Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

Well, Clinton ’92 taught me it was all about the two-handed handshake and the level of intimacy was dictated by the location of the non-shaking hand…ya know is it just cupping the hand or does it go up on a person’s shoulder. And then Dale Carnegie essentially takes the position that the key is being interested in others. I think Dale’s a genius but sometimes those touchy feely types like “The Clinton.”

Here’s a piece I saw over at Law.com. Nothing too original though the handshake and business kissing analysis is funny…

The following handshakes send the wrong message:

The vise grip: A tight squeeze that crunches the knuckles implies someone who might actually pull punches, if things get tough.

The wet fish: Moist or not, grasping a hand that is weak or flimsy leaves an impression of a pushover, an individual with no backbone.

The fingertip shake: Grasping only the fingers of a hand suggests the person is too timid or weak to hold the whole hand.

The two-handed: A two-handed shake can signify real warmth and affection, or it can be interpreted as a power play…

• Women should not leave any lipstick on the recipient.

• A greeting kiss should be an air kiss or a light brush of the cheek.

• A business kiss should never be on the lips.

• A kiss should be bestowed only on people with whom you are well acquainted.

• Women may kiss men or women. Men may kiss women, and depending on the culture, men may kiss men.

I just finished up another version of our firm’s quarterly client newsletter and it got me dwelling on the absolute necessity of good writing skills by lawyers. I learn a tremendous amount when drafting our newsletter writing an overview article, answering client questions, and then analyzing several cases within our practice areas. If I weren’t writing a lot I wouldn’t be reading 10 cases in full for a proper understanding…I’d just be skimming my ISBA eClips and moving on. That’s better than nothing but it’s shallow and I don’t remember what I’ve skimmed.

Remember, a lawyer is a professional writer! I know in reading many of the letters and pleadings that cross my desk that many lawyer’s don’t take a lot of time sharpening up their pens so to speak but that’s a big mistake. I don’t care if you’re a transactional lawyer or trial lawyer the fact is that your writing skills define you as a lawyer. Plus, marketing to your client base is the most important marketing you must do so why not benefit from that marketing, even before those new clients start calling.

I had lunch with a lawyer friend/mentor recently who mentioned some court appointed work he’d gotten involved with recently and I’d guess there’s plenty of work in this area now. The role is that of “Special Administrator” in foreclosure cases where a defendant is deceased. This is my understanding…Plaintiff files suit against Defendant(s) on a mortgage typically. A/the D is dead. Court then appoints Special Administrator to do an investigation of decedent’s circumstances and to look at whether or not there might be a will or an heir out there who wants this house that is now being foreclosed but may have some equity. I don’t practice foreclosure and couldn’t find the basis for these appointments in the foreclosure statute. It may just stem from 735 ILCS 5/2-1008 which deals with how a trial court should deal with the death of a litigant.

My colleague suggested he found this opportunity through an attorney colleague who worked at one of Chicago’s largest foreclosure firms and now this firm appoints him on many of its cases. So this might be your link to this sort of work…seek this our from Plaintiff-side foreclosure firms.

If you’re any degree of a “trial” lawyer or practice in any area where you’re in court a lot, you must be an expert on service of process/personal jurisdiction/subject matter jurisdiction issues.

These matters impact every case that you file or defend and can potentially undermine all your great lawyering if not done right, up front. Here’s another recent case on the subject where a special process server wasn’t properly appointed before serving a defendant and guess what, there’s not going to be a sheriff’s sale in that foreclosure case because the Judgment was void!

There are few swords sharper in one’s arsenal than section 5/2-301 of the IL Code of Civil Procedure. If you’re not looking at service issues in any post-decree or post-judgment matters coming into your office you’re doing a disservice to your clients. The classic cases we’re using this on in the domestic relations field are old child support collection matters. It doesn’t matter if the petitioning party thinks he/she’s owed $500k, if there wasn’t proper service up front you can wipe that arrearage out. The place to really look for these 301 Motion to Vacate cases are parentage cases where the case was brought initially by the State’s Attorney. I still listen to these cases today when I’m sitting over at 32 W. Randolph and the State will be suggesting to the court that we see there’s a utility bill in someone’s name so can we just serve by certified mail, ect., ect. Well, those are the cases that get blown up 18 years later.

I strolled off the elevator on the 30th Floor at Daley this morning around 945am and there were some television cameras interviewing what appeared to be a young, female attorney. I asked around a bit and was told a Jewish, female attorney skipped a court appearance yesterday and therefore a Judge held her in contempt and apparently she was detained this morning. Of course yesterday was Yom Kippur and many Jewish attorneys may have not been in court. The courtrooms were amazingly empty yesterday.

