pm blog

in the first of what we hope will be more to come, we present the below practice announcement from dcba member Dion U. Davi, formerly of the office of the dupage county state’s attorney:

as of September 25, 2006 I will be with the family law practice of wheaton firm Mirabella, Kincaid, Fredrick & Mirabella. i look forward to working with many of you at a new level and, of course,  i will now be in a position to refer and receive referrals.

Mirabella, Kincaid, Fredrick & Mirabella
1737 S. Naperville Road, Suite 100
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
T   630.665.7300
F   630.665.7609
E   diondavilaw@comcast.net
W  http://www.matrimoniallawdupagecounty.com
W  http://www.mirabellakincaid.com/

very few “funny” videos on the Internet actually are (funny). and then there’s this gem from our hoser friends (eh!). h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.

in his latest post our hero dennis kennedy 

 [pictured here with friends]

gives us a short introduction to the whole “rss thing” all the kids are talking about as well as the blogging sensation that’s sweeping the nation.  his post is a short read, explains things in a straight-forward fashion, and links to some great additional resources.  on a related note, i have been talking to dcba director glenda sharp 

about hosting a series of short presentations on these and other techno-topics.  if any of you would be interested in seeing such a lecture series (i hope at least some of you are), please take a moment to e-mail glenda and bar president glenn gaffney. 

and as always, thank you for your support.

life is funny isn’t it? just when we were completely sure the Illinois Supreme Court had decided to deny mcle credit for the pursuit of mere “practice management” in favor of substantive legal subject areas — notwithstanding our hard work and the real need for an ongoing, profession-wide, discussion of practice management and technology; and just when we were resigned to being treated as the 2nd-class citizenry of the bar association due to our ‘non-substantive’ focus, the Court’s Commission onProfessionalism busts out with this nugget:
specific topics which can be the subjects of Professionalism CLE include:

Law Practice Management - issues relating to development and management of a law practice including client relations and technology to promote the efficient, economical and competent delivery of legal services …

Practice Management CLE includes … those activities which (1) teach lawyers how to organize and manage their law practices so as to promote the efficient, economical and competent delivery of legal services
so there it is: our challenge is to prepare an agenda that meets the standards handed down by the Court.  will it be tough? you bet. but hey — small goals are not worth having anyway.

     on september 21 the law practice management and civil law committees held a joint meeting sponsored by van ausdale + farrar, a dictation firm with a long history of service to the legal profession. the 30+ attendees learned more about winscribe, the application for lawyers who want to be productive even when they’re on the move.

     speakers greg moheban and heather shneck gave a terrific introduction about winscribe to the group, which included distinguished judges such as kenneth popejoy. you can also see a full digital workflow presentation here in case you missed this one. we look forward to having van ausdale come back to provide us with still more information, and invite all our readers to contact greg or heather for an evaluation and consultation by e-mailing them at gmoheban@vanausdall.com.
thanks to all who made it. to those that couldn’t … there’s always next time.

NOTE: with our first meeting of the season behind us, lpm is already looking at ways to retool in order to meet the needs of our members. let your voice be heard by contacting me in confidence with your feedback at mmhedayat1@gmail.com and of course will respond to each message personally.

Does anyone have experience with West Court Express? Does it work, and if so how well, and in the end what kind of pricing is involved? Thank you for your feedack. West’s page for the product is found here.

the New New Internet Web 2.0 Conference is officially behind us and since i was here all last week (some of you may remember me from our presentation/meeting with the civil law committee) i must sadly conclude that my request for sponsors, although the subject of national attention, and despite being picked up by the organizers of the conference, was to no avail.  i won’t lie to you — it’s a little disappointing. but hey, i intend to keep pitching in the hopes that some of you may swing once in a while.  here’s to many more pitches to come.