During the deposition phase of discovery, lawyers usually have to take and defend depositions. But even though a lawyer might defend as many depositions as she takes, the typical lawyer will spend a disproportionate amount of time preparing to take the other side’s deposition. Though it makes sense to spend more time preparing for depositions […]
In 2012, Jordan Furlong wrote a blog post for Stem Legal spotlighting a firm that had the best law firm bios in the world. He was talking about Marque Lawyers, a full service firm in Sydney, Australia that took a fully human approach to the development of their attorney profiles. If you visit their website, you’ll see […]
After years of success in your paralegal career, you find yourself in a slump. You’re burnt out. You’ve been working hard for so many years that you didn’t realize your career was suffering from your hard work. It’s easy to get into the rut of coming into the office, putting out fires, making things happen […]
This post is the follow-up to my first, where I discussed the traditional method for impeaching a witness with a prior inconsistent statement in a deposition. This technique involves the three C’s – commit, credit, confront. I’ll now go into some advanced, and arguably more controversial, aspects of impeaching the witness. Why are we impeaching […]
Staying ahead of the changes in the law has always been a challenge that paralegals have embraced. In fact, it’s part of our job and helps us better assist our attorneys in providing the best legal representation possible for clients. However, technology has changed how we do our jobs. The traditional roles of attorney, paralegal, […]
In my recent post on Taking What You Can Get From a Witness, I received a question from a reader who asked, “[h]ow often are deposition transcripts or videos successfully used to impeach a witness?” I don’t know the answer, but the key to the question is successful impeachment. Many more lawyers attempt impeachment than […]
A few days ago I came across an interesting infographic published by The Rainmaker Institute with survey results from a survey conducted by the American Bar Association (participants are ABA members). About 850 attorneys from across the country responded to the survey, representing solo attorneys, mid-sized practices, and large law firms from a range of […]
I worked for an attorney who would say on a weekly basis, “This is not an emergency room. We are not performing life and death surgery.” He used this statement any time someone in the office hit the panic button. I’ll admit that he had a unique perspective because his wife was an emergency room […]
Preparing for your first deposition? Make sure to read my first post on this topic to get organized. Moving on, I’m providing advice for keeping your composure and working out any anxiety you may have before the day of your deposition. Practice. Practice asking your friends and family deposition questions. Depose them for 5-10 minutes […]
In part one of reputation management basics, I laid out some of the reasons why it’s important to establish your presence in legal directories and on review websites. To follow up on that foundation, I’m going to cover what should be included in a legal profile and what to do when you find less-than-flattering reviews and […]
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