The Dreams of a Solo

Slacking on the Blog

I am not proud of this, but it is abundantly clear that I have not been attending to my duties as a blogger in recent months.  I, like many of you I'm sure, loathe to some degree posts like this one from a slacking blogger.  Because of that I will keep it short and to the point.  I am still working and the new addition to my firm has added a great deal to my schedule, as I assumed that it would.   The good news is that we are concluding our second full week and things have come together very well to this point.  My hope is that it will continue along this positive curve and that I will be able to dedicate more time to my blogging activities.  Since I have a bit of this afternoon open I am planning on making the most of it with a couple of posts between now and Monday.  Thanks for your continued readership.  I look forward to getting back in the swing of things.  Have a good weekend.

The Year in Review Before it Happens

The title of this post is an impossibility on its face, but considering the news and events in my little world during the first two months of 2008 I am comfortable characterizing the "new year" before it runs its course.  It also helps explain, at least to some degree, why I have not come close to reaching my posting frequency goals for this year so far.  You see 2008 came as if it were dressed as the month of March for Halloween.  In case that analogy is too cryptic I mean to say that the year came is as a Lion with news of imminent changes from all sides.  The first bit of news is in regards to the addition of my friend and fellow attorney to my firm.  The second bit of news is in regards to my wife's family, who currently live in the same city, Appleton, WI, as we do.  I say currently because the news in early 2008 is that my in-laws will be relocating to North Carolina this summer.  This is certainly not a unique development when viewed in a vacuum, but it is unique to me and my wife.  Especially considering that my wife is one of 11 children.  In fact she is the second oldest and five kids are still in high school or below.  That makes the move much more difficult for my wife and for me, since our decision to relocate to Appleton a couple of years ago was largely based on our desire to be closer and more involved in the younger children's lives. 

Putting all the emotional implications aside that brings me to the physical implications of moving.  The last month or so has seen many changes in preparation for the main task in the relocation process:  selling a house.  I was not blessed with a handyman upbringing and I will be the first to tell you that I am still not the most skilled craftsman around the house.  But, I owned and sold a house in Milwaukee and I currently own a house in Appleton.  I guess the joy of home ownership has allowed me to find time to explore various projects around each house over the last four years.   It also doesn't hurt that I truly enjoyed tinkering and working on these household projects.  So over the last four weeks I have painted three rooms, fixed some cedar siding, and patched a bit of drywall to help get the house in showing condition.  The good news is that the house is ready to show and it is listed for sale by owner as we speak.  I am not mentioning this to vent or to garner sympathy, because I do enjoy helping out, especially when it makes life easier for my family.  It has just been a busy start to 2008.

With all the non-business related developments taking up the lion's share (pun intended - see above) of this post, I would be remiss to not mention the law firm related developments that have also occupied a great deal of my time.  So far 2008 is shaping up to be right in line with if not exceeding expectations.  I had set a client and financial goal at the beginning of the year for the end of February in preparation for the addition of Nick to my firm.  I am happy to say that I have met both of those goals and we have started to transition him into the fold through a couple long-distance projects.  Being a numbers guys it helps me to maintain working budgets and financial models that I can routinely update and review.  That is also why I set goals relative to number and/or types of clients and finances. 

In the end I have no doubt that I will look back on 2008 just as the PGA Tour players look at Saturday during the Master's Tournament at Augusta National.  The players and the commentators call it "Moving Day."  I think it would be appropriate to rephrase it "Moving Year" in our case, but the meaning is still the same.  Life and my law firm have to keep moving forward even if it appears that chaos is everywhere.  I have found that the best compass during times where everything seems to be moving at a million miles and hour in different directions is a well-thought out business plan.  I have relied heavily on mine over the last three months and I anticipate that reliance continuing into the foreseeable future.  If nothing else it takes me back to a time when I could more easily separate the rational from the irrational.  Either way 2008 should be a great year.  And if my analogy is correct that would make next year Sunday at the Master's, which is where championships are ultimately won or lost.  It should be fun.