I guess it’s not only clients we have to worry about!

Just a follow-up to a previous post about Chicago lawyer Allison Smith’s being jailed for direct criminal contempt of court at Daley. The First District Appellate Court overturned her conviction. Thanks to a commenter for forwarding the decision.

The underlying message seemed to be that the trial court was wrong on a substantive ruling regarding the lawyer’s Motion to Strike a trial date. This error is what caused the lawyer’s outburst and was ostensibly the reason for her being jailed. The facts do seem to describe a distinct lack of civility on the part of the lawyer, but the Appellate Court seems in essence to say the lawyer had good reason for her feelings if not actions and therefore contempt is not appropriate…reversed and remanded.

Just heard this from a reliable source:

Saw this interesting commentary in Sunday’s Trib. by Roy Hofer, former CBA President, entitled ‘A judge-to-be beat our flawed selection system.’ It outlines the case of Attorney Kristyna Colleen Ryan who apparently won a Chicago Democratic primary and is unopposed in the general so thus will be sitting on a bench in Cook County soon.

Nothing too new in the piece, our elected Judiciary may fairly be open to ridicule and the retention elections are pretty much of a joke. But what’s wrong with a 36-year-old lawyer on the bench?? I’m under 36 and not to be too immodest but I bet I could do a fine job.

But according to Hofer Ms. Ryan is “unqualified” and used “schemes” to win and her seemingly serious effort to serve on the bench is a mere “ruse.” God forbid she didn’t kiss the bar association rings through the screening process.

How much do ya bet he’s an O’Bama supporter in the Presidential election? But he’s plenty experienced to be President.

MN Lawyers Mutual had an interesting piece in its last newsletter cover the issue above. The article’s fairly extensive. The general rule is that you shouldn’t hold more than $100,000 of a client’s money in a single bank since that’s the max coverage on FDIC insurance. Personally we rarely have more than $10,000 of clients’ money in our trust account. This was interesting to me:

Generally, a depositor’s account at a bank is
insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
(FDIC) for up to $100,000.4 According to the
FDIC, deposit account records of the banking
institution must disclose the existence of a
fiduciary relationship before insurance coverage
based on fiduciary relationships will be
recognized.5 Lawyers should make sure that the
fiduciary nature of any account holding fiduciary
funds is clearly reflected in the title of the
account used by the financial institution. If the
deposit account records of the banking
institution do disclose the existence of a
fiduciary relationship, then FDIC insurance (up
to applicable limits) will be available for each
client or third person whose funds are held in the
account. Under Rule 1.15(a) a lawyer is required
to “clearly identify” his or her trust account.
Designation of the account as an IOLTA/trust
account satisfies this requirement and discloses
the existence of a fiduciary relationship for
purposes of FDIC coverage. This designation
means, for example, that if a lawyer’s IOLTA is
holding $100,000 for Client A, Client A’s funds
are insured up to $100,000 unless Client A has
funds deposited in another account in the same
financial institution as the lawyer’s IOLTA
account. A lawyer holding $1 million in his or
her clearly identified trust account on behalf of
10 clients would have FDIC insurance coverage
up to $100,000 for each of these 10 clients
provided the lawyer’s and /or bank’s recordkeeping
documents the identities and deposits of
the client’s on whose behalf the deposits were
made.

There weren’t any malpractice cases cited where lawyers got in trouble, even one where lawyer kept $1,000,000 of clients money in a bank and bank failed. I would guess that result might be different now with all the banks failing.

There was an interesting thread recently on one of the list serves I frequent. It seems several lawyers on the list had recently been retained by clients to defend dissolution of marriage (divorce) actions and upon meeting with the new clients heard that the clients had gotten several lawyer solicitations/advertisements upon the dissolution case being filed. Interestingly, one of the lawyers had sent one of these advertisements to our friends over at ARDC and their opinion was that as long as the envelope and letter were clearly marked as advertisements then it’s OK.

Is this too tacky? The family lawyer equivalent of “ambulance chasing”??

Maybe, but I don’t find this as distasteful as actual ambulance chasing. Granted I’ve never been close to involved with PI work but putting two and two together I think some firms essentially find injured people or look for recent accidental deaths and solicit them for legal services. So something bad has happened and lawyers are sort of preying on people in the midst of a tragedy. But the “divorce solicitations” have come seemingly from a search of a court’s records when a real case has been filed and that person likely should need someone to represent him/her.

I’m not rushing out to do this sort of thing but I’m not too offended by the behavior.