Morris Institute, @OsbornMaledon Attorney Join for Ethics Seminar

Ethics and justice combine in a seminar next Friday, May 31. I heard about it via a great colleague over at the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education. Let me pass on some of the details.

The legal education seminar is being offered by the Morris Institute for Justice, and the presenter will be Geoff Sturr on the topic of ethics and conflicts.

Geoff Sturr, Osborn Maledon

Geoff is a partner at Osborn Maledon, and I asked him to provide some more detail on what he’ll cover:

“Thanks for your interest. The seminar will focus on three areas:  conflicts, confidentiality and candor (which will include, among other things, conduct in negotiations). It will provide an update on recent decisions and opinions, and pending or anticipated rule changes. The primary target audience will be civil practitioners, but I hope to cover issues of interest to criminal and government lawyers.”

In case you don’t know them, the Morris Institute describes itself as “a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the rights of low-income Arizonans.” Read more about them and their work here.

As you may surmise, CLE credit will be offered for the event, which will be delivered in person at the Phoenix office of Lewis and Roca, and in a live simulcast at their Tucson office.

RSVP by May 29 to Ellen Katz at eskatz@qwestoffice.net or 602-252-3432 ext. 2.

All the detail is provided below.

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This Is Your Brain on Legal Education

A blog post in the esteemed Wall Street Journal Law Blog on Tuesday has me facing a tough brain-teaser. A researcher (and law professor) makes the case that traditional legal education exercises only one portion of students’ brains. Professor Paula Franzese says that the law school classroom gives short shrift to what’s commonly called the creative side of the brain.

Hemispherically speaking, she says, law schools head only half-way ‘round the world, and take three years to do it.

Here’s the professor:

“‘Much of what we tend to do in the law school classroom is aimed at honing left-brain thinking,’ writes Ms. Franzese in a forthcoming essay in Seton Hall Law Review.”

“The left-brain approach emphasizes ‘reasoning through precedent.’ Students are taught the facts of a case; the strengths and holes in the arguments; how and why a court ruled a certain way; how it was different from what came before.”

“That kind of training often misses the bigger picture of things—a conceptual, contextual and empathetic understanding that gives the other side of the brain a workout, says Ms. Franzese.”

The Wall Street blog post is here.

And you can read Professor Franzese’s paper, “Law Teaching for the Conceptual Age,” here.

I promise you that I have stretched my synapses thinking about this one, I really have. And I’m still not sure I get it.

My memories of law school are potholed with a wide variety of amazing conversations about high-falutin’ concepts. Professor Franzese mentions Property and suggests how the focus on black-letter law could be improved and really move into Concepts. But it took me a few months of sitting and stewing in Real Property before our professor related anything remotely, um, real. Our Civil Procedure provided us windows into fascinating realms of expectation, rights, notice; all great, and all only peripherally connected to law practice. Concepts with a capital C, all.

You should understand that I appreciated (most of) those conversations (until I realized that all exams, including the Bar Exam, would be on black-letter law, and that it was up to the students to learn that law on their own; thanks, Teach).

So I think law school kept quite a bit of my brain exercised. How about you?

Socrates and his big male brain

Meantime, here is yet another take on that good old Socratic dialogue. This post examines the question of whether it disadvantages women law students. And why would that be? Because male students are so damned enamored of their own voices and certain of their analyses that classrooms reverberate with their grand male thoughts. Or something.

I recall many hours of law school class that were highjacked by the drone of students who decided to use others’ tuition-paid time to channel their inner Professor Kingsfield. And the actual professor, sensing a kindred spirit, reveled in the repartee. Because I still suffer from law school PTSD, though, I cannot recall how many of those students—if any—were women.

Not everyone agrees with the notion that the Socratic dialogue unfairly affects women more. Here is Above the Law on the topic.

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Lawyers Rank High in @taprootfound Study of Social Responsibility, Giving Back

Attorneys give more of themselves than do those in other professions? They may be fightin’ words.

