Job Tips: Marketing Yourself

For those of you enamored with lists, Super Lawyers released their list of the top 100 lawyers in the  Mountain States--including two recently (re)elected to the Board of Governors. For those of you not so in love with the lists, one of our readers wants to know how you market yourself. Not your firm, but yourself. Do you work on your Avvo profile? Do you post frequently to your Linked In, Facebook, and Twitter pages? Is your face on the side of a Zamboni? Any tips that would help a young lawyer get ahead in the game?

Job Tips: Naming The Practice

One of our readers called Tumbledorf writes in with the following question:

I'm leaving my firm to go into solo practice. I have a very common last name - might as well be "Smith." That means there are approximately 900,000 "Smith Law Offices," "Smith Law Group," etc. Also, there's no way I would ever be able to get a simple domain like smithlaw.com Something like smithlawofficenevada.com might be possible, but it's really long and guaranteed people will leave the "nevada" part out. 

I am on the fence about generic names like "Hot Desert Law Center". But that might be practically necessary to get a reasonably short domain name.

Thoughts? Obviously it can't be something that implies the firm is bigger than just me. What is good and what just sounds dumb? Does anyone even care? What is best for clients? (I do civil litigation mostly.)

Smith Law Firm / Group (for a solo?)

Smith Law Center (www.thesmithlawcenterinnevada.com)

[Generic geographic reference] Law (e.g., High Desert, Desert, Red Rock, etc.)

Lawyer McLawface

A completely made-up word? (e.g., "zillow")

Other ideas? What say you?

Thanks!

Reminder:  Today is the first day to submit nominations for the Board of Governors. You only have until April 27, 2018, to get them in.

Job Tips: Language

One of our readers wants to know where the line is for appropriate cussing in the workplace if at all? We know some of you will say it's never appropriate. But what about behind a closed office door? Is it ever appropriate to use strong language talking to opposing counsel?

Job Tips: Humor At Work

Is it okay to be funny at work? Do you avoid jokes of any kind? Do you only talk to certain people? Do you ever joke in a courtroom with the judge? Is there a place for humor in the legal profession?

Job Tips: Taking Vacation

One of our readers has a question about taking a vacation. This second year associate only took a total of 3 days off in 2017 and has plans to take of a whopping 5 business days of vacation later this year for a honeymoon. Now, the associate is stressing about taking those days off. Do you have any advice? Are they right to be concerned? Anything you can say that will help them feel comfortable turning off their work email for a week and enjoying life?