Congress, Roger Clemens and Steroids

I hadn't intended on talking about baseball, steroids or Roger Clemens, but I thought I would mark my reemergence on the blogging scene by linking to some current events.  It is also a good time for a public service announcement so here you go.  Cue the NBC public service intro "The More you Know", "Kids, young and old, steroids are bad.  Not only will they cause you great physical harm in the end (i.e. shortened life expectancy, shrinkage, excess acne, ect.), but they will also apparently greatly reduce your mental capacities.  So much so that you may find yourself in a situation where you think it would be a good idea to "allegedly" lie to a federal grand jury (Baroid Bonds) or "allegedly" lie to Congress (Roidger Clemens).  It is never a good idea to lie, but it is especially not a good idea to lie when that perjury could send you to the Big House.  And no when I say Big House I am not referring to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  Last but not least, steroids are bad because they have removed the cloak of innocence that so many sports fans desperately need to maintain sanity and purpose.  The naivety that we all have shown and the betrayal of trust may leave many of us jaded and scorned for life.  But at least we still have the hope that the "bad" guys will get what's coming and baseball will make it through this Asterisk Era.  In the end we can all agree that steroids and HGH are bad, so don't do it."

In all seriousness folks, I am almost unable to put my reaction to all of this into words.  I am a huge sports fan and all of my life I have been one of those guys that loved the statistics and history of baseball.  I watch anywhere from 10 to 20 live MLB games a year and another 100 or so on TV.  It is just sad really.  All around sad.  Two of this generations best players are set to go down amid this steroid mess.  I find myself disappointed and angry at the players, the union, the owners, and MLB.  On the other side I find myself disappointed and angry that our elected officials are spending time holding hearings on this stuff as if there is nothing more pressing for them to attend to.  Off the top of my head I can think of one thing for them to do that would certainly help my law practice and the peace of mind of a fair number of people.  That would be figuring out what to do with the tax laws that are set to expire at the end of next year.

In any event, this is the world in which we live.  We get information 24/7 for 366 days this year.  The overwhelming majority of that information is a complete waste of time and space in my brain.  I have been interested in the political races this year, but I don't need a constant flow of it to satisfy my appetite.  I don't much care about Heath Ledger, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, or whatever the latest flavor of the day is.  Come to think of it I don't much care about Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens or even the grand deity here in Wisconsin, Brett Favre.  Our society deifies celebrities and athletes and the truth is those men and women do not matter much in the end.  Their celebrity and fame is built upon the fans.  If there are no fans, then there are no superstars.  My point is all Americans should have cared much more about the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist than they do about the death of actors and actresses, but there is no sparkle in that even though a Supreme Court Justice or an elected representative may have a direct impact on all of our lives.

That will do it for my late afternoon rant.  It's good to be back in the blogosphere.  Now I better get back to work.

Goals for The Dreams of Solo in 2008

Here it is the ides of January and I am just getting around to posting my goals for the Dreams of a Solo for 2008.  That can't be a good thing to give away 15 days before making strides towards goals for the new year.  Well unless you have a way-back machine or have otherwise mastered the time-space continuum, I guess I am just going to have to start from here.  So without further ado I'm happy to present my 12 goals for 2008.  I picked 12 because my favorite Chicago Cub of all time, Shawon Dunston, once donned the number.

1. Post meaningful content 5 days a week or 5 new posts a week;
2. Retrace my steps from the beginning of 2007 until now to provide a more in-depth observation of my process to solo practice;
3. Research and write two free E-Books outlining the enlightened path to solo practice;
4. Add one additional author to the blog;
5. Have three or four of my fellow solo law bloggers author guest posts;
6. Reach 200 feed subscribers;
7. Be invited to guest post on two other blogs;
8. Get quoted in a print or web-based publication or periodical other than a blog;
9. Figure out how the Dreams of a Solo title can be applied to a practice that may soon be a partnership (I say that in jest and I hope you get that sense);
10. Deserve mention in the same paragraph as Carolyn Elefant's, My Shingle, Susan Cartier Liebel's, Build a Solo Practice, LLC, Grant Griffiths', Home Office Lawyer, Chuck Newton's, Third Wave,  The Greatest American Laywer, and Sheryl Sisk Schelin's, The Inspired Solo.
11. Fend off the blog crash and stay the course;
12. Help one attorney realize that solo practice is not only feasible, but practical once the years of law school and big law programming is rewired.

