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Sound Advice

The Benefits of Integrated Practice Management Software
Small firm litigator Kurt Klein and IT specialist Jeremy Terrazas join solo litigator Michael Steger to discuss the benefits of implementing an integrated practice management system using cloud-based software. They focus on the efficiencies realized by using a single program for multiple tasks. (11:00 min.)

Advice for Law Students and Recent Law Graduates on How to Navigate the Legal Market During a Pandemic
Cliff Jarrett, assistant dean for the Office of Career Strategy at Washington and Lee University School of Law gives advice on what you can do this summer and beyond to best position yourself for your legal career. (21:56 min.)

12 Practice Points on the Art of Persuasion
Paul Sandler shares 12 practice points that can be used in the courtroom or in written advocacy. (36:48 min.)

Business Development for Young Intellectual Property Litigators
Pilar Kraman and Michael Steger discuss strategies and best practices for developing business as young intellectual property litigators based on their own experiences and practices. This Sound Advice covers methods to use for any level of experience or type of IP practice. (12:06 min.)

Innovative Pro Bono Program Allows Volunteer Attorneys to Defend Tenants Against Evictions
The Legal Aid Society of Columbus, Ohio sponsors the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP), which pairs volunteer attorneys with tenants facing evictions. With short, limited representation, attorneys defend against evictions, protecting clients against the downward spiral of poverty associated with an eviction. (17:04 min.)

How to Succeed in Negotiation
In this Sound Advice, Stewart Edelstein provides valuable tips on all aspects of a negotiation, including: effective preparation, whether to make the first offer, and different styles of negotiation and when they are best employed. (18:12 min.)

Tips for Young Associates to Succeed at a Law Firm
This program offers tips to help a young associate succeed at a law firm. Specifically, the sound advice discusses the importance of: (1) knowing who you work for, (2) offering solutions to problems, and (3) communicating effectively. (6:58 min.)

Best Practices for Email Use
Stewart Edelstein, an experienced trial lawyer and former Yale Law School instructor of civil litigation skills, provides valuable tips and best practices for young lawyers about the uses (and misuses) of email, including how to make the most of email while avoiding common pitfalls. (19:10 min.)

How to Serve as Local Counsel
Stewart Edelstein, an experienced trial lawyer and former Yale Law School instructor of civil litigation skills, provides valuable tips for young lawyers about serving as local counsel and how to do an effective job without committing malpractice. (6:01 min.)

Advice for Young Lawyers about Working With and Learning from Lawyers Within Your Firm – Part II
This is the second in a two-part series. Stewart Edelstein provides useful tips about how to get the most out of your dealings with lawyers outside your firm, including: opposing counsel, in-house counsel, former classmates, and fellow members of local, state, and national bar associations. (8:55 min.)

Advice for Young Lawyers about Working With and Learning from Lawyers Within Your Firm – Part I
This is the first in a two-part series. Stewart Edelstein provides some helpful and practical tips about how to get the most out of your relationships with lawyers inside your firm, including mentors, peers, and senior counsel. (6:05 min.)

From the Ground Up: Building a Successful Small Firm
Jeana Goosmann discusses tips from her experience starting her own business, and what drives her and her team to succeed on a daily basis. (9:39 min.)

10 Tips for Being a Standout Associate
Jessica Beringer shares some ideas to help you break away from the pack as a young associate. (10:46 min.)

Location Awareness for Young Lawyers
David Dobin highlights many areas where young lawyers need to research to be 100 percent ready for their new clients. (6:16 min.)

6 Common Client Objections to Litigation Holds and How to Overcome them
Nora Sullivan and Lenor Marquis Segal describe client common objections to litigation holds, and why and how to convince clients that litigation holds may be in their best interests. (12:57 min.)

Attorney-Client Privilege and Work Product in Data Breach Security Audits and Investigations
Al Saikali explains the importance of using outside counsel to engage forensic firms and information security experts to perform security audits, investigations, and remediations following data breaches. (9:12 min.)

Tips for Young Lawyers
Rohan Hill gives 6 valuable tips to help junior lawyers become better at their craft and build successful careers. (5:13 min.)

Electronic Discovery of Social Media Evidence
Laura Schrick uses case law to review this emerging area of law that is constantly in flux. (9:49 min.)