I discovered that this past weekend, when I repeated (via Twitter and in person) new research showing that attorneys rank pretty highly in the generosity department. They came out near the top in a “professional social responsibility by professions” ranking.

First, I have to say that the findings didn’t surprise me. Most of the lawyers I know give legal services for free or at a reduced price. I can’t identify many of the many professions and vendors I deal with doing the same.

And yet, when I shared the news, many people rolled their social media eyeballs at me. And those I spoke with in person were willing to declare the study “a fraud” or “a joke.”

The study I pointed to is noted here. (And the research was done by the Taproot Foundation.) As the article notes, “This ranking is created based on US Census data on hours of pro bono services provided per member of each class of profession.”

Here is more from the Taproot Foundation on the importance of pro bono in many fields.

If you need another window into how lawyers are viewed by many, simply scroll down to the comments beneath the story. Eeesh.

Here is one of the kindest remarks I got in response: When the person saw that lawyers came out near the top of the pro bono heap, her only reaction was, “I want to see the raw data on that.”

Do you also doubt the reliability of the study? Tell me what you think.

FINALLY, while I’m on the subject, I just heard from a Phoenix connection with the following question: “I’m looking for a recommendation of a corporate lawyer who may be willing to work with a small professional orchestra (501 c3) on more of a consulting basis, i.e. pro bono if possible.”

That’s all I know about the legal needs. Do you have any suggestions? Any interest in following up?

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Unearthing Value From Cluttered Desks

He calls that messy? A submission from @jwswrites of his messy desk (on http://spjdesklove.tumblr.com/).

I’d wager the following: Anyone who has a cluttered workspace will claim that they really really really do have a system, and that it works for them. They may even go so far as to say that clutter is the sign of an active mind.

Residing among my own stacks in the cluttered category, I’ve tried floating those old canards myself. The truth is, of course, that efficient and effective people land all up and down that continuum from “hoarder” to “frighteningly neat.” Whatever works for you, works.

This month, the Society of Professional Journalists launched a fun contest in which people could send in photos of their workspace clutter. They then posted those pics on their own Tumblr page (which is worth bookmarking), and some lucky (and cluttered) person won a prize (office supplies, I think). Here’s how they put it:

“Featuring your stellar work space, courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists. Post a picture to Twitter with the hashtag #spjdesklove and we will give your desk some Tumblr love.”

I did not submit my space for consideration, but on Change of Venue Friday, I thought I’d share it with you (see below). The image in this post represents a relatively neat period in my own pendulum swing. Don’t judge.

And how about you? Are your stacks and your clutter an ongoing challenge? Have you tamed them? If so, how? (And I really mean it: HOW? I want to know!).

Have a great weekend.

A portion of my own work area: I’m actually kind of surprised how neat my “messy desk” looks on this Friday. Things are looking up! (Full disclosure: I’ve omitted my overflowing bookshelves and various other flat surfaces.)

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Bar Leadership Institute of @AZStateBar Honors 14 Lawyer Graduates

2013 BLI Graduates—Back row, L to R: Brad Martin, Blair Moses, Elizabeth Kruschek, Buck Rocker, Doreen McPaul, Ray Ybarra Maldonado. Front row, L to R: Chris Tozzo, Tabatha LaVoie, Nicole Ong, Laura Huff, Annamarie Frank, Cid Kallen, Jessica Sanchez. Not pictured: Heather Baker.

The newest class of the State Bar of Arizona Bar Leadership Institute graduated last Friday. As always, it was a noteworthy event marking the accomplishments of a talented group of lawyers.

You may already know about the BLI, but here is a description of the program:

“The Bar Leadership Institute is a nine-month program designed to foster the professional growth and enhance the leadership skills of a diverse group of Arizona attorneys. The purpose is to increase participation and visibility in the State Bar and the community-at-large among historically under-represented groups, with an emphasis on racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability and geographic diversity. In 2009 the Bar Leadership Institute was selected by the American Bar Association to receive its prestigious Partnership Award.”

More detail is here.

