Business Lawyers Network - Boston **Signup**
Topic: "Personal Branding: The Secret to Building a Sustainable Business"
Speaker: Paige Arnof-Fenn, CEO of Mavens & Moguls
Place: 53 State Street, 29th Floor, Boston, MA 02109 (Directions)

[I received this note from Bob Glazer yesterday and posted it with his permission.]

Office Available for Lease

730 Square foot ground floor office space: reception area, 2 windowed offices and interior office/conference room. Perfect for small business, professional or sales office.

Chestnut Green Office Condominiums is a 30,000 sq. ft, wood frame and cedar clapboard building with brick ends. It is conveniently located off of Washington Street with easy access to both I-95 and I-93. There is an ample on-site parking lot.

Creating a website is critical for every lawyer today. It is as important as (or, I would argue, more important than) printing business cards.

I thought it would be interesting to review some of our member profiles and pick a few websites that were both simple to build and professional-looking.

Here is a list of LEXpertise members that I liked:

Gerard Butler (www.lexpertise.net/gbutler)
Website: www.smithduggan.com
Cool features: download brochure in pdf format, google map used to locate office

Stephen Conlin (www.lexpertise.net/sconlin)
Website: www.archstonelaw.com

Business Lawyers Network - Wellesley **Signup**
Topic: "Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing"
Speaker: David Friedman, President of Boston Logic Technology Partners, Inc.
Place: Rebecca's Café, Wellesley Office Park, 55 William St, Wellesley (Directions)

A Massachusetts lawyer asked me this question. I told him that I didn't know, but thought maybe someone here might...

>Roger, I have one question I was hoping you might be able
>to answer. I seem to get this question a lot, and can never
>answer it. Can a commercial landlord use self help measures
>against a non-paying tenant, e.g. changing locks? Perhaps
>there is no simple answer to this...

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Leveraging your time requires a different mindset. It is a change in the way you think about the practice of law. It is not just delegating your work to someone else or learning to use a Blackberry. It is not something you do just once. Leveraging your time requires continuous dedication. Also, leveraging your time requires separating yourself from your business. How can you run your business more efficiently without you personally doing all the work?

(This was originally sent to our clients, colleagues and friends on December 9, 2007.)

USCIS (formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service) has adopted a new Form I-9 which all employers must begin using on December 26, 2007. In short, USCIS is stepping up its enforcement of work place compliance with U. S. immigration laws. There are penalties for failure to adhere to the new rules.

Recently, the Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) released a draft Advisory which provides further clarification on their interpretation of the state’s independent contractor law, and makes it clear that they will be more aggressive in their enforcement of the law.

If your business uses independent contractors in Massachusetts, we strongly encourage you to determine if you are properly classifying these individuals and if your business is not classifying them properly, to assess your risks.

Historically, firms grew by continually increasing their billing rates, but that strategy is no longer working. As billing rates of big firm lawyers top $1000/hour, clients (e.g., Cisco and other companies) are pushing back.