Hanging out with some of the carnies who came to town this year, I was astonished at how, in a mere 10 years, the carnival industry had become so professional. And they did it without even spending mandatory carnie dues on a public image campaign.
Friday is what the progressives call “Earth Day.” I prefer to celebrate my own holiday, “Human Achievement Day.”
The American system of criminal justice is based on the principle that a person remains innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the way it should be.
Attorney Diane Mader didn’t happen upon her successful practice, she planned it that way. Middleton-based Mader is a strong proponent of legal marketing because, as she puts it, “You need to plan your work and work your plan.”
This is an example of what is wrong with public sector unions. I’m not attacking public sector unions here. They have their pros and cons. But this case is a good example of one of the cons — excessive litigation that private sector unions and employers wouldn’t pursue. It is a 188-page decision from the [...]
One consistent theme to come out of the Great Recession is that the billable hour, if not dead, is dying as a metric of measuring law firm performance.
In these difficult economic times, when many employers have had to cut their workforce and make do with less, it may be tempting for businesses to engage the services of unpaid interns – students or recent graduates who are willing to work for nothing in order to gain some work experience. With young adults being [...]
Last year in this column, I raised the question of whether the costs for violating a court order, including attorney fees, would constitute “continuing contempt” in order to assure that a victim would be made whole. (“When is Contempt Continuing?” Wisconsin Law Journal, Aug. 24, 2009.) While not directly addressing the issue of continuing contempt, [...]
The continuing ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been the subject of a lot of discussion. A tax lawyer, however, will also start thinking about the tax consequences that may flow from the disaster. In the past several weeks, it was announced that BP would establish a substantial fund to ensure that all [...]
Forensic accounting has been around for decades, but only in the last ten years have people become aware of the profession on a wide scale. Many of the techniques used by forensic accountants to investigate fraud and analyze the numbers are the same today as they were decades ago. Computers have made things easier, as [...]
Microsoft recently launched the suite of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 tools and services to business customers, and, at the same time, announced its Office Web Apps strategy. Office applications are a huge part of Microsoft’s revenue, and the software giant currently owns about eighty-five percent of the business productivity solutions market. That’s a huge [...]
For the past two decades, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel, there has been an unrelenting drive by companies and their suppliers to reduce costs while increasing quality and value in their products and services. The only outlier seems to be law firms. This observation seemingly is confirmed in a recent issue of the [...]
Every once in a while, it seems, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals needs to remind trial courts that family-law cases are really lawsuits. While they differ from other areas of law in certain ways, namely the familiarity of the parties with each other, they are still court proceedings and as a result, certain rules apply [...]
We’ve all experienced it: You receive a motion, you begin to read its supporting brief, and the words slap your eyes: “spurious,” “not worthy of belief,” “incredible,” “utterly without foundation,” “wholesale abdication.” And that’s just the first page. Many lawyers believe that a brief must contain extremely aggressive language to be convincing to the court. [...]
Diane Slomowitz is a shareholder with the law firm of Fox, O’Neill & Shannon, SC in Milwaukee. She concentrates her practice on legal research, legal writing and appellate brief writing for the firm’s business and individual clients. Diane can be reached at 414-273-3939 or dslomowitz@foslaw.com.
Lawyers risk discipline for using traditional marketing tactics to reach prospective clients. The rules of professional conduct are replete with restrictions on marketing, advertising, solicitation, the use of social media, and more. Bar associations will not provide professional education credit to lawyers for programs on how to be profitable, let alone how to be more [...]
It’s hard to believe that a Ponzi scheme as massive as the one perpetrated by Bernard Madoff got by anyone. Surely he was the most clever criminal alive, and was ingenious at hiding his fraud. There couldn’t have been any signs of the scam he was running. Or were there? It turns out there were [...]
Last summer, an Internet article on msn.careerbuilder.com offered a list of forty-three remarks made by applicants during an interview which gave pause to human resources. Some of these remarks were an obvious reason to bar employment, including the following: I’ve never heard such a stupid question. Can we wrap this up quickly? I have someplace [...]
Needles case management software by Needles Inc. (formerly Chesapeake Interlink) is one of the longest-enduring applications of its type. Originally introduced as the DOS-based Personal Injury Negligence System in 1985, Needles 4.8 is a stable and flexible case management application that supports a broad range of matter types. As the senior statesman amongst case management [...]
It is not uncommon for an employer to discover that it is the victim of an illegal scheme involving a rogue employee. Is it a viable option for that employer to report the matter to the federal government? Consider the following hypothetical, which assumes that the company does not have mandatory reporting requirements: A national [...]
As you can imagine, last week’s column about the poetry of John Milton went over well on The Dark Side. What you may not guess, though, is that in my social circles any discussion of poetry inevitably leads to the leftist poet, Delmore Schwartz. It matters not whether it occurs in a high-brow salon or [...]
As a male, if I ever get divorced, I want Judge Kenneth W. Forbeck from Rock County assigned to my case. As a family law attorney, if I have a case on appeal, I don’t want District IV of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals if there is a pension or tax issue involved. For years, [...]
My recent column about the unresponsiveness of state bar associations to the needs of small law firms and sole practitioners brought strong comments from the presidents of the Minnesota State and Hennepin County Bar Associations, asserting and demonstrating that they do have the interests of these lawyers at heart. Just as there are good and [...]
LinkedIn occasionally e-mails me updates about what the members of my professional network are up to, and I noticed the last time around that the e-mail always informs me about a few of the groups people have joined. This got me thinking about groups as a free marketing tool for lawyers. After spending a little [...]
I recently conducted a simple Google search for "Wisconsin Law Firms.” Only Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C. (Milwaukee) and Axley Brynelson, LLP (Madison) appeared on page one. The No. 1 spot was occupied by FindLaw.com, which lists Wisconsin attorneys by location within the state. Ranked No. 3 is HG.org, which lists attorneys by Wisconsin city and [...]
Deep down, I’m just a simple, provincial lawyer So, the powerlust that motivates what is called “the social justice crowd” has always been something I couldn’t fathom. I gave up trying to understand their motivation decades ago. In rereading John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” though, I may have finally found the understanding I was seeking. The [...]
For better or worse, government has been intruding into our lives for years. The government knows our income, tells us what we can build on our property, and even knows how much we inherit from our families. I am truly amazed how much the government cares about me and my money. And what does the [...]
Last weekend, I went on an outing with a conservative organization to a shooting range. Perhaps there are better ways to spend the Sabbath than target practice with a group of beautiful, right-thinking, heavily-armed young women. But none come to mind just now. The particular weapon that I brought to the event was a revolver [...]
It’s not often I’m given a soapbox. But since David Ziemer suggested swapping columns – he’d write about ways to save money in the law office, and I’d write something voicing a strong opinion, here goes. What David learned from our little experiment was that, try as he might to avoid his dark side, it [...]
Is credit history a protected class? In some states it is, and in others, including Wisconsin, it may soon be. Accordingly, legal liability may follow if an employer takes action against someone because of his/her credit history. For years, employers have refused to hire or employ individuals with blemished credit histories. Estimates reveal that nearly [...]