Speakers at the graduation stressed the qualities of leadership exemplified by the attorney graduates.

State Bar President Amelia Craig Cramer praised the attorneys, and she thanked them for their continued participation in the work of the Bar.

State Bar of Arizona President Amelia Craig Cramer, May 10, 2013

CEO John Phelps urged the graduates to value the friendships and connections they forged through the BLI program.

“That network of leaders is something special,” he said. “Take advantage of that friendship; nurture it. You’ve had the opportunity to connect with others in this special program.”

State Bar of Arizona CEO John Phelps, May 10, 2013

With a laugh, he concluded, “You’re part of the club now. Be sure to use your club membership.”

Elena Nethers, the Bar’s Diversity and Outreach Advisor, reminded graduates, their families and supporters that the BLI is designed to “enable people to attain their full potential.”

This year, she reported, the 14 graduates arose from a pool of 60 applicants.

Bar Governor Lisa Loo praised the program and the attorneys, taking the time to introduce audience member Henry Ong, a Bar member since 1972. He has been an active participant in the activities of multiple bars, Lisa pointed out. And for good measure, he is the father of Nicole Ong, one of this year’s BLI grads.

Also attending the event was BLI chair and attorney Booker Evans, Jr.

If you are interested in being part of this successful initiative (for yourself or someone else), be sure to share and complete the Bar Leadership Institite application for the coming year’s class. The application is due by June 28.

State Bar Governor Lisa Loo and BLI chair Booker Evans, Jr., at the 2013 BLI graduation

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Guest Post: The Evolution of Google Results for Lawyer Searches

The power of the Internet to transform business has been revolutionary. And in that transformation, Google and its functionality have been leading change-agents.

Attorneys—already occupied by the law and business sides of their work—likely scratch their heads at the possibility of being “found” by anyone among Google’s billions of bits and bytes. That’s why I was pleased to hear from Texas attorney Scott Morgan, who offered a primer on the topic of getting found in Google search (more about Scott follows his great post; I’m also pleased to note that he’s a prolific blogger). And if you thought you already understood Google’s algorithm before, read on, because the math of search has changed.

Here is Scott:

For many law firms, the Internet, and particularly Google, has developed over the last several years into their primary source of new clients. Many law firms use pay per click advertising (PPC) as a way to rent online real estate for important keyword phrases. Other law firms use search engine optimization (SEO) as a way to get in front of those same searchers without having to pay every time they click.

While SEO sounds great in theory, the reality is that it is extremely changing and, as we will discuss below, constantly changing. This article will discuss how Google results for local attorney phrases have dramatically changed over the past year and what law firms can do to best position themselves.

Google’s Search Results—A Brief History

Our analysis begins with a comparison of what a Google search results page for a local phrase such as “Phoenix divorce lawyer” looks like currently as compared to as recent as 2012.  Since I didn’t have the foresight to take a picture of an old results page back, I will have to replicate it by using a phrase that won’t trigger Google’s “localization” of the results. It actually took some work to find an appropriate phrase, but eventually I came across “Phoenix divorce property division,” which looked like the old-style results.

As shown in the picture below, the results basically had some paid ads at the top and right sidebar, but the rest of the page was just the 10 highest-ranking organic results for the phrase. Under the old system, the key to ranking highly for almost any particular phrase was to get lots and lots of links pointing to your site with anchor text (the words that are in the link) that either exactly matched or were close to matching the phrase you’re trying to rank highly for.

Google search results for “Phoenix divorce property division.”

So if you were trying to rank for “Phoenix divorce lawyer,” you would get links pointing to your site with that anchor text, ideally from other highly ranked sites, preferably in the legal niche. Many professional SEO firms made a lot of money by promising (and occasionally delivering) to get lawyer websites to the top of the rankings for their desired keywords using just this strategy. While certain types of links became more and less effective with Google over the years, it was still a relatively straightforward process to get a website to rank for a particular keyword phrase.

