Before I get started, I have to admit that I missed a day yesterday. I got busy and got home later than usual, and didn’t have time to get my 500 words out. I had planned to do this “The Week Ahead” post yesterday, so what I had planned for today hadn’t been done yet, but now it has, so I will write about what happened and not what I am planning. That said, I don’t know if this post is going to get to 500 words or 1000, so I’ll see if I need to write an extra post today if I don’t get to 1000 words. Bare with me.
The week ahead – New post category
In an attempt to organize the blog a little more, I want to dedicate my Sundays to writing a tentative plan for the week ahead. I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want to do during the week, but using this format I can get it down on the page and will hopefully be more organized with what I end up writing about.
Monday – Attorney Ad Litem Certificate
My goal for Monday is (was) get my Attorney Ad Litem certificate submitted to the State Bar of Texas. In order to act as a court appointed guardian, or to represent guardians in a case in Texas, attorneys need to have an Attorney Ad Litem Certificate. This certificate is outlined in the Texas Government Code §81.114 and requires that attorneys seeking the certificate take 4 hours of courses related to law relating to guardianship, disability issues, and other issues relating to dealing with people who may need guardianship.
Getting the certificate is pretty simple, the State Bar page gives a link from the CLE tab to courses that apply to the Ad Litem Certificate, and once you take those courses you submit an affidavit to the State Bar stating that you have done so, along with a payment of $25. My local bar association offers a deal on the courses and certificate, and I like dealing with them, so I took them up on that. Last week I paid for the course materials and brought them to my office, where I spent the afternoon viewing the courses and reading the material.
Then today, I returned the course materials to bar office at the courthouse and the local bar staff got my affidavit sent to the State Bar. I wanted to get this done today, because the local bar closes for Christmas break on Wednesday, but they said that if they get everything turned in today they might be able to sweet talk the State Bar office to send the certificate before they go. That would be nice, because I could be on the appointments list as soon as the Courts open up in January.
Tuesday – Docket Call at CPS Court
Tuesdays at 8:30am our County Court at Law has CPS docket. I’m already on the appointments list for this Court, but when I met the presiding Judge for this Court last week he asked that I sit in on a few cases before getting any appointments. I sat through the Court last week and the Judge saw me there, but didn’t appoint me to anything. I am hoping I get an appointment this week, so I am going to suit up and show up bright and early tomorrow morning. These cases seem to be fairly simple to handle, and I am working on getting trial experience more than actually worrying about big paydays right now. I want to get my name out and get known around the courthouse in the next couple of months.
The CPS Court seems to get done after a couple of hours, so if I’m lucky I’ll get out of CPS Court in time to sit in on the criminal arraignments at the local misdemeanor court. This is another chance to pick up appointments and get my name known. I made it to this last week and got to see the process. Misdemeanors don’t pay really well, but being one of the only Spanish speaking attorneys on the appointment list should be pretty lucrative.
Wednesday – Meeting with other professionals
I am going to try to set up meetings with a couple of other professionals on Wednesday. I have a little bit of real client work to do, but I really want to bring coffee to a couple of local professionals (I’m thinking a CPA and a Financial Planner) so to hopefully get my name out there. Again, this is planting the seeds for the future, but I want to get my name out there so that these guys think of me for Wills & Trusts work when their clients require it. I’m going to try to keep this kind of thing pretty local, I’d like to target clients close to my office, so I need to get in with the people in these areas who can recommend me for work that way.
Thursday – Research and writing
I don’t have anything planned for Thursday, and I am hoping that I can spend the day researching and writing. My goal is to write one post in English and another in Spanish, and since my target audience for both is a little different I am going to have to research two different topics for those days. The process for research and writing starts with a list of possible topics, then I’ll narrow it down to the two that interest me most and research those. Because this brand of writing takes a little more forethought than these posts, I am guessing that writing two blog posts is going to take me most of the day.
The one thing that was drilled into me by a good friend of mine that does web design is that content is king. The more quality information I have on my sites, the more I will show up in Google searches, and the more people will click on my site and call me.
Friday – Criminal Court and Video
Not in that order. Criminal Court is in the afternoon, and I want to sit through another session before I get thrown into actually representing clients as a criminal attorney. I think after observing a few courtroom sessions I will be more likely to be able to actually help my clients intelligently and won’t feel like as much of an imposter doing so.
And, since I am already going to be wearing a suit, I should look at doing a video. I’ll take some time to look at one of the topics that I discarded from Thursday and do enough research on that topic to be able to pull a video out of it. I haven’t done video before, so I might pick something relatively simple so that I can worry more about the technical aspects of video instead of trying to get a long, substantive video made. Nobody has time to watch a long video of some new lawyer talking about a long, in depth legal topic anyway. I think I might try to do this on a topic that I already have a decent grasp of, like employment law, so that I can do a little ad-libbing and not rely as heavily on the script. If I get into video, I’ll eventually have to get some better video equipment, but for now I am going to try to shoot it all with my iPad.