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LPT Articles
Trust Accounting Basics
By Julie Bays Safeguarding client funds and property is an important duty. Trust account management is simple and yet honest lawyers sometimes find themselves in disciplinary peril because they did not pay appropriate attention to their trust account. The Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct require a lawyer to hold property of clients or third persons separate...
The Nuts and Bolts of Opening a Law Practice
By Jim Calloway Opening a new law practice is, at its core, opening a new business. It is an experiment in entrepreneurship. Emotions are definitely involved. This can, and should, be exciting and thrilling. There can also be trepidation as one contemplates an unknown future, and it can involve mixed emotions for someone like a new law...
Tales of Fails in Lawyer Marketing in 2019
By Jim Calloway Everyone’s a critic. I must confess to frequent aggravation as I read some pieces of criticism directed at lawyers in private practice, especially ones written by those who have never spent any time working in a law firm. So, let me open with my response to all of them. If you have...
Tips to Avoid Some Major Technology Glitches
By Jim Calloway Technology updates and changes, like so many things in life, have positive and negative aspects. One thing that most end-users hate are the changes in our interface that happen with an automatic update. I recall one Adobe Acrobat Professional update where it seemed the developers changed most of the tools I commonly used for no apparent reason. I...
Safe in the Clouds
By Jim Calloway “Safe in the clouds” sounds peaceful and dreamy, unless of course you have a fear of falling. Lawyers, for better and for worse, are trained to examine everything with an eye toward fear of falling, or more accurately, fear of failing. This starts in law school with the high-pressure Socratic method, high-stakes single exams and...
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Law Practice
By Jim Calloway Artificial intelligence (AI) will be the focus of the 2019 OBA Annual Meeting Thursday CLE and luncheon in November. It is quite amazing how quickly AI has moved from the legal tech crowd to a mainstream subject for lawyers. Not many years ago most lawyers would have believed that AI tools would...
Access to Justice and Productivity Gains for All Lawyers
By Jim Calloway Access to justice is the theme of this issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal. I’ve had the opportunity to review many of the articles in advance and this is a very thought-provoking collection. Its content ranges from issues directly impacting the practicing lawyer like delivering limited scope legal services, the need for more court reporters and the credentials...
Technology and the Legal Profession
By Jim Calloway Much has been written about the antipathy of the legal profession toward adoption of modern technology. “The relationship between lawyers and technology is complicated” begins a column in Forbes magazine titled “Lawyers and Technology: Frenemies or Collaborators?” by Mark A. Cohen, noting many lawyers “curious ambivalence” toward adopting technology. That observation is...
Text Messaging for Lawyers
By Jim Calloway Text messaging (or texting) is one of the technology advances that has impacted how most people interact with each other. Like many consumer technology tools, texting can be a time waster, but sometimes it is the absolute perfect tool. When you’re running late for a social meeting, a quick text of “OTW” or “B there in...
Don’t Become the Victim of a Wire Fraud Scheme
By Jim Calloway When I was in law school, a cashier’s check was deemed to be just as good as cash because it was guaranteed by the bank. While that is still technically and legally true today, the question is whether you are holding a valid cashier’s check. Criminals now have the ability to create forged cashier’s checks that...