Fast Forward to the Present

Let’s now take a look at how the Google results pages have changed over the past year using the keyword phrase “Phoenix divorce lawyer” (below).

Google search results for “Phoenix divorce lawyer.”

As you can see, the results still show PPC ads at the top and right side of the page. What is significantly different are the seven local listings that are blended in with the organic results. On this particular search there are actually three results that appear above the local listings. In many locations, the seven local listings appear above all the organic listings.

While at first blush this may seem like a relatively minor cosmetic change in the results, it is anything but. Here is the often misunderstood part of the new localization of the results: Google uses two separate algorithms to rank the local results and the organic results.

Attorney Scott Morgan

In other words, you could be the #1 ranking site in organic but not be found at all in the local listings. The end result of this change could have been that overnight you went from having the top listing for multiple client-generating keywords to being pushed all the way to the bottom of the page by the local listings, causing your traffic and potential client inquiries to slow from a flood to a trickle.

What Should Law Firms Do Now?

So the bottom line is that if law firms want to get in front of potential clients on Google result pages without having to resort to PPC, they will need to rank highly in the local listings. While this is no small task, given the amount of potential clients that a high ranking on a good keyword can generate, it is worth it to master this new area of SEO. Here are some basic things that you can do to improve your chances of your website being listed highly in local:

• The very first thing you should do is claim your Google local listing. By claiming it you gain control over the content of the listing, including the basics such as your business name, address and telephone number, as well as more advanced features such as pictures, videos and periodic postings about your practice.
• Many other websites have local listings, such as Yelp, Yahoo local, Bing Local, Yellowpages, and Localeze. You should claim these listings as well. Not only can it generate some website visitors for you but Google looks at these listings as a way to confirm the information on your Google local listing.
• Work on getting your name, address and phone consistent across the Internet. This is probably the most common problem that websites have in getting good local rankings. If over the years you have moved your office once or twice or changed phone numbers, it is likely that the old data is floating around the Internet still. This will cause Google to have less confidence that the information they have for your business is accurate and will cause your local rankings to plummet.

Hopefully, this article has given you some insight into how the new Google results pages for lawyer searches work and what you need to do to improve your chances of getting a steady flow of clients from this very valuable channel.

About the Author

When not obsessing about his firm’s search rankings, Scott Morgan is busy representing divorce clients in Texas. He is a board-certified family law attorney and founder of the Morgan Law Firm, which has offices in Sugar Land, Austin and Houston.

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Was Suspension of Miranda After Boston Bombings Appropriate?

Gary Stuart speaks on Miranda rights.

How central is Miranda to our constellation of rights? When and how would we ever agree it would be acceptable to abrogate the rights gathered under the Miranda rubric?

That issue never arises on the easy cases, of course. In the workaday world, every police officer in the United States knows that the reading of the Miranda rights is an essential part of their role.

Arrests following a terror attack are not the easy cases.

That’s what we saw after the arrest of a suspect in the bombings at the Boston Marathon. The federal government announced that it was interrogating the suspect in advance of reading his rights.

We’ve understood for years that there may be emergencies that militate toward questioning-before-rights. For instance, if officials believed there could be timed explosive devices secreted around the city, they arguably should begin questioning immediately. Time will help explain if that is the situation that faced officials.

This Sunday, Gary Stuart examined the uneasy choices we make when we set aside basic rights. Gary is an experienced lawyer and author of “Miranda: The Story of America’s Right To Remain Silent.”

In his Arizona Republic op-ed, he traces the history of Miranda and subsequent rulings that have carved out exceptions to the rights.

Cagily, he leaves his powerful conclusion for the last three paragraphs. In case you are as impatient as I am, here they are:

“We should be wary about doctrinaire Miranda compliance in terrorist cases, especially where the public safety is at risk—as the Boston Marathon bombing clearly was.”

“Even so, balancing too far in favor of gathering intelligence by minimizing suspects’ rights might reverse five decades of Miranda application. While we want to win the war on terrorism, it cannot come at the price of returning to the bad old days before Miranda, when law enforcement was silent on the rights of suspects.”

