I brought a large pitcher of Kool-Aid over to the Lampe Law office a couple of months ago, and ever since, they’ve demonstrated a new enthusiasm for jumping into the social media/blogging pool. In addition to the firm’s new forays onto Facebook and Twitter, the partners (Lance Heisler, Tim Morisette, and Maren Swanson) have started blogging by writing informational posts on various legal topics.
I’d like to help them make their content even more useful by getting input from LoGro and the Northfield area community. I began by asking Griff for feedback, and his answer–you could have predicted it–was “needs more fluff”. Well, okay, I can work with that. Meanwhile, for all you people of substance, are there general legal questions or issues you’d like to understand better? Do you have any suggestions for post topics? Or would you rather just see pictures of lawyers making fun of themselves?
For example, I asked Lance yesterday why someone should use a lawyer to draft documents for a business formation rather than just using boilerplate from the internet and paying the State’s fee. He had a pretty good answer for that. So, that’s a topic one of them will be blogging about soon.
Traffic court? The litigation process? Why a statute doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means? The kinds of things I think might be interesting or informative may be complete clunkers. If you can provide ideas by simply telling me the questions that have crossed your minds, or circumstances you’ve run into that could have been improved by more or better legal information, now’s your chance. There’s no doubt that such information could benefit others facing similar situations.
Understand, of course, that Tim’s, Lance’s, and Maren’s posts are not considered legal advice. (They made me say that.) And yes, I am getting paid for helping them with this. And they did pay for a Premium Plus level LG membership.
All that being said, the partners and I welcome your suggestions, so I hope I get some here!
No suggestions here yet? I’m disappointed! Maybe I should come up with a brief list of ideas and ask for ratings instead…?
Tracy, Lampe Law Group is the best lawyer website in Northfield thus far. Kudos to them for letting you do it.
I especially liked Maren’s blog post this week, Lawyers are people too, because of her use of storytelling. More blog posts like that would be great to see.
I’d also like to see them weigh in on stories in the news that relate to their areas of practice, eg juicy ones likeTiger and Elin, or closer to home, Denny and Tamitha. But also just commentary on ones like this one in the Strib last week: Free bankruptcy clinic made permanent.
Hey Griff -- thanks for recognizing Tracy’s great work on our website! Only someone with her energy and good humor could start moving us out of our stodgy lawyer mode.
You’re welcome, Maren. We’re all determined to stamp out legal stodginess.
I see you have bankruptcy pretty well covered, Tracy, but you might do something on the various types and the long-term costs of bankruptcy. Another topic: Wills and who needs them. I’m always shocked when 40-something people with children say they don’t have a will that directs what will happen to their children if they die unexpectedly. They think if they don’t have a lot of money they don’t need a will. Full disclosure: I used to work in PR for the Mn State Bar Association. Bankruptcy, custody/divorce, and wills were the three biggest issues in terms of consumer interest at that time. Nice web site!
Mary is right that if you want to control who has guardianship of your children if you and their other parent are both gone, and if you want to name the person who will control their property (if you leave any!), you should name both a guardian and a trustee for your minor children in your will. The guardian and the trustee can be the same or different persons. This is part of taking care of your children! Wills can be simple and relatively inexpensive. Any of the lawyers in our office would be happy to talk to you about this!