Requirement That Out-of-State Attorneys Maintain Offices in N.Y. Held Unconstitutional

Schoelfeld v. State of New York

View this document on Scribd

U.S. District Court, Northern District

Legal Profession

Requirement That Out-of-State Attorneys Maintain Offices in N.Y. Held Unconstitutional (See link below for full text of decision).

Schoelfeld v. State of New York, 1:09-CV-00504

Related articles

• Federal Judge Rejects New York Attorney Office Rule(businesslawdaily.net)

The Online Guide to Starting a Law Firm- My Shingle

Carolyn Elefant has posted:: The Online Guide to Starting a Law Firm.

Find the best of her solo-oriented, how-to articles carefully indexed on a helpful grid here.

Venture Capitalists Take Aim at Lawyers-Jim Calloway

Forbes magazine carried the news this month that Google Ventures is part of a group pouring $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer, which is claiming to be the “fastest growing online legal service.” This news was followed up by a Forbes column titled“Google Backing of DIY Legal Forms Will Force Lawyers To Lower Fees.”

Certainly Rocket Lawyer is not the only business seeking to profit from providing preparation of legal documents online. When the economic outlook for the legal profession is certainly not projected to be one of increasing profits, why are venture capitalists apparently so interested in the legal profession? To answer that question, I turned to Richard Granat. Granat is the lawyer behind DirectLaw, a firm that provides lawyers with the tools to set up virtual practices that deliver documents and legal services online. He is also a long-time member and current Co-Chair of the eLawyering Task Force of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Read the interview interview by Jim Calloway with Richard Granat here.

Related articles

• Google Contributes Money to Rocket Lawyer (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• What Does Rocket Lawyer Bring to Your Practice? Q&A for Attorneys(sociablelawyer.org)
• DirectLaw Founder Richard Granat Receives American Bar Association’s Louis M. Brown Lifetime Achievement Award for Legal Access (prweb.com)
• Rocket Lawyer Raises $18.5 Million to Fund Rapidly Growing Online Legal Service (insider.rocketlawyer.com)
• DirectLaw Launches MyLawyer.com Web Portal Offering Free Legal Forms to Consumers (prweb.com)
• DirectLaw Announces New “Virtual Law Firm Platform in a Box” Program for Recent Law School Graduates and Lawyers Starting Solo Practices(prweb.com)
• Rocket Lawyer raises $18.5M for web-based do-it-yourself legal assistance(venturebeat.com)
• How Does Rocket Lawyer Affect Your Practice? Q & A for Attorneys(sociablelawyer.org)
• Rocket Lawyer Served $18.5M (xconomy.com)

PLI Live Seminars – Scared and Alone: Representing Unaccompanied Children in Immigration Proceedings (FREE Audio-only)

Scared and Alone: Representing Unaccompanied Children in Immigration Proceedings (FREE Audio-only) Webcast Mar. 30, 2011 1:00 PM Eastern

March 30, 2011, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm (E.D.T.)

Each year, thousands of children travel alone to the United States.  Some are the victims of abuse or persecution, others of human trafficking or forced prostitution.  Some are placed into the custody of the U.S. government, others enter undetected.  All of them are in need of legal assistance to navigate the immigration proceedings. Please join Diana Castañeda, National Legal Services Director at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), and Noël L. Young, an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and KIND pro bono attorney, for a free One-Hour Briefing on Representing Unaccompanied Minors and learn how you, too, can help.

Topics to be addressed include:

Definition of Unaccompanied Alien Children

Forms of immigration relief available for UACs

Practice tips for representing children, including ethical considerations

Attorneys of all backgrounds, expertise, and experience are welcome.Click here for more information.

 

Legal Talk Network–New Lawyer: New Solo

New Lawyer: New Solo

So you’re hanging a shingle – now what? In this debut edition of New Solo, host Attorney Kyle R. Guelcher, a solo practitioner out of Springfield, MA and chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, welcomes Attorney Gabriel Cheong, the principal attorney of Infinity Law Group LLC, to talk about some of the things to do after you have started your law firm –  networking, rainmaking and generating revenue and how to keep track of all those small business issues.  Check out the show HERE!