“If law enforcement is silent and suspects are not, we might advance the war. But if domestic suspects have no rights, especially in terrorist cases, then those seeking to destroy democracy itself and replace it with a radically fundamental theocracy will have obtained one of their objectives.”

Read Gary’s entire editorial here.

What are your thoughts? Do we risk too much when we allow the pendulum to swing? Or does the government adopt a permissible position when it acts as it did in Boston?

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Law Schools Brace for New Rankings, This Time by @atlblog

Who wants to fight? Or, to put it more bluntly, who’s ready to discuss another ranking of law school quality?

In my experience, the gloves come off when attorneys chat about law school rankings, especially the one generated by US News & World Report (or, as those scorched law school administrators who won’t utter the title call it, Voldemort).

A lot rides on those rankings—for the schools. But even for those who earned their law school sheepskin long ago, the topic can cause rancor. Call it pride, loyalty or pissing rights, but many lawyers get right up in your grill when it is pointed out that their alma mater is ranked poorly or—heaven forbid—unranked.

To make matters even more challenging, the latest ranking comes to us from Above the Law. If you’ve ever read their coverage, you know that the authors are snarkily uninterested in your delicate feelings—and that’s when they write a run-of-the-mill news story. But turn them loose on law school rankings, and watch out.

To give you an idea of their boisterous approach to an endeavor that is typically veddy veddy stuffy, here is their opening paragraph:

“Most people attend law school to obtain jobs as lawyers. (Not butchers or bakers, or candlestick makers.)”

“If law school was just a cool place to chill out for a few years without building specific job skills, they’d call it ‘college.’ Jobs are important, and we think that law schools should be competing to place students in the best jobs, not the best libraries. And given the cost of obtaining legal education, we want to know which law schools put you in jobs that pay you money, instead of jobs the law school pays for. With that in mind we present our inaugural ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings.”

That opener is followed by a great graphic that explains their rubric in a visual way. After that, plunge in and read the rankings themselves.

If you’re not simmering (or cheering) after that, and you still want to enjoy the rankings game, be sure to read the burgeoning list of comments that follow the ATL rankings. Angry, much?

And as an added lure to entice you to scan the rankings, there’s this: Exactly one-third of Arizona’s law schools appear on this new list—barely. (Now you’ve got to look.)

How do you think their editors did? Do you agree with their rubric? How about their results? Let me know your thoughts at arizona.attorney@azbar.org.

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Lawyers of @AZStateBar Offer Free Legal Information Saturday – #shareplease

Here is a challenge I offer to you today: Share a law-related item via social media or email.

Whoa, pretty easy, right? I bet you thought I was going to ask for some major heavy lifting. Instead, it is a simple click, share, send, done.

The item is connected to a topic I covered before: a State Bar of Arizona Law Day event that will offer free legal information to those who need it.

Really, truly, honestly free. The information will be provided by generous Arizona attorneys who know that the gap between legal services and people who need them is too, too wide. Those volunteers are offering their time pro bono to help shrink the gap just a bit.

All of the pertinent details are here. If you share nothing else, send this link to anyone you know who may be able to use it. As the State Bar says:

“The 2013 Law Day Legal Aid Clinics will serve as a free legal resource where members of communities from across the Valley and Tucson can attend information sessions on a variety of legal topics.”

“The information sessions will be conducted by volunteer lawyers and will last 90 minutes. Lawyers will provide guests with a presentation on a specific legal topic, as well as reserve time for a question and answer period. Guests can participate in one or more sessions at one of the five partner locations.”

Are you connected via social media or email to any groups that could benefit? Send it their way. Post it on your Facebook timeline. Share it on your neighborhood association listserv. Ask your firm administrator to post it prominently.

Your sharing news of Saturday’s event can help guarantee its success. Possible attendees have to be informed about the locations, the topics, the opportunity on offer. Success of the event, as measured by attendance and questions answered, will help ensure that it can be done—again and again.