5 Tips for Written Discovery
Written discovery can set the stage for a winning case. Litigator Liz Mellem gives 5 tips that can help young associates get the most out of the process. (7:43 min.)

Leadership Development Part II – How to Use Feedback to Improve Your Work Performance
Leadership consultant Jennifer Farrer explains an action plan to help facilitate meaningful change in you or your employees. (8:16 min.)

Top Ten Tips of Right-Sizing E-Discovery
Two expert litigators discuss the unique challenges of right-sizing e-discovery cases, with special emphasis on cost efficiency, flexibility, and scalability, through a strong client relationship and cooperation with opposing counsel. (5:59 min.)

Improve Your Practice: Technology Tips to Win New Business
Firms of all sizes are constantly trying to gain new clients. Scott MacMullan gives nine tips to help your business grow through new technologies. (9:07 min.)

Advice on Making the Most of your First Appellate Brief
Your first experience with an appeal may be different from the trial courts you’re used to. Listen as Haley Maple offers advice on making the most of your first appellate brief. (11:45 min.)

Office Management for Young Lawyers
Young lawyers in law firms often make the mistake of thinking that they do not have any “clients.” Demetra Liggins explains office management for young lawyers, including how they do indeed have “clients”—just not in the traditional sense. (6:02 min.)

Tips for Surviving the Bar Exam
Passing the bar examination is a rite of passage for any litigator. Listen as experienced trial lawyer Dale Weppner shares strategies that should help you not only survive the feeling that your entire life comes down to a single test, but also pass that test in the process. (11:56 min.)

Rainmaking for Young Lawyers
If you apply these valuable tips for your legal career from seasoned lawyer Don Bivens; you may see the rain begin to fall! (17:36 min.)

Advice for Young Lawyers
Practicing law for 25 years has given this lawyer the experience necessary to advise young lawyers on what they should and should not be doing as they embark on their legal careers. (8:17 min.)

10 Leadership Tips for Lawyers
Want to be a leader in the profession? Listen to New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Tiffany Williams’ 10 quick tips for avoiding “lameness, sameness and tameness” in your professional life, and you will be well on your way to creating your legacy and bettering our world. (10:42 min.)

Law Students: How to be a Professional from Day One
Think what happens in law school stays in law school? Think again! Hear Rachel Dawson, experienced law school career counselor, and current Associate Director at the ABA Section of Litigation, give her savvy advice on how to establish your professional demeanor and work ethic from the first moment you set foot into those hallowed law school halls. (11:37 min.)

Tips for Young Lawyers Preparing for Their First Expert Deposition
Houston trial lawyer Matthew Whitley, who focuses on complex commercial and IP cases, offers advice to young lawyers preparing for their first expert deposition. (11:06 min.)

What They Didn’t Teach You in Law School
Nancy Degan
Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC
New Orleans, LA
(8:26 min.)

The Curmudgeon on Legal Writing
Mark Herrmann
Aon Corporation
Chicago, IL
(11:43 min.)

Secrets of Superstar Associates
Carmelite Bertaut
Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC
New Orleans, LA
(17:20 min.)

How to Effectively Bill Your Time
Daniel Van Horn
Butler Snow O’Mara Stevens & Canada, PLLC
Memphis, TN
(16:25 min.)

How to Work With Your First Assistant
Laura Bozzelli
Jones Day
Cleveland, OH
(13:23 min.)

Roundtables

How to Be a Superstar Junior Litigator
It is difficult to start your legal career and learning the ins and outs of being a great litigator. First impressions matter, and you want to ensure that you get off on the right foot. Join our esteemed panelists for a discussion on how to crack the code to doing great work – from the basics of time management to how to manage up, we will provide tips you can use in your first legal job. (59:04 min.)

Everything You Wanted to Know about Arbitration (but Were Afraid to Ask): Filing for Arbitration and Preliminary Conferences
The first of a 4-part series covering all aspects of arbitrations, including filing for arbitration and preliminary conferences. This panel discussion focuses on filing your first arbitration claim, initiating the claim, forms to be used, drafting demand/claim, rules to be used (if not addressed in arb clause), a review of a preliminary conference/scheduling sample order, and an in-depth discussion of what to know for the preliminary hearing. (59:41 min.)

