A family member or close friend calls you one day with a “quick” question. Seems she has a dispute with a neighbor or she just got denied a promotion or she needs to tell the renter of her duplex to stop smoking in his unit. She knows you are really busy but was wondering if you would mind looking into it or just writing a letter or making a phone call for her. She hates to bother you but she does not know any other attorneys and really needs some help with this problem.
As I surf around the blawgosphere, I have noticed that it seems to be in vogue for solo and small firm attorneys to take potshots at large law firms. If one read only the solo blawgs, it would seem all large law firms are lumbering, inefficient, selfish behemoths, so knocked off balance by this recession that they are about to keel over and smash their marble conference room tables. Then all the solo munchkins would come out of their hiding places in brightly colored garb, sing songs of freedom, and sign up all of the large firms’ former clients.
With the recent meltdown of financial institutions, some lawyers have been wondering whether and how client funds held in a lawyer’s IOLTA account are be covered by FDIC insurance in the event of a bank failure. In general, the rule has been that FDIC insurance covered $100,000 of any individual’s funds deposited in a single financial institution, regardless of how many accounts that $100,000 was spread over, including the portion of the individual’s funds that are in the lawyer’s trust account.
At Sam Glover’s behest, I have been experimenting with social networking sites such as Linked In and Facebook. Both sites urge you to find your “friends” and “connections” so that you can expand your network and uncover untold riches (they really are untold).