We promised you SPU would have the teachers you wished you had in law school, those  profitable in the trenches actually practicing what they preach and sharing their experience and wisdom. Some may actually teach on more than one topic.

And unlike any other site that we know of,  Solo Practice University’s faculty will really teach you the ropes of what needs to be done.   Each faculty has committed to a full curriculum of teaching in their area of expertise just like law school (no thirty minute hit and run ‘teases’)……and all from the comfort of your computer.  Each faculty member is committed to answering your questions, encouraged to be totally creative with full authority to add or vary classes based upon the students’ requests.

Imagine, you are following one of our premiere criminal defense attorneys’ teachings and an important case makes the news.  You want to understand the ramifications of that case.  That faculty member, because he or she is well entrenched in their practice area, gathers together several attorneys to have an impromptu debate on the subject, then takes a break from the syllabus and discusses this important case in a spirited and thought-provoking round table.  This is absolutely encouraged at Solo Practice University™.

Or you are learning from our personal injury lawyers.  You want to know what goes through the mind of an insurance adjuster when presented with a claim.  To make the anatomy of a personal injury suit come to life our personal injury lawyer arranges a panel discussion with an insurance defense lawyer and an insurance adjuster to get all the perspectives.

This is the type of education you will find at Solo Practice University™; - practical, timely, fluid, creative, interactive and fun.

If you can’t participate on the day the class or seminar is being offered, no worries.  Once a class has been taught you will find the class recording in our library to reference at your leisure.  You can always catch up.

As all faculty have the flexibility to teach in whatever format they choose, lessons will be video, audio, a combination of the two, workbooks, PDFs and more.

One of the best parts, faculty will also have office hours (to be determined by them). Whether through forums or recorded Q & A, you will always be able to follow up with the faculty on what you’ve learned, either asking questions live or reviewing after the fact when it’s convenient for you.

So, starting the week of October 27th we will introduce you to the current faculty, two or three per week.  Since all our faculty are experts and incredibly talented at what they will be teaching, we decided to introduce them by lottery.  That’s right, names in a hat and pulled out at random.  (We didn’t like alphabetical either).

Please encourage our faculty with comments to show your enthusiasm. Visit their sites, get to know them.  Let them know you can’t wait to learn.  They are bringing a lot to the party because they’ve decided you’re worth it and Solo Practice University™ was just the right educational environment.

One of the features at Solo Practice University™ that we are the most excited about is Groups. As we’ve said before,  Solo Practice University™ will be an educational community where lawyers and law students can share information and ideas.

But all of that information needs to be organized.

Groups, or mini-communities as we like to call them, will aggregate all of the content generated by faculty and students.

Anyone can create a public or private group. For example, we created a group for our alpha-testers (screenshot below).

Once a group is created, the group administrator can send out invites or allow others to join on their own.

And Groups will have another really cool feature.  Let’s say you create a group called ‘Solos in Seattle.’  Instead of you having to specifically upload relevant text, audio, video or photos into the group from your blog,  you or a group member can ‘tag’ the content with a unique group tag like ‘SinS‘ (Solos in Seattle) and it will be either accepted or rejected by you as the administrator and then posted on the ‘Solos in Seattle’ overview page.

Each group will have its own forum, too, where group members can post questions, answers or anything really.

The Groups feature will also be a great way to connect with like-minded individuals. We’ll leave it up to our students and faculty to decide, but we imagine groups being created based upon geography, practice areas, law schools, hobbies, and interests.  It’s about connectivity with a common thread. The possibilities are endless.

And on your personal profile page, you will have a button called ‘Groups’ that provides one-click access to your select groups. It couldn’t be easier.

The bottom line - Solo Practice University™ will provide a highly focused, organized, and very easy way for you to make friends, network, and build relationships that can positively impact your personal and professional futures.

Can you tell we’re excited?

David and I wanted to start building the Solo Practice University™  community by awarding 100 free scholarships to current law students who have expressed a sincere interest in going solo.  It was fairly easy to find them because Solo Practice University E-zine™  has more than 1000 active subscribers and over 200 of those subscribers identified themselves as students.  By broadcasting our message through the e-zine to the ’students’ it was easy to hand out a significant number of the scholarships.

Then we brought our offer to the 800 subscribers of the Solo Practice University™  blog because, again, you as a subscriber have expressed sincere enthusiasm for the mission of Solo Practice University™ .  Finally, the offer was announced to my loyal Build A Solo Practice, LLC™ subscribers.