True Grit and Growth Mindset: The Secrets of Success for Lawyers
This Roundtable educates attendees about the science behind the grit and growth mindset, provides self-assessment tools, and shares practical advice to incorporate these concepts into professional life. (58:53 min.)

Cannabis IP: Real or Smoke and Mirrors?
The program includes experts presenting and interactively discussing the scope and current limits of intellectual property protection available to cannabis and CBD businesses, and best practices to maximize the protections for these businesses in today's conflicting maze of regulations. (65:46 min.)

Lessons Learned: Trying Your First Case
With jury trials largely on hold for the time being as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, there stand to be plenty of opportunities for young lawyers to try their first case when court houses reopen and juries begin sitting again. (60:15 min.)

Protecting Yourself When Providing Limited Scope Representation
The speakers will provide a professional malpractice insurer’s perspective on limited scope representation (also known as limited scope or discrete tasks representation). The presentation will help lawyers to identify ethical and professional “mines” and to avoid professional liability issues when providing unbundled legal services or limited scope representation. Click here for the program materials. (60:40 min.)

Alternative Career Paths
Is a law firm my only option? Is there another option besides law firm life? Think law firm life is the only career path for lawyers, then this Roundtable is for you. In this Roundtable, our panelists will discuss alternative career paths for lawyers coming right from law school or looking to make the move from law firm life. Our panelists include Heather White, Sr. Director, Associate General Counsel at TIAA; Traci Telemaque, Assistant Public Defender; and Jordan Abshire of Abshire Legal Search, LLC. (55:15 min.)

Financial Planning for Young Litigators
Are you getting the most out of your money? Is it time to seek professional help to manage your finances? Or, should you continue to go it alone and commit more time to money management? This Roundtable helps answer these questions and explains how to choose the right financial advisor. 

This Roundtable brings together law students, young lawyers and financial planners to foster awareness of budgeting, credit cards, school loans, wealth management, and more. Omar Jennings and Sam Seldman Hialeah Capital Associates provide their advice regarding the above topics. (42:30 min.)

Effective Legal Writing Tips
Effective legal writing is essential to helping a court decide a case in your client's favor. It is therefore crucial to master techniques for organizing your brief and presenting your arguments to maximize your opportunity to achieve a favorable outcome.

This program, presented by Katherine Reilly of McMillan LLP and Christopher Soper, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Legal Writing at the University of Minnesota, will offer practical tips and best practices about how to draft briefs and all other legal writings efficiently, effectively communicate your written advocacy to the court, and generally enhance your legal writing. Moderated by Demetrius D. Pyburn, Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd. (59:55 min.)

What You Really Need to Know When You’re Going Small
Whether you don’t think Big Law is for you and choose to go to a small firm or you are choosing to take the plunge and hang up your own shingle is a big and scary step. Not only are you learning about the practice of law, but you are more involved with the business of law. If you are a young lawyer trying to learn more about life in Small Law, this is the Roundtable for you.

During this one-hour program, our Roundtable panelists discuss an array of pertinent issues, including: things to consider when deciding to join a small firm or hang a shingle, the triumphs and challenges of the first few years, bridging the generational gap when joining a small firm, gadgets and apps that make life easier, business development and bar participation, and work-life balance. (62:44 min.)

Business Development: Expanding Your Opportunities Through Mentoring Relationships
Our esteemed panel of experts and attorneys discuss the importance for young lawyers to seek out appropriate mentors that can help guide them as they develop plans to generate their own business as well as how more experienced attorneys can effectively mentor junior attorneys in this critical area of practice. (65:53 min.)

Personal Finance for Young Lawyers
Have you ever wondered how much you should be putting toward retirement? The benefits of a Roth vs. traditional IRA? What percentage of your income you should be using to pay off debt? Or whether you really need that extra long-term disability coverage your employer offers? If so, join the Young Advocates Committee for a Roundtable discussion with financial planners Stephen Zhou and Jimmy Diehl, who will provide answers to these questions and many others. Topics to be covered include retirement, investing, cash flow, debt management, and improving your credit score. (61:14 min.)

_Disclaimer:

_{The information on “Sound Advice” is for discussion purposes only and does not reflect the opinions of the ABA. The information is not legal advice nor a substitute for legal counsel.}