Related articles

• Some tips from a graduate of Utah’s New Lawyer Training Program(lawafterthebar.wordpress.com)
• Kevin speaking tomorrow at the King County Bar Association CLE’s Solo/Small Firm Success Strategies (kevin.lexblog.com)
• Under the Shingle: 11.15.2010 (abovethelaw.com)

 

Makeuseof.com:The First Unofficial Guide to Dropbox [Save PDF or Read Online]

The First Unofficial Guide to Dropbox [Save PDF or Read Online]

You’re at the coffee shop. You need to access a file that has information about your work, but as you attempt to find the file you realize that you’ve made a mistake. You saved the work on your desktop computer, but you only have your laptop with you. You have no way to access the file.
Enter Dropbox. This program acts as a “magic pocket” which is always with you and contains whatever you place in it. Put a file into your Dropbox and it’s on all of your computers and mobile devices, really handy if you own multiple devices. But there’s more to Dropbox: you can use it for file sharing, backing up your data and even remotely control your computer.

If you’re not using Dropbox yet, you should be. Lucky for you our new MakeUseOf manual “Using The Magic Pocket: A Dropbox Manual” is now available for download.

It’s informative, easy to read and, like all of our manuals, completely free.

Download: Using The Magic Pocket: A Dropbox Manual
Or
Read now online on Scribd

 

SmartBrief: Should lawyers be allowed to work from home?

Some lawyers are trading formal offices for virtual offices run from their own home, but not all states are happy about the idea. New Jersey recently ruled that virtual offices violate the state’s rules of conduct for lawyers. Pennsylvania regulators took the opposite approach and explicitly gave lawyers permission to set up virtual offices with no fixed physical address. AboveTheLaw.com

 

Lawyerist Insider Newsletter

Lawyerist Insider Newsletter — Lawyerist

Get free law practice advice when you subscribe to the Lawyerist Insider newsletter

Receive free advice on marketing, practice management, legal technology, and careers with an email newsletter, the Lawyerist Insider.

Approximately once per week you will get inside information on how to make your practice more profitable, more efficient, and more effective! You will also be joining a community of other lawyers interested in building their own fulfilling practices.

 

NYTIMES: Apple Plans to Offer iPhone on Verizon

Apple to Offer iPhone on Verizon, Ending Exclusivity with AT and T – NYTimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Facing intense competition from phone makers wedded to Google’s Android software, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, finally plans to make the iPhone available on Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless carrier in the United States.

After more than three years of using only AT&T cellphone networks, Apple is now making a version of the iPhone 4 for Verizon’s network, according to a person who is in direct contact with Apple. Apple and Verizon will begin selling the phone early next year, said the person, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because the plans were supposed to be confidential and he did not want to alienate his contacts at Apple.

Apple and Verizon Wireless declined to comment.

***

Read the entire article here.

***
Verizon customers can only hope that Apple will stand firm against any attempts by Verizon to alter the iPhone OS.

REMEMBER THE RAZR

Those of us who bought Motorola Razrs from Verizon well remember the abomination calling itself “V-Cast” and other depredations committed upon the then most technically advanced phone of its time. Verizon, in a quest to wring every 25 cents out of  the phone, disabled the excellent Motorola firmware and substituted its own OS, seemingly designed to deliberately hobble the Razr.

Camera? Verizon wouldn’t let you use your camera to send photos to your computer without paying them 25 cents per photo.

BTW I’ll take my share of the $90 million Verizon settlement for spurious charges that same proprietary Verizon OS billed, which it was not entitled to, as a credit on my iPhone purchase.

Hands off the iPhone OS, Verizon!!

 

***

UPDATE: The WSJ reports that CDMA-based Verizon iPhone will not be able to multitask at outset. May change later.

Most notably, Verizon customers aren’t able to surf the Web or exchange email while they’re talking on their phone. Read entire WSJ article.

 

Lawyers find they can bill fewer hours, make more money via a virtual firm

Virtual law firms break from traditional model – Charlotte Business Journal

Moore, a corporate lawyer, started his career with a huge New York firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and then jumped to increasingly smaller firms based in Atlanta and Charlotte. But he never found the right fit. He also wasn’t interested in starting a solo practice.

Read entire article.