Spare Change

I'm participating in Matt Homann's second Five By Five installment, which he'll post on Monday. He's asked five lawyers to comment on what five things they'd change about the practice of law. Since I'm bringing up the rear in submitting our responses to Matt, I've gotten to see what the other participants have had to say. What's interesting is there's no overlap. There are some recurring themes, but each of us has had little trouble coming up with five unique things we would change, and the same goes for David Giacalone, who dropped by as a bonus participant. I think this says a lot about room for improvement in the business end of the legal field (frequently and understandably confused with the business end of a bat ray). Anyway, watch Matt's page Monday for the piece.

Matt's first Five By Five was excellent, by the way. He asked "five seriously cool women" (links to their blogs here) "What are the five worst mistakes a lawyer can make when marketing to a female potential client? Alternatively, what are the five best things a lawyer can do to secure a female's business?" They served up some great insights, many of which apply to marketing to people of any gender (all genders?), including, I think, this one from Yvonne DiVita: "Trying too hard to appeal to us using the color pink will backfire every time." (Emphasis mine.)

If you're not into scrolling, here are the permalinks to Matt's first Five:

• Kirstin Osolind


• Michele Miller


• Anita Campbell


• Yvonne DiVita


• Jennifer Rice

Kudos to Matt for proving once again that one of the most powerful things about blogs is the aggregation and distribution of good ideas.