I chose one attorney for the latter because I need to believe that I can accomplish this goal.  It is one of the main reasons that I have continued this blog after I fulfilled my dream to be a solo practitioner.  If I can reach one solo dreamer than I can reach 10.  If I can reach 10 then I can reach 100.  You get the idea.  I have to start at the base at grow from there.  I hope you join us on the ride.  Your participation and feedback is a valuable part of this process.  As always, thanks for reading.  If you haven't subscribed already please help me accomplish my 6th goal by subscribing to this blog's feed on the upper right hand side of your screen.

Rebuilding after the moving to Typepad

It has become abundantly clear to me in recent weeks that I face a new challenge after moving from Blogger to Typepad.  This challenge is due to the fact that the move has led to a number of dead links, which means that most of the blogs that linked to The Dreams of a Solo on Blogger now do not link to this blog and that it will take some time for the "new" blog to have a presence in the Google index.  I hope with time the great legion of bloggers will update their blogrolls and eventually Google will update as well.  In the interim all that I can do is return to the nuts and bolt of blogging.  I have commented on the topic of finding time to blog on more than one occasion and quite honestly I haven't followed through very well on my own advice.  So in an interesting sort of way I am returning to a time roughly six months ago, but this time I am armed with about 150 posts and a better working knowledge of how this whole blogging thing works.  Now I just need to be better at following through.  I would promise more regular content but instead of a promise I would rather just make it happen.

The Dreams of a Solo: News and Developments

I am excited about a few new developments that I may be prepared to announce in the coming weeks regarding the future of this site.  I am currently talking with a soon-to-be solo attorney (my younger sister) in Nebraska about the possibility of her becoming an additional author for this blog.   She would undoubtedly offer a fresh and insightful perspective and the quality of her writing is outstanding.  I hope that we will work out the particulars of this arrangement in the next few weeks.  You will all be the first to know when it comes together.

I am still working through the details of another idea that I hope to put into action by the end of the year.  I wish I could divulge more information at this time but I will need some more time to fully develop the idea before I roll it out.  I can say that the next half a year will be even more action packed than the first half a year has been for The Dreams of a Solo blog.  There will be plenty more information related to starting, managing and building a successful solo law practice.

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www.thedreamsofasolo.com

The transition from Blogger to Typepad is complete for everything I could salvage.  The site www.thedreamsofasolo.blogspot.com has been deleted and as such will only lead to an error message.  Because that link is now dead it is necessary that other sites/blogs update links to The Dreams of a Solo.  I apologize for any issues that this change may cause.  Eventually we will get to a point where the linkage will not be an issue as sites are updated and as the search engine crawlers find this new information.  Thank you again for your patience.

The Dreams of a Solo Moving to Typepad

Please bear with me as I work out the kinks involved with moving from Blogger to Typepad.  Thanks.

Taking the Dreams to Typepad

Well the time has come for this blog to leave the Blogger platform.  I had a feeling from the outset that I would eventually make the move over to Typepad.  But I wanted to get a better sense for blogging in general before I decided to make the plunge.  Now that I have the custom domain name I will have the ability to pick up and take most everything with me when I turn the lights out on Blogger.  Obviously there will be some dead link issues from the older links to www.thedreamsofasolo.blogpot.com, since that address may not redirect to www.thedreamsofasolo.com once the move is made.  I have initiated the required changes tonight and hopefully they will update in the next day or two.  Then I will spend some time working out the kinks and moving my posts to their new home.  I apologize for any inconvenience this move may cause.  It should be well worth it in the end.

Banner Image Not Abandoned Yet

Unfortunately the banner image that you see above in this post may be the only banner image that your browser is displaying for this site due to issues that I have not been able to remedy.  My plan is to attempt to work through theses issues one last time and if I am still unsuccessful I will have no choice but to make some sort of change.  That most likely will include abandoning the banner image that I put together using the Seashore imaging software a couple of months ago.  That would not be a happy day for me if it does come to that since I like the customized look and feel of this blog when the banner works properly.  But the reality is that if is does not work, then I will have to find something that does.

If anyone has any suggestions as to why I am having problems getting the banner to fully display each time the page loads, I would love to hear from you.  The problem should be easily recognizable if it in fact is still occurring.  Either you will see the image at the top left of this post as the banner on this blog or you will simply see the words The Dreams of a Solo.  If you see only the words than the banner is still not working properly.  Again, any feedback you may have would be very much appreciated.  Thanks.