For at least a part of the morning, I will be at the event staged at Phoenix’s Burton Barr Central Library. I want to hear some of the information offered, and I want to thank the lawyers who are offering it—and their Saturday.

I hope to see you and your friends there. And if you missed that link, here it is again.

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Lawyer–Authors Honored for Their Contributions By @azcourts

This week I heard great news about some of my favorite people: Arizona Attorney Magazine authors.

Besides that admirable distinction, these two men are pretty remarkable in their own right. Paul Julien and Mark Meltzer both serve the Arizona justice system via their substantial positions at the Supreme Court.

Jeff Schrade (left) and Justice Scott Bales (right) present framed Arizona Attorney articles to lawyer-authors Paul Julien (center-left) and Mark Meltzer, April 2013.

As their humble and succinct bios say: “Paul Julien is the Judicial Education Officer for the Arizona Supreme Court, and was chair of the committee mentioned charged with reviewing and proposing changes to the Justice Court rules. Mark Meltzer is a specialist with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and served as committee staff.”

The news came my way from Jeff Schrade, once a colleague at the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education, and now the Director of the Education Services Division at the Arizona Supreme Court AOC.

Jeff sent the accompanying photo and news about an event at which Court staff recognized the two men for their publication in Arizona Attorney. (I think that should be a tradition at every workplace!) The article they wrote for us provided valuable and timely information about changed rules applying to the much-misunderstood Justice Courts.

You can read the complete article here.

The opening to Paul and Mark’s Justice Court rules story, Jan. 2013.

Here is a bit about the award, in Jeff’s own words:

“Today I gave Paul Julien and Mark Meltzer framed copies of their Jan 2013 Arizona Attorney article about the Justice Court Civil Rules of Procedure. Vice Chief Justice Scott Bales made a special presentation to Paul and Mark at the conclusion of our Limited Jurisdiction New Judge Orientation, which took place this week at the Arizona Supreme Court Judicial Education Center in downtown.”

“The 20 new Limited Jurisdiction judges attending this three-week program gave Paul and Mark a standing ovation, recognizing not only their excellence on this particular project, but their daily efforts to train and provide assistance to limited jurisdiction judges across the state.”

“As you know, Mark and Paul not only wrote about the new rules in the Arizona Attorney, but they lead a committee with a wide representation of justice stakeholders through lengthy process to rewrite the rules. It was an extraordinary effort that produced more accessible and understandable rules, especially for the many pro se litigants appearing before justice courts.”

Jeff Schrade, that handsome devil, graced the April 2001 cover of Arizona Attorney Magazine.

The Court’s recognition is well deserved, but that January article is just the tip of the service iceberg for Paul and Mark. They have helped the state and the Court in countless ways. And here at the magazine, their involvement has gone beyond writing (as Mark also did in our March 2013 issue). They are both go-to people whom I count on for advice and insight on so many topics. Every editor I know has a kitchen cabinet, and I’m pleased to say these two men are reliable and wise members of mine.

A side note: Jeff Schrade, too, has been a part of the Arizona Attorney family, in a very personal way. Way back in our April 2001 issue, when I had helmed the magazine for just three months, we wanted to provide a great visual to front our deep coverage of lawyer marketing and advertising.

Always a great sport, Jeff donned a sandwich board and stood on First Avenue in downtown Phoenix for at least an hour while the photographer, art director and I all helped shepherd passersby around the generous photo-model.

(There were other heroes that day: Two Bar colleagues—Bonnie Lebeck and Natalie Burns— also assisted, by striding past quickly, over and over—backwards!—to provide the necessary blur.)

Adding to the surreality experienced by commuters that morning was the fact that the sandwich board was blank; we would add the desired words to the image of the board at a later design stage. What a mensch!

Jeff recently told me, “For the record, I still proudly display the special cover you made for me welcoming the birth of my son Nathan (who is 12 now) back in 2001!”

We like the cover quite a bit ourselves!

Congratulations again to Mark Meltzer and Paul Julien. Here’s looking to years more collaboration!

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