Legal Talk Network

In many med mal and trucking cases, it’s not always clear if an employer is liable for the actions of their employee. The issue of Agency is vital for knowing whom you can sue and what you can potentially recover for your client. Today’s podcast clarifies general issues of Agency and points out how recent changes in Missouri law severely limit the damages you and your client can recover from medical malpractice. An insightful episode for lawyers and laypeople because negligence can happen to anyone.

Consider the courtroom as a live drama unfolding before you. How can you direct the characters to tell their most authentic story and utilize breathing, dramatic structure, voice control, and more to make that story as persuasive as possible? The conclusion of our fascinating two-part discussion with Andrew Caple-Shaw and Alexandra Wright of ACT of COMMUNICATION will change the way you prep and practice and leave you laughing with two instructive stories about termites and the best witness in the world. Don’t miss this episode.

A trial is a contest of competing stories and the jury is your audience. Prepare your witness for their best performance with tenets from acting and theater explained by Andrew Caple-Shaw and Alexandra Wright of ACT of COMMUNICATION, a unique litigation consulting group. Their powerful and highly effective communication techniques, such as identifying non-verbal micro-expressions, harnessing the power of metaphor, and strengthening sensitivity and listening skills, will help your witnesses tell the essence of their story more effectively and help you command center stage in the courtroom.

In August 2020, contract attorney Laura Frederick accepted a challenge: Post to LinkedIn once a day, every day, for a month. Frederick thought she might be able to keep up a string of several days in a row. Instead, her daily posts became a way to connect with colleagues, build business, create a brand identity, and have a social lifeline during the isolation of the pandemic. A selection of those posts also found their way into her self-published book, Practical Tips on How to Contract: Techniques and Tactics from an Ex-BigLaw and Ex-Tesla Commercial Contracts Lawyer.

Frederick says that she’s never been the sort of person who enjoyed the cocktail party circuit way of rainmaking. When she launched her own law practice after years of working in BigLaw and as an in-house attorney for companies including Tesla, she relied for the first year entirely on referrals. But the connections she was able to make through LinkedIn has rapidly expanded opportunities for her legal practice and for her training and skill-development company, How to Contract.

Frederick tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles that one of her driving motivations for posting daily tips to LinkedIn has been her desire to pass along knowledge gained over the course of her career to younger attorneys. When she was a beginning attorney in the 1990s, she says she gained tremendously by being able to shadow more experienced attorneys at her firm, learning at the side of longtime contract attorneys. The same opportunities are not available now, particularly when so many young attorneys are launching their own solo or small firm practices.

She hopes that both Practical Tips on How to Contract and her continuing daily posts to LinkedIn–she’s now written more than 400–can help fill that gap. She adds that engaging with her commenters has also taught her lessons that improved her own legal work.

In this episode, Frederick talks about the practical steps to building a brand and self-publishing; how she expanded into creating legal cartoons; and what it was like to be an attorney for Tesla.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Posh Virtual Receptionists.

What is an intrapreneur and how can it help your firm?

Truthfully, when it comes to your firm, anyone can be an intrapreneur. It’s up to the leaders of the firm to foster and encourage the team to explore and support new ideas and ventures.

We talk about what intrapreneurship can do for your firm in this episode with Art Bell.

Art is a writer and former media executive known for creating, building, and managing successful cable television channels. His memoir, published by Ulysses Press, Constant Comedy: How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor was recently honored as a finalist in the 2020 Best Book Awards for memoir.

Art gives listeners actionable tips on:

What an intrapreneur is

How being an intrapreneur allowed Art to start up the very first comedy network, which we now know as Comedy Central

The impacts of going through a merger

Why it’s important for lawyers at any firm to operate as intrapreneurs

The two things that go into research

On the last episode of our The Life of a Lawyer Start to Finish series, we discussed How to Succeed in Law School.  In this episode, we move on to the next logical step: How to Find a Job After Law School.

We’re pleased to be joined by someone who wrote the playbook on how to do just that! Host Craig Williams is joined by trial attorney Rachel Gezerseh,  author of The Law Career Playbook: The Guerrilla Guide to Getting a Legal Job You Actually Like, which is the leading networking guide for law students and new lawyers.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Posh Virtual Receptionists.

Detroit has been the site of many civil rights and labor rights battles, and many notable Black attorneys have called the city home. The first Black president of the ABA, Dennis Archer, came from the Detroit legal community, as does the current ABA president, Reginald Turner. But the full story of one of the city’s pioneering legal figures has not been told–until now.

In No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights Icon George W. Crockett Jr., co-authors Edward J. Littlejohn and Peter J. Hammer have filled in this blank with an absorbing history of Crockett’s Floridian childhood, his law school years at the University of Michigan, his defense of Communist activists at the height of the Red Scare, his harrowing search for the murdered Freedom Riders in 1964, his time as a judge on Detroit’s Recorder Court, and his election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

For this episode of the Modern Law Library, Hammer joined the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles to discuss the research that went into the book, some of Crockett’s most high-profile cases, how Crockett ended up serving four months in prison for contempt of court, and to explain why Crockett was one of the Detroit police department’s most-hated public figures.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Posh Virtual Receptionists.

Time to meet your candidates! On March 10, Joe Escobedo and Cindy Tisdale participated in a live, virtual forum hosted by Rocky Dhir. Get to know Joe and Cindy as they share their priorities for the State Bar of Texas and answer audience questions. 

Register to join their next live forum on April 5! 

Joe Escobedo is a partner at Escobedo & Cardenas, LLP, in Edinburg, Texas, where he devotes his practice to tort litigation and mediations. 

Cindy Tisdale is a small firm attorney in Granbury, Texas, where she dedicates her practice to family law. She is also Of Counsel with Lynch, Chappell & Alsup in Midland.

Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

Host Carl Morrison is joined by guest Ben Hengels of Ligl.io for a deep dive into the Evidence Lifecycle Management (ELM), e-discovery, and data flow management that law practices run on. 

With so many moving parts, taking proper stock of every component – from email and cloud systems to legacy on-site servers – is crucial. So is working with providers who understand how each piece works with the other. 

Recognize early warning signs of common problems, mistakes that find their way into the process and grow. Avoid inefficiencies and costly snafus. 

E-discovery and data management are not static processes. Technological advances continue yearly. Learn to collect, produce, and preserve the data you need to keep up with a busy caseload. 

Plus, “The Listener’s Voice.” Your content, comments, and questions matter. In this episode, tips and tricks on making the leap from paralegal to legal operations careers. What’s on your mind? Drop us a line at [email protected]

Special thanks to our sponsors NALA, ServeNow, and Infotrack.

Our guest is law student Simon X. Cao, winner of this year’s College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyer’s John F. Burton Jr. Student Writing Award. His essay, “Fighting The Tide – Overcoming The Rebuttable Presumption of Intoxication In The Age of Marijuana,” examines a common Workers’ Comp defense arguing an injured worker was somehow culpable in his own injury by virtue of intoxication.

Cao examines to what extent – if any – evidence of prior marijuana consumption can be used against injured workers, as a growing number of states legalize marijuana both for recreation and medical use.

The nexus of marijuana and injury compensation is a sticky issue. Evidence of marijuana can be detected in an injured worker’s system for weeks after use, unlike alcohol, but it can be present without indicating intoxication. How reliable is testing? How consistent are the rules across states? And what about presumed consent for a drug test after a workplace accident? All interesting topics that could affect your clients.

Special thanks to our sponsor PInow.com, Posh Virtual Receptionists, and MerusCase.