Within three weeks 100 Lifetime Scholarships to SPU have been awarded!

By providing these scholarships we are reinforcing that our mission at Solo Practice University™  is truly about helping those lawyers who want to succeed in creating and growing their own solo legal practice.  By granting these scholarships we are helping the recipients overcome many of the traditional hurdles encountered by providing outstanding education, community and support.

The scholarships were handed out to students across all law school tiers, states and countries.  The majority went to students currently enrolled in U.S.  law schools.  However, we have scholarship students in New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Africa, China, India and Canada. Their stories are the same.  There is no support in law school for those who wish to go solo and what we are providing is ’sorely needed.’  And as many said, ‘Solo Practice University™  is filling a void’.

For those who have applied for scholarship, we will be notifying you shortly.  Please make sure you put susan (at) solopracticeuniversity.com in your approved e-mail so you are sure to receive the good news as well as further instructions.  And please make sure you sign up to receive the e-mail updates from Solo Practice University™  or subscribe to the RSS if you haven’t done so already.

We would also like to acknowledge those who just graduated and took the bar exam.  We received your  requests asking if you were eligible given you are caught in limbo between taking the bar and waiting on results.  It was a tough decision but we had to draw the line at ‘currently in law school.’  Know that we are keeping you in mind when figuring out our program offerings.  So stay tuned.

Again, thank you to all who applied. Your enthusiasm for what we are trying to create just makes us work that much harder to bring you an amazing experience

We have 37 24 10 scholarships left (as of 12:00 p.m. 8/31)

If you a current law student, or someone you know is,  and are sincerely interested in going solo and would benefit from a lifetime scholarship to Solo Practice University™, please send me an e-mail answering all the  questions asked in the e-zine and listed above…. as soon as possible. We are limiting our lifetime scholarships to 100.  The next round of private beta testing will begin shortly.

Yours truly,
Susan

If you’re already receiving our updates via RSS or email, you don’t have to change a thing. You will continue to get them without interruption.

If you’re not receiving our updates automatically, and you’d like to receive updates as we head towards the launch, grab the RSS feed or signup for e-mail updates.

For our loyal followers, you know we’re in private beta, tweaking functionality and design, uploading faculty profiles, testing forums and a whole lot more. It will be a very busy August.

However, there is no current access to the forums, faculty profiles, faculty lounge, co-op or job boards as they are password protected and just available to our testers.

But soon!

And we’d like to personally thank Ed Poll of LawBizBlog for his kind words:

This is the right idea at exactly the right time. SPU is going to change everything.

-Ed Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC LawBizBlog

Thanks, Ed. From your lips….

Please feel free to leave feedback on the design or anything else you care to as commenting is now fully enabled.

Yours truly,

Susan and Dave

These past two weeks I have:

• Talked to world renowned experts on the best way to meet the needs of the students;
• brought on more teaching rock stars for a total of 45 faculty members ready to ‘teach’ ….really teach…and that’s just the beginning!;
• Been testing the functionality of the site (absolutely incredible!)
• Been putting together my team of private beta testers

Soon, we will start introducing you to the faculty so you can see why I (well, actually everyone) call them rock stars. Quite frankly, I don’t think it would be even possible to create an event or conference where you could get all this faculty to one venue then teach their expertise as well as provide ‘office hours’ where you can visit for extensive Q & A. And if you could, it certainly wouldn’t be affordable for ninety-nine percent of us. As I write this I’m still amazed.

And, no, you’re not dreaming. This will be available to our students. All of it. But sometimes I do have to pinch myself. Why? Because it’s pretty wild to see your dream come to life.

Solo Practice University ™ is my dream.

A successful solo practice is yours.

So, stay tuned. Dave and I will be posting soon about the University Co-Op, Job Board, and much, much more.
Yours truly,

Susan

susan@solopracticeuniversity.com

It’s simple: the only students eligible to attend Solo Practice University™ are lawyers, law students and new grads waiting in angst for their bar results.

This is your educational community and professional networking campus.

It is an educational community for lawyers and law students who currently are or want to be solo/small firm practitioners; lawyers and law students who want to learn how to be the best solo/small firm practitioner they can be. It is not a school for non-lawyers who would like to learn the law or socialize with lawyers.

It is an educational community where faculty have agreed to educate colleagues, not the general public. So, with rare exception (we always have to allow for that rare exception like law school faculty!) all students will be lawyers or law students.

