Open letter to California lawyers, part 1
California lawyers just got a wake-up slap from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that has been long overdue.  In short, he has said “no” to a State Bar to take yet more money from us that would fund continuing ineptitude.  Am I too harsh?  I quote the Governor, in part: I am returning Senate Bill 261 without my signature.  This bill would, among other provisions, authorize the State Bar to collect annual bar dues from its members for 2010.  In 1997, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed the annual State Bar dues bill, citing numerous concerns that the State Bar had become overly political, unresponsive to its membership and inefficient.  Unfortunat

Legal rebels need another leader, it seems
After getting off to a roaring start, it seems the ABAJournal’s Legal Rebels tour is already running out of steam.  I had such high hopes, but find myself sadly disappointed.    A common definition for “rebel” is “to resist or defy an authority or a generally accepted convention.”  Susan Cartier Liebel has done that with the Solo Practice University.  Laurel Edgeworth has done that with the Law Clerk Connection.  Mae O’Malley has done that with Parago

The tweet-up virgin has an epiphany
This evening I attended my very first “tweet-up”* after a long day of continuing legal education at the California Bar Association’s Annual Meeting.  *For you those of you as ignorant as I was a day or two ago, a tweet-up is a real world meeting between two or more people who know each other via Twitter, an online networking service.  Although often used for mere social purposes, Twitter has become an important  aspect of business and even international politics. This particular tweet-up was courtesy of Adrian Dayton, author of the just released “Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition,”

Legal rebels unite!!!!
While I am busy “rethinking” the legal profession (and doing my part to implement change with FreelanceLaw and the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals), the ABA Journal has given a great boost to us visionaries through its Legal Rebels project.  A Legal Rebel road tour has just kicked off that will profile 50 of the countries’ legal visionaries and I am eager to follow its progress, especially because I’ve personally talked with some of them and know what profound and important changes they are working on.