Miscellany

An Open Memo about Confidentiality

Confidentiality
by: Brian Rogers Miscellany

There are a few things that I want my clients to know about confidentiality when they deal with my law firm. This post is an open memo collecting those thoughts in one place.

First, your attorney has an ethical obligation to keep your information confidential. That’s why I don’t sign many nondisclosure agreements. It’s not so much that I don’t want to be on the hook contractually for safeguarding information that is disclosed to me. Rather, my license to practice law–my very livelihood–is on the line. Most people feel like that is enough protection.

Continue Reading

Getting Paid

Getting Paid
by: Brian Rogers Miscellany

I recently made a short presentation at Experts 4 Entrepreneurs about making sure customers pay what they owe. I had a lot of fun with it and thought it might be worthwhile to share here. I’ve embedded the PowerPoint slides below, but slides to my presentations often don’t tell the whole story, so here’s a little detail.

The presentation starts with an illustration about my not-so-pleasant experiences donating blood. (Apparently, my body needs all its blood.) How is that relevant to making sure you get paid? Because cash is a business’s life-blood. When customers don’t pay their invoices, they starve a business of a critical resource that it needs to stay healthy.

Continue Reading

Why I don’t Use Automatic Email Disclaimers

email disclaimer
by: Brian Rogers Miscellany

It’s standard fare for law firm emails to have lengthy disclaimers at the end. It’s also standard for the disclaimers to be automatically inserted by the firm’s email system. And the disclaimers are inserted into ALL emails, whether or not they’re meaningful given the context of individual emails.

When I started Blue Maven Law a couple of years ago, I decided not to have disclaimers inserted automatically into my emails. Here’s why.

Automatic email disclaimers don’t really do anything

The main reason I don’t use automatic email disclaimers is that they’re ineffective. Most law firm disclaimers have one or more of these components: (1) a notice that the email is confidential; (2) a request for help with misdirected emails; (3) a warning that email isn’t a secure method of communication; and (4) a notice required by IRS Circular 230 that disclaims tax advice.

Continue Reading

Blog Review: Startup Law Blog

blog and book reviews
by: Brian Rogers Miscellany

Blogging has been one of the most satisfying endeavors I’ve undertaken business-wise since leaving a corporate firm in 2010 to help build a business law practice at an insurance defense firm. Seeing how valuable the corporate firm brand had been for business development — a benefit I no longer enjoyed — I decided that blogging would be a good way to enhance my reputation as someone who knew what he was talking about. I wanted to focus my business development efforts on providing contract review and negotiation services to corporations, so I blogged as theContractsGuy.

One of the wonderful side effects of blogging that I didn’t foresee was making friends in the blogosphere. One fellow blogger I met while on a business trip to Seattle a couple of years ago was Joe Wallin, who blogged for a number of years at the Startup Law Blog (Joe has since left the firm that hosts the blog and he now blogs at thestartuplawblog.com). I met a few other awesome fellow bloggers on that trip and wrote about it in Making Friends Through Blogging.

Continue Reading

Meet the Team — Bill Ellis

Bill Ellis - Branding Expert
by: Brian Rogers Miscellany

It takes a team to build a quality business. Partly because no single person has all the expertise that’s required. And partly because no one has the time to do everything that needs to be done.

According to Michael Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited, most businesses are started by technicians, not business people. Technicians are people who make stuff or provide services. For example, someone works at a company baking pies and decides to open a bakery. That person might be a great baker, but he or she might not have what it takes to build a good business.

In my case, I’ve spent a career helping people with their business deals — buying or selling businesses, negotiating contracts with key suppliers, setting up new businesses. All these are the work of technicians. For over a decade, I’ve spent my days involved in business as a trusted advisor helping my clients make informed business decisions, but I haven’t been responsible for developing and executing a business strategy.

When I decided to pursue the business idea that has become Blue Maven Law, I knew I needed help. The first person I called was Bill Ellis. It was a great move.

Continue Reading