1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Launch into 2025 with our Mind Your Business…

Mind Your Business

Launch into 2025 with our Mind Your Business roundup

By Lee Rawles

January 2, 2025, 3:30 pm CST

As you gear up for a productive 2025, check out our Mind Your Business advice from the past year. Mind Your Business, which launched in 2020, is a way for legal professionals to offer each other practical practice advice. If you have hard-won knowledge of your own that you’d like to pass on, scroll to the bottom to find out how you can join the conversation.

Make no mistake: Maintaining privacy compliance is a complex moving target, and the checks and balances that your company needed 10 years ago do not even scratch the surface of what you need today.

Assuming that you share your legal knowledge and experience without oversimplification, advice from marketing experts can be worthwhile and immensely useful. Here are a few ways to embrace marketing advice without leaving your legal training behind.

Businesses increasingly recognize emotion’s pivotal role in decision-making. Research in the Harvard Business Review shows emotional connections can drive significant gains.

How you manage a crisis is critical and may be the difference between a swift resolution and a prolonged public nightmare. Consider these seven lessons to help guide your clients successfully through their next crisis.

Few law schools offer their graduates LinkedIn self-branding workshops as an employment game-changer before law firm hiring managers. Today, even when taught, self-branding coursework is outdated, even at the best law schools. Or, as widely lamented by attendees in my recent online seminar, marketing courses not offered at all.

To better advise artificial intelligence decisions, lawyers should know the benefits, shortcomings and best practices of incorporating insurance into AI risk management.

Contract management. Compliance updates. Discovery responses. Intellectual property portfolio management. These rote, often-time-consuming tasks can all be part of an in-house counsel’s day-to-day schedule. The problem? Many can devolve into costly time sinks for a legal department’s salaried talent.

As generative artificial intelligence stormed the scene over the past year with its snazzy Q&A interface, it was fair to ask whether existing ways of accessing knowledge, such as keyword search or templates, would become redundant. After all, why would you need those old ways of tracking down specific pieces of knowledge if you can just ask the all-knowing AI to call it up for you?

Many law firms are seeking to increase diversity, equity, inclusion accessibility and belonging within their team (collectively, “DEI”). Following are five tips for how law firms can apply DEI best practices in 2024.

As 2024 begins, so does the business of legal recruiting. And not surprisingly, we have already seen numerous transfers of law firm partners and groups. The market also anticipates several more major firm mergers this year. As we start this new year, I would like to broach the question, do you know who your legal recruiter is?

“It’s never going to go well,” Arizona attorney Lynda C. Shely says about the prospect of representing anyone you are close to, including family members and friends. Shely, the immediate past chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, works in private practice and has advised more than 2,500 law firms around the country on legal ethics matters.

Are you interested in contributing your own business wisdom to ABA Journal readers in 2025? The ABA Journal is open to receiving submissions from legal professionals and subject-matter experts for the Mind Your Business series. Read submissions guidelines here.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Biden recalls time he bluffed knowledge of…

Careers

Biden recalls time he bluffed knowledge of torts case and why he changed his mind about civil-trial work

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 14, 2024, 2:34 pm CDT

President Joe Biden digressed when answering questions last fall about documents stored at his vice presidential residence to remember his tough torts class at the Syracuse University College of Law and the first job that he got after graduation.

Biden was responding in October to questions by then-special counsel Robert K. Hur, who later concluded that Biden shouldn’t be charged with mishandling classified information because jurors would perceive him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Reuters has the story on Biden’s law school recollection, based on this transcript. Above the Law noted the story.

Biden said he didn’t take law school very seriously. is torts professor, who was “really difficult,” called on Biden to discuss a case that he had never read.

Biden said he nonetheless stood up and spoke for 10 minutes.

“The whole class stood up, started clapping,” Biden said.

The torts professor noted that not a single thing that Biden said was relevant to the case. But he was apparently impressed by Biden’s performance.

“You’ll be a hell of a trial lawyer,” Biden recalled the professor saying.

After law school, Biden took a job with the best-known trial law firm in Delaware handling mostly civil-defense cases. Biden recalled a case involving a “poor kid” who was 23 years old when his jeans caught fire at his worksite. The man had been wearing the wrong pants, and when his jeans caught fire he lost part of his penis and testicles.

Delaware law barred a tort recovery if there was contributory negligence by the plaintiff. Biden was asked to write a motion to dismiss.

He did so, “and son of a b- – – -, it prevailed,” Biden said. “And I looked over at that kid and his wife home with two little kids, and I thought, ‘Son of a b- – – -, I’m in the wrong business. I’m not made for this.’”

He quit the job and became a public defender.

See also:

“Special counsel: No charges for Biden in classified documents probe”

“Trump-appointed US attorney is investigating classified documents found by Biden’s lawyers at office he used”

Ever have that thought? “I must be losing my mind because I can’t remember where I parked my car or set my iPhone, your name—although I recognize your face—an address, a birthday, a password, a set of numbers, what I was looking for, etc.” Many aging lawyers have—including me.

