In Part 1, I talked about the dilemma facing most lawyers when asked to involve themselves with business development. If you want to be good at BD, it helps a lot to be an optimist. But, since most lawyers are uber-pessimists, we struggle with BD and find ourselves with practically zero persistence.

Lawyers know that business development requires a handful of sales skills, a pinch of luck, and a boatload of persistence. Freaking BD persistence… it’s a serious problem for all of us. We didn’t go to law school to do sales.

When you get up to present at a conference, what is your goal? Since lawyers are addicted to billable hours, you are probably gambling some non-billable time with the hope of landing some legal work. To accomplish this, you want to sell yourself to potential clients as a competent, trustworthy, and mildly entertaining lawyer.

In December of 2021, I had the pleasure of attending the CEELM Winter Ball, a festive event filled with good food and great discussions. Although I truly enjoyed this opportunity to catch up with old friends, I also found it fascinating to observe lawyers operating outside of their office comfort zone by partaking in the mysterious ritual of networking.

Why do so many of us struggle in networking conversations? And, what are the basics for making these conversations enjoyable? Read on to find out.

Frequently, I hear students apologize for their English. For example, they will hand me writing samples with an embarrassed look on their face and try to lower my expectations with some strange excuse like “my English teacher was previously my parent’s Russian teacher.”

Such apologies drive me crazy because they are completely unnecessary. In 99% of the cases, after I review their sample, I discover that their English is more than adequate for their job.

In the first part of this series, I explained how to identify problematic run-on-sentences as well as two tech tools for identifying them (Microsoft Word’s Style Checker and Expresso).

In this second part, I will explain how to quickly fix these sentences as well as a tech tool to help you speed up the process.

Have you ever delegated a writing assignment to a colleague, but when you received his work-product, it was so awful that you completely rewrote it? The fancy word for this is reverse-delegation, and it’s not good.

When I set up a legal writing course for associates, I am frequently asked by US or UK partners to make sure that the course addresses “run-on sentences”. These are the types of sentences that exhaust readers by running on, and on …. and on.

When I tell my students about this request, they sometimes get a confused look on their faces because:

• the concept of run-on sentences does not exist in their native language; and/or

• their culture’s legal tradition embraces long sentences.

In this article, you will learn about (i) how to identify run-on sentences in your writing and (ii) some tech tools to help you identify them more easily and quickly. (In Part Two, I will explain (i) how to fix these sentences and (ii) some tech tools to help you with the process.)

Check out my new article series with CEELegalMatters.

Dear Lawyer: Please take a few seconds to review your law firm’s marketing materials for an explanation of what your firm is selling.

I bet that your firm is selling “solutions”. How do I know? Because that’s what ALL lawyers do (as well as consultants and nowadays pretty much everyone else in the service industry). And, that’s the problem.