It's that time of year again – time for the 3d Annual Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference October 23-25, 2008 at the Kalahari Resort in the lovely Wisconsin Dells. Full details at the website: www.wisolosmallfirmconference.com or  www.wssfc.org

Early bird registration of $250.00 is scheduled to end today, so don’t  delay to save. Your registration gets you two days with 32 individual sessions and 3 plenary sessions with state, regional and national speakers; Thursday nights Vendor reception, Breakfast and lunch on Friday and Breakfast on Saturday; chance to visit with vendors and enter drawings for a lot of nice schwag.  You can register at: http://wssfc.org/PricingRegistration or call 800.728.7788. Unfortunately, we were unable to include the conference in the Ultimate Pass  this year but hope to add it for next year’s conference.

The guaranteed discount room rate is  also set to end  today: the Kalahari has made a limited number of rooms available for $139.00 per night for up to four persons and includes four water park passes, a $160.00 value. They have included rooms for Saturday night after the conference concludes as well, but you have to hurry as the room rate discount expires today! Make your reservation by calling the Kalahari at Phone: 877-253-5466 and tell them you are with the Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference.  Over 50% of the room block had sold as of Monday the 21^st and we are excited to see the number of families with children already booked to take advantage of the conference and the chance to get away for a family mini-vacation.

Each attendee will receive a USB flash drive with the conference materials and the first 300 registered attendees will receive a free copy of TechHit Software’s (www.techhit.com) SimplyFile utility for MS Outlook.  SimplyFile has become one of my indispensable tools and is a $40.00 value. You will have the chance to register for other prize drawings including free registration for the 2009 Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference; a complimentary future night stay at the Kalahari and other vendor donated prizes. Mix and mingle with vendors and your peers at the Thursday night Vendor Reception and on  Friday night, enjoy the hospitality suite sponsored by DeWitt, Ross & Stevens so you can relax after the day’s sessions and network with other attendees.

Saturday’s Plenary Session - Your Financial Personality at Home and at Work- with Connie Kilmark is open to attendees and their significant others as well. Or take advantage of the 20% discount on spa services for conference attendees.

Finally, attendees will be the first to receive a live introduction and training on the new free legal research benefit powered by Fastcase which is set to launch November 1, 2008. For those that register,  watch your email for the chance to sign-up for this training conducted by Fastcase CEO Ed Walters.

I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones at this year’s conference, so register today and see you in the Wisconsin Dells!

Practice Law. Manage Business. Enjoy Life!

Lifehacker is a blog that bills itself as: "…an award-winning, daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently." In reality, Liifehacker puts out reviews, tips and tricks, tutorials, downloads and more relating to technology.

In it's Best of the Best: The Hive Five Winners  post, Lifehacker provides a listing of what it considers to be the est of the products in a number of categories. You may not agree that these designated porducts are truly the "best" in their categroy I I disagree with some of them), there is still useful information here for lawyers looking for ways to do things more easily or protect themselves and their data. Inlcuded on the Lifehacker list are a number of my perrenial favorites including CCleaner (keep all of the crap cleaned off of your system, Filezilla (ftp file transfer made simple and free) and DownThemAll (make downloading multiple files simple). The list also includes Dropbox as a file syncing tool that I heard about from an Illinois State Bar Member at their Solo & Small Firm Conference earlier this month. Dropbox also lets you share files with others and works from a browser.

I can't say enough good things about the terrific folks who make up the Wisconsin Association of Legal Administrators (WALA). In my role as PMA for the State Bar of Wisconsin, I get to interact with WALA members on a regular basis and see them in action first hand. The speakers and programs they contribute to are always top notch and to say that they really believe in helping law firms is an understatement.

Each year WALA puts on their Annual Conference of Education & Exposition (ACE) which they bills as "…an opportunity for a vital exchange of information between administrators, legal managers, industry leaders,vendor partners and guests" and this year 's ACE is shaping up to be just that.

Scheduled for Thursday, October 9, 2008, at Country Springs Hotel, Pewaukee, Wisconsin, this years ACE and is themed "Roadmap to Knowledge" and includes sessions on Taking the Express Lane: Effective Marketing Strategies for Law Firms, Building Buy-In for Business Development and Face Reading, the Road Map to Self Discovery. The keynote - Personal Accountability and the Question Behind the Question! - seeks to help firms deal with morale by teaching firms about Personal Accountability and how to put accountability and responsibility into action.

You don't need to be a WALA member to attend and everyone will have a chance to visit with WALA vendor partners including EZ Office Products, Bultman Financial Services and many more. There is also a lot of good scwhag that can be one in the form of door prizes and drawings throughout the day. Cost for non-members is $150.00 or attend with a WALA member and get in for only $125.00. FInd our more on the WALA website here.

Join me at the Kalahari Resort October 23-25, 2008 in the Wisconsin Dells for the 3d Annual Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference for 2 days of great CLE, networking and fun! Full details can be found on the conference website here.

This year's conference has 32 individual sessions in four tracks consisting of Substantive, Practice Management, Technology and Ethics/Quality of Life areas. In addition to these four tracks, there are three plenary sessions with National Speaker Kevin O'Keefe sharing his knowledge on blogs; Laurel Bellows of the ABA House of Delegates speaking on getting involved in your bar; and Connie Kilmark, personal finance guru speaking about dealing with financial stress (this session open to attendees and their spouses/significant others!). I will be presenting along with other great speakers including Ross Kodner, Jeff Krause, Margaret Hickey, Dean Dietrich, Lori Kanneberg and others. You can find all of the speakers here.

Attendees will have an opportunity to network with their peers, browse the Vendor area, receive Fastcase legal research training and spend time enjoying the Kalahari's numerous leisure activities. Attendees can receive 20% off Spa and Salon services during your visit and the conference room rate is also available for Saturday night and extend your stay.

The Kalahari has extended a special room rate to conference attendees of $139.00 per night for up to four persons in a room, but there's more: Each room includes four passes to the Kalahari's Indoor Waterpark, a $160.00 value! Float down the lazy river, learn to surf, enjoy a meal in one of the resorts restaurants or enjoy a massage in the Spa. But don't wait too long - the special room rate is only available until September 23, 2008.

Register for the conference by September 23, 2008 and enjoy early bird pricing of $250.00 for Wisconsin lawyers (and their staff that are registered at the same time) and WALA members; after September, the registration cost jumps to $275.00.

Each attendee will receive a US Flash Drive with containing the conference materials and the first 300 attendees will receive a copy of TechHit Software's SimmplyFile utility for MS Outlook.

I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones at this year's conference.

Practice Law. Manage Business. Enjoy Life!

See you there!

Searching for blogs that are interesting and worth following can be a daunting task. I've come across 2 blogs that appear to be 1) interesting and 2) have useful information.The first is Ruth Sheperd's Arborlaw blog covering a wide range of topics and Raymond Ward's the (new) legal writer blog.

Carol is a commercial transactions and IP lawyer and her writings reflect her varied intertests in these practice areas as well as others. Raymond is an appellate lawyer in New Orleans and bills his blog as "A collection of resources for lawyers and other writers."  I like Carol's blog since she covers a lot of different topic areas including technology (something near and dear to me) and Raymond's blog directly addresses legal writing and al of its warts.

These two look worthwhile, so take a look and decide for yourself.