Are we really losing it, or is it just another “senior moment” that is part of the natural aging process? And in either case, what can we do about it? I want to talk about maintaining and improving cognitive abilities as we senior lawyers age.

But first, my disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor or trained health care professional in neurology, brain diseases and their diagnoses; the natural aging process; or treatments and prevention of cognitive impairment. I am a senior lawyer who is aging and has an interest in the subject matter because my brain is an indispensable component of successful lawyering.

Keeping my brain healthy has been and continues to be very important to me, as I suspect it is to all senior lawyers.

If you have real concerns about your memory “episodes,” for example, if they interfere with your practice of law or other routine daily activities, you should consult your physician or other health care team members to evaluate your condition and follow their recommendations.

For those senior lawyers who have suffered a brain injury or have been diagnosed with dementia, continue working with your health care team to establish and follow a proper treatment program. This article is not intended to address any of these situations, although an article on mild cognitive impairment published by the Cleveland Clinic identifies steps discussed below as ones that can help keep your brain healthy and reduce the risk of suffering MCI.

Because I am not a medical doctor or a trained health care professional, I consulted some of the many authoritative articles that are readily available on the subject of brain health, which is defined in a National Institute on Aging article to mean “how well a person’s brain functions across several areas,” one of which is cognitive health or “how well you think, learn and remember.”

There seems to be widespread agreement on a number of steps that we can take to maintain, regain and improve our cognitive abilities and our brain’s functioning.

Stay mentally active

Engage in regular challenging mental activity to help maintain brain cell health and stimulate communication among them.

Challenging mental activity is commonplace for lawyers. In fact, I have joked with colleagues that the legal matter seemed easy so I must have missed something. The practice of law is challenging and seems to be ever evolving in its breadth and complexity.

There are new clients to engage and learn their business or legal needs; new laws or regulations to read, digest and apply; new cases to read to stay current in my areas of practice; new articles to write; new attorneys to train; new technology to master; new programs to plan; and the list continues.

For me, one of the attractions to practicing law was the lifelong learning that it offered. I found that to be true and have transitioned my practice areas multiple times in my career. I seek variety in my practice in order to stay engaged. So far, I have not been disappointed.

If you are no longer actively practicing law, then learning new skills will contribute to healthy cognitive functioning as we age, such as playing the guitar or painting, volunteering to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity, mentoring disadvantaged children or adults, reading a new genre of books, playing card games, assembling jigsaw puzzles, or pursuing other creative activities in which you have an interest.

One of the articles suggests that the best new activity is one that is challenging, complex and requires constant practice.

Manage stress

Without question, the practice of law is stressful, and adding issues with cognitive ability into the mix compounds the stress. Learning ways that work for a lawyer to manage stress is important at all stages of a lawyer’s career.

It does not start when the lawyer becomes a senior lawyer. If you are no longer actively practicing law, then you have removed a significant stress factor, but perhaps you have encountered new ones. There exists many readily available books, articles and recommendations for managing stress that you can review and find what is best for your personal situation. To help manage stress related to cognition issues, select and practice the steps discussed in this article that you find work for you.

Exercise regularly

Regular exercise not only helps with stress management, something that is good for our brain in and of itself, but it also helps with other factors that can affect cognitive functioning, such as high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, weight and cardiovascular issues.

Physical activity also helps us sleep better and reduces risks of depression and anxiety. The type of exercise can vary depending upon your physical health, and consulting your physician before undertaking a new exercise regimen is a standard recommendation for those who have underlying health issues or have not previously exercised regularly.

The key is to get moving or keep moving, and if it happens to involve learning a new skill, like pickleball or swimming, there is a mental challenge component that helps improve brain functioning too. The brain needs to be challenged repetitively by complex activity that requires it to work.

Sleep

Sleep enables the brain to “reboot,” that is, to consolidate and store memories effectively. The best sleep is seven to eight consecutive hours, as opposed to two- to three-hour intervals. But the amount of sleep needed varies with age. You may need to consult your health care team to rule out sleep apnea or other potential causes for sleep interferences.

Diet

Pay attention to your diet. Eating the right foods, such as those in a Mediterranean style diet of fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts, unsaturated oils (i.e., olive oil) and plant sources of protein not only helps your physical health but also helps improve your brain health.

Social connections

Social connections are important to stimulate your brain. According to the NIA article, “People who engage in personally meaningful and productive activities with others tend to live longer, boost their mood and have a sense of purpose.”

One way to stay connected is by volunteering to serve on an ABA Senior Lawyers Division committee that is tasked with something meaningful to you. There are numerous opportunities to serve nonprofit organizations and mentoring programs serving the needs of others, and as lawyers, we have developed valuable skill sets to contribute.

Protection

As we age, the risk of falls tends to increase, and our balance may not be as good as before. It is important to protect against physical injury to our brains. If you are experiencing balance issues or have issues with falls, consult your physician or health care team to determine the cause, and then develop and follow a care plan with them.

