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Author: Suzanne Meehle

Avatar of Suzanne Meehle

After a twelve-year career in IT services, Suzanne fulfilled a lifelong dream to return to law school. Suzanne has been an attorney for more than ten years, beginning her career at a large firm in Downtown Orlando, Florida. She has had her own firm since 2010, and formed Meehle & Jay with partner Davey Jay in 2016. Suzanne’s passion is helping small businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs. She believes in helping others achieve what she has achieved: a small business that competes in a marketplace full of options. Suzanne was honored with the highest rating, AV Preeminent, from Martindale-Hubbell in 2007. She was named a Florida Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2016. Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Faculty Profile

sailboat

Do You Recognize Professionalism or Just the Lack of Professionalism?

Oct 11, 2018 in Guest Bloggers, Solo & Small Firm Practice, Subjective Opinions

Professionalism is not well-defined in our profession. We all know unprofessionalism when we see it. The lawyer who seems to be more concerned about his fees than he is about the merits of the case. The lawyer who disrespects the court or other lawyers. The lawyer who bloviates and obfuscates when she doesn’t understand the law or her own argument. The lawyer who gets disciplined for trust accounting violations or failing to communicate with the client. But do we always know professionalism when we see it?

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fail fast

Failing Faster

Sep 13, 2018 in Guest Bloggers, Solo & Small Firm Practice

I’ve mentioned that before I went to law school I had a career in information systems technology. I worked for about nine different companies – mostly because the original company that hired me merged once or twice or three times while I was there – during the Dot.com boom and bust of the late 90′s and early 2000′s.

We had a motto back then: “Fail fast, fail often.” So what does that have to do with the practice of law? Plenty.

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Disclaimer

Ditching the Disclaimer

May 8, 2018 in Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Savvy Solos, Technology

What goes in your professional email? What if your email server occasionally marks something as “read” which in fact has not been read? How do you respond to that? Should you include your email signature every single time or only the first time you respond? What belongs and does not belong in an email signature? What about typos? When does an email become too long and you’d be better off just writing a proper letter? What about graphics in email signatures? Or funny quotations?

And what about that long list of disclaimers many of us lawyers append to every single email signature?

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equality

The Memo Every Woman Lawyer Keeps in Her Desk

Apr 12, 2018 in Guest Bloggers, Subjective Opinions, The BS-Free Zone

I heard a story on NPR this morning about a 1993 Harvard Business Review Article entitled “The Memo Every Woman Keeps in Her Desk.” I remembered the article. It made some waves, back in the day. In the article, author Kathleen Reardon asks several influential business people whether a female executive should send a memo regarding sexism in the workplace to the company’s CEO. The memo details the struggles of women to be heard and treated equally by their male peers. Then it asks several prominent professionals whether she should give the memo to the CEO or let it sit in her desk drawer. Find out …..

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Shouting into the wind

Shouting Into the Wind – How Not to Market Your Solo/Small Firm

Mar 27, 2018 in Client Relations, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Savvy Solos

Marketing is job #1 for small firm attorneys and solos. It’s a simple equation: no marketing = no clients, and no clients = no firm. But, quite frankly, marketing can really suck.

There’s a cacophony of BigLaw websites, advertising, and social media drowning out small firm voices. And then there are about a million new small firm sites every single day. Not to mention that referrals from other lawyers and professionals can be tough to come by when everyone knows an attorney or ten who do what you do. And don’t forget the do-it-yourself options like LegalZoom and Findlaw.

How do you make yourself heard amongst all that noise? There’s no point shouting into the wind. You can’t make yourself louder than everyone else, so don’t bother trying.

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