take a dollar out, but that you want to put one back in too.
• Make a Business Plan. Businesses with a written business plan make 10-15% more than those without.
• Try (and track!) several approaches to marketing: “Half of advertising works. I just wish I knew which half.”
• Sign up for mnfindalawyer.com. Ok, sounds like shameless self-promotion (it’s an MSBA site), but at one of the breakout sessions a few people mentioned getting more referrals from mnfindalawyer than at other much more expensive directory sites.

Clients

• Statistics show that customers will recommend a business with excellent service significantly more than one with good service. (People talk about things they hate and love more than things they are just okay with!)
• Care more about how your client feels about the result than about the result itself. For example, If you go to a coffee shop and have an awful experience but the coffee is great, you still won’t like that coffee shop.
• Don’t assume your clients know you value them. Thank them for their business.

Technology

• Don’t use black boxes to redact text in Adobe. You need to use the actual redact tool or people can still get at the text.
• Your best password is at least 12 characters, numbers and letters, mixed case, and not a real word.
• You can lock PDFs to prevent printing (and thus scanning/OCR), and you can also lock track changes on in Word to prevent someone from slipping in unseen changes.

Trends & Predictions

Carolyn Elefant identified 3 business trends we should apply to legal services:

• Hyperlocal: A business operating in a well-defined community, intended for and created by residents of the area.
• Bespoke on a Budget: Custom service tailored to specific needs, but uses technology to do this on a budget.
• Legal Triage: Handling just the parts of a proceeding that are most important, this is a form of unbundled legal services.

Matt Homann‘s 2020 predictions:

• Clients will be older.
• Clients will be more informed than ever.
• 80% of content will be consumed on a mobile device.

Want more? Here are our reflections on last year’s conference.

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Marketing, Minnesota CLE, SoloSmall, Technology

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• The ABA Journal and the University of Alabama teamed up to honor Harper Lee for her book To Kill a Mockingbird by creating the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The Prize will be awarded in September for the book-length fiction that “best exemplifies the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.” The finalist novels were announced in June. Read them on vacation and cast your vote.
• If “book-length” seems too daunting, you might try comic books. Last fall the New York Times profiled an exhibition at the Yale library titled, “Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books.” For more discussion on the legal ramifications of comic book characters’ escapades, check out the blog Law and the Multiverse. Both resources recommend certain comic books.
• Sick of reading? All right, then how about watching one of the ABA Journal’s 25 Greatest Legal Movies? (But remember, the book is always better than the movie.)

Happy time off.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book, movie

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