In addition, there are programs available to help you with these issues. For example, in my community, the YMCA offers a program specifically designed for adults age 55 and older that includes strength building, yoga, water exercise, low-impact aerobics and other balance-related exercises.

Stop tobacco use

If you smoke or chew, stop. Tobacco use has been shown to have numerous detrimental physical health effects, some of which can impact brain health.

For help quitting, you can call 800-QUIT-NOW (800-784-8669), or access the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s resources on quitting smoking.

Alcohol in moderation

If you consume alcohol, do so in moderation. Alcohol abuse has been shown to cause depression and may be linked to dementia. If you are addicted, seek help. The ABA maintains a directory of lawyer assistance programs by state, which you can access here. These programs provide confidential assistance to judges, lawyers and law students with substance use disorders and other mental health issues.

While we cannot completely eliminate the effects of aging on our cognitive health, we can take steps to reduce its impact.

---

Editor’s Note: This column originally ran in the ABA Senior Lawyers Division publication Voice of Experience in December 2023.

---

Rod Kubat is a shareholder in the Des Moines, Iowa, office of Nyemaster Goode, where he represents closely held, privately owned companies in a wide variety of industries and lenders and client borrowers in all types of secured credit facilities and sophisticated structured finance transactions.

---

ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

---

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Start 2024 off right with these 12 Mind Your…

Year in Review

Start 2024 off right with these 12 Mind Your Business columns

By Lee Rawles

December 22, 2023, 10:05 am CST

The ABA Journal hosts the Mind Your Business column to facilitate lawyers talking to other lawyers about the business side of law. We had 12 contributions in 2023, and we’ve put together this roundup as a perfect way to help readers get in a growth mindset for 2024. Please enjoy, and scroll to the bottom to see how you could share your own wisdom next year.

“On the basis of.” These four words from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 underlie the modern conception of illegal bias. From federal anti-discrimination statutes to state and local laws, this phrase nearly unites them all.

The pandemic pressured corporate legal departments to control costs and collaborate online to an unprecedented degree as demand for legal services surged. But missteps await legal departments that rush into implementing technology without first taking a thorough look at the bigger picture.

For the past 20 years in the legal recruiting business, my firm, the Advocates, has focused on helping our clients land key lateral attorneys and improve retention through several unique processes designed to match candidates’ personalities to the right law firm and corporate cultures for them.

Rare is the client who looks to litigators, alternative dispute resolution specialists or even corporate counsel as the “go to” persons for providing services that will prevent disputes. Most attorneys serve their clients by representing them in disputes that are already or soon to be underway, with a focus on billable negotiation, mediation, arbitration or litigation representation.

After years of unbridled hiring, a growing number of tech companies recently have made headlines with layoffs and recruiting slowdowns. In-house counsel jobs, especially at tech companies, are not exempt.

A JD degree is a gateway to various career alternatives. One of these opportunities, teaching law in a business school, receives little publicity and often is overlooked by law school graduates.

Generative AI systems are made up of billions or even trillions of parameters trained on vast amounts of data, and their complexity makes their outputs notoriously difficult to explain. But can complex generative systems undergo meaningful audits?

According to the Thomson Reuters 2022 State of U.S. Small Law Firms report, 22% of law firms admit that “differentiating your firm from your competition” is one of the top three goals or priorities for their practices. The report also indicates that 50% of firms find “challenges acquiring new client business” a moderate challenge, and 22% see it as a significant one. At the same time, almost three-quarters of the firms feel that the most competition comes from other law firms of similar size.

Before you start drafting a plan to expand your firm into new territories or practice new areas of law, it’s important that you don’t fall into the habit of overworking yourself in order to achieve your business goals.

There are few events in life more pivotal and significant than becoming a parent, especially for the first time. Yet even in today’s era of post-COVID-19 extravagant employee wellness initiatives that focus on mental health, many employers fail to recognize the importance of providing their workforce with the one benefit that will enhance both employee retention and job satisfaction: a robust parental leave policy.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, offices worldwide have been compelled to adapt to virtual or hybrid work models, transforming the way businesses operate. While the urgency to implement these changes may have diminished since restrictions have become almost nonexistent, the impact of virtual and hybrid work environments continues to resonate strongly, particularly within the legal industry.

As lawyers, whether we practice in a corporate legal office, a global law firm or an independent firm, we are all trying to position ourselves for success in a changing and more globalized legal landscape. We are also all facing challenges in recruiting and retaining the young lawyers who will help us get there. Lawyer exchanges are one tool that can be effective on both fronts.

Want to read more Mind Your Business columns? Check out the full series. If you’re interested in contributing your own advice to the column, please read our submission guidelines, and you may see your work in a future roundup.

---

Mind Your Business is a series of columns written by lawyers, legal professionals and others within the legal industry. The purpose of these columns is to offer practical guidance for attorneys on how to run their practices, provide information about the latest trends in legal technology and how it can help lawyers work more efficiently, and strategies for building a thriving business.

---

Interested in contributing a column? Send a query to [email protected].

---

These columns reflect the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.