The business plan presentation went well, I think. Although we had our slide show in place by the weekend, there was a lot of tweaking over the past few days. We knew that the business plan had small errors. Rather than ignoring them, I suggested that we admit mistakes upfront and move on. That way we wouldn't be perceived as hiding anything, and we would establish credibility for being truthful.
We divided our tasks early. Jeff provided a PowerPoint template, set the formats and provided content. I set a guideline of a maximum of five bullets/page. Once Jeff established a working draft, we emailed suggestions which he incorporated. I added my pages on computers/technology. For an actual practice, there might be too many redundancies of back-up, but better safe than sorry. After partners' review, I gave the draft an intense edit, concentrating on content flow, proofreading/formating/editing.
We emailed to each other our presentation order, and how to keep it short. We kept "Lion, Tiger & Bear" in because it was a good ice-breaker. Actually my husband created the logo for a start-up company of him and two friends, but it never went anywhere because none of them wanted to be the bear.
Anyway I tried to keep my portion brief, because it's difficult to keep everyone's attention when they know it's the final class. It think it went well, and the final quotes were a nice personal touch. They were very different from each other, but collectively it worked. We had a good partnership.
We were questioned on partner taxes--Jeff is kicking himself over it, instead of concentrating on what we did well despite inexperience--and questioned about insurance costs. We were able to get quotes after I sent Jeff the initial contact information I got through the Bar Association of San Francisco. Our readings recommended looking for discounts through the local and national bar(s), as did Prof. Zilber.
The rest of the lecture went over taxes and the personal side of being a lawyer.
- Taxes -- Now that I finished TurboTax 2007, I have a better understanding of federal taxation and my limitation. I still hate dealing with that area, and if I were a solo I'd likely keep an accountant on retainer to ensure that I didn't miss anything.
- Substance Abuse/Personal Issues -- Stress is a huge part of lawyering. Both texts, as well as Prof. Zilber, recommended admitting your limitations and getting help when you need it. I was surprised to learn from lecture that the lawyer assistance program was comprised of lawyers/recoverees. I'd assumed instead that it was similar to the cafeteria-plan Employee Assistance Programs where there are referral services for mental health, caregivers, etc., as well as crisis managers listening for suicidal thoughts. It's ironic that there's such a stigma to mental/emotional illness, when the law field attracts so many. On the other hand, that shows why the lawyer assistance program is so necessary.
- Treating Clients/Opponents with Dignity --Providing hospitality treats people with dignity. True, sometimes it's a disarming tactic with strategic value. By filling their bellies, you give opponents food for thought (although it didn't work to advantage in "A Civil Action"). I never thought of providing snacks as a time-saver, but it makes sense in that creating a pleasant atmosphere makes people more amenable to mediation/negotiation, which saves time. Some of the special education advocacy materials suggest bringing snacks to meetings, for the same purpose. I don't know if it's ever worked in my favor, but it certainly made the meeting more palatable (sorry about the pun).
