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Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

William Bradford
Ye Governor of Ye Colony

Find out more than you’d probably like to know about the author…updated our About page. Yaro calls it the “cult of personality” in his Blog Mastermind program…I’ll just wait for all those new RSS subscribers then.

If you’re with me and part of the 20% or whatever percentage of the alphabet contained in letters N-Z, look at a couple of free PMCLE options:

One for 2 hours from our friends at ARDC. And, another from ISBA for .75.

Or at least some of them seem that way don’t they? Do you have any like this and how do you handle them? I’m mostly just venting here…

We have a family law case right now that’s running over 9 months with essentially zero progress. And we’re defending someone so in essence the delay is good for our client but it’s still a tad annoying as an attorney.  The case has been in a loop of various attorneys withdrawing and then coming in and judges transferring the case back and forth and recusing themselves with the total sum equaling zero progress in 9 months. We are/will getting/get compensated but I still think these cases take a toll on lawyer psychology.

Thankfully I have a decent mix of cases/transactions from residential real estate transactions or a forcible entry and detainer case where there’s 30-45 days from start to finish up to a case that’s just about done after 6 years of litigation. So the above isn’t the norm for me.

I think I’d be miserable if I was one of these PI guys where all the cases take like 5 years…how do stay “up” for that long?

Thanks to the Dirty Lawyer for this post. Here’s the underlying piece from the Post and Virtual Law Partners, LLP’s Website.

This was a timely piece here essentially about managing past due client bills in a down economy.  Not too much new but a good review. I think it makes the most important points in collecting past due client bills:  communicate with these clients and the likelihood of collection diminishes drastically the older a past due balance becomes. Here’s an overview of my Firm’s policy that I’ve touched on before.

Saw this little nugget regarding recent weapons’ arrests made by people trying to enter court at 32 W. Randolph, Chicago.

Two men in four days were arrested in attempts to bring weapons into Cook County courthouses, authorities said.

At the same building Monday, Richard Andracki, 44, of the 8300 block of South 88th Avenue was arrested when deputies said they discovered a 17-inch-long blade hidden inside his cane.

That is the least safe courthouse in Cook County. Different committees I’m on are always talking about the unsafe conditions over there. If you become a judge avoid those court calls…unsafe and too many pro se litigants.

Hold on a second, “Cook County” and “eFiling” just cannot appear in the same sentence can they?  It doesn’t sound right but someone’s (Cook Circuit Clerk) advertising this presentation set for March 23rd.

I’m a big fan of the Consumerism Commentary…very well done and informative financial blog. One of the best things they do over there is the primary blogger posts his personal balance sheet each month. So I can see his income, expenses, ect. Very useful for helping readers get their finances under control.

Partly to motive myself regarding financial management and frankly to lay it all out there for our readers, I’m going to start doing the same here for my solo practice law firm. I’m not laying non-law firm stuff out here or getting too personal, but I do want everyone to learn about building a law practice and selfishly I’d like to put it out there from my own benefit, namely hearing from our readers about what I can be improving upon.

So here is my Firm’s income/expense figures for January ’09:

Gross Income $2,811.71

Business Expenses

Office supplies 71.95

Annual ARDC fee (law license) 289.00

Train ticket(s) 32.30

Service organization dues 100.00

Malpractice insurance 96.24

Credit card processing fees 15.91

Web host 9.95

Mail/postage 37.58

Cell phone(s) 91.00

eFax 59.90

Bank service charge 15.00

Office space 40.00

Court fee 25.00

Petty cash/lunches/gas 112.13

Business Expense Total: $995.96

January 2009, Net Income: $1,815.75
Peter’s Commentary: January’s generally my Firm’s least profitable month of the year by far and it was likely worse than usual this year. On the one hand I was out of the office and town a LOT so there wasn’t a lot of billing done in January so most of the revenue was of a residual nature from clients who are paying down past-due balances. And on the expenses side, nearly 1/3 of the expenses was my annual law license fee which is a once a year expense.