How will we monitor this? Although not finalized, we will ultimately require proof of your status as either a lawyer or law student, proof which is both public record and easily verifiable by us. Plus, we’ll include a gentle reminder at time of signing up that impersonating an attorney could get someone in BIG trouble.

If you have any questions about your eligibility for admission, please drop me a line.

Yours truly,

Susan

susan@solopracticeuniversity.com

Education combined with community presented to you in a revolutionary new web-based application.

David, my kiteboard-riding, backpack-toting, flip-flop-wearing tech-hero, will continue to update you on the technology we will be using to make your experience at Solo Practice University™ top shelf.

My pleasure is to keep you posted on the incredible education you will be receiving.

This summer we will be introducing you to the faculty. I promise you will be blown away. I still have a hard time imagining all of these professional superstars in one place teaching you on an on-going basis. Finally, a virtual community where you can learn ‘how to’ build your solo practice while becoming the best lawyer you can be in your chosen practice area(s).

So, let’s start with the topics (in no particular order) for which we have one or more faculty already in place:

Practice Areas:

• Entertainment Law
• Bankruptcy
• Internet Law
• Criminal Law (Defense/Prosecution)
• DUI
• Immigration
• Family
• Family and Divorce Mediation
• Business
• Forensic Psychology (My client’s crazy. Who Do I Call?)
• Intellectual Property
• Employment
• Appellate Procedure
• Personal Injury
• Product Liability
• Medical Malpractice
• Trusts & Estates
• Contract Lawyering
• Surrogacy/Adoption
• Real Property

Practice Skills:

• Legal Research and Writing
• Jury Selection
• Litigation Strategy
• E-Discovery
• Negotiation
• The Art of the Deposition
• Evidence in the Court Room
• Ethics & Client-Side Manner

The Business:

• Law Practice Management
• Marketing
• Public Relations
• Niche Practice Creation
• Collaboration
• Blogging
• Sales/Networking
• Marketing
• Working with a Virtual Assistant/Paralegal
• How To Use Social Media
• Branding/Copywriting
• Internet Marketing
• Working with a Virtual Assistant

Technology:

• Technology in the Courtroom
• Virtual Law Office
• Web 2.0/Productivity and Organization
• Paperless Office Technology
• Macs in the Law Office
• Trends in Technology

For Law Students & Work/Life Balance:

• “Staying at Home, Staying In the Law”
• Non-Traditional Law Students Entering Solo Practice
• What Happens When You are in the Bottom Third of Your Law Class?
• Mindfulness & Stress Reduction For Lawyers

We also have several incredible professionals lined up as guest lecturers from all walks of business life which really drives home the point…opening a solo practice is a business. We want you to have a true business education.

Solo Practice University™ is not a brick and mortar structure so we can ‘house’ as many faculty as we choose. Therefore, this list of faculty and topics is by no means exhaustive. We will not be limiting the number of faculty in any given area because this will be a place of ideas, opinions, debate, different skills sets, perspectives; a community of peers with a single passion - building their solo practice or helping you to build yours.

Therefore, I am extending an invitation to the more than 750 current subscribers to this construction blog: If you would like to teach at Solo Practice University™ or know of someone who would be an asset to this community of solo/small firm lawyers and professionals, feel free to contact me to discuss the possibilities.

Yours truly,

Susan

susan@solopracticeuniversity.com

Private Messaging

As we’ve mentioned, building a strong community will be vital to creating an incredible educational experience for lawyers and law students at Solo Practice University™. We believe communication is one of the keys to building a community and, to that end, the Solo Practice University™ platform will enable students and faculty members to communicate with one another in several ways.

Sending private messages will be simple and inituitive. Type in the first letter(s) of another member’s name, and the intended recipient’s name is automagically pulled from the Solo Practice University™ member database.

Each member will be notified of new messages by a new message count on their Messaging tab (see image above) as well as email notifications if enabled.

Some other private messaging highlights include:

• Send/Receive attachments
• Insert images and hyperlinks
• WYSIWG editor to format messages
• Avatars with links to member profiles
• Group messages from administrators

Private Messaging will play an important part in enabling communication at Solo Practice University™. Stay tuned for more updates and sneak-peeks in the coming days.

All the best, Dave

PS — Grab the RSS feed or sign-up for email updates, if you haven’t already.

In fact, we’ve been having so much fun that we wanted to post some sneak-peeks into Solo Practice University™ over the next few days. (Note: Grab the RSS feed or sign-up for email updates, if you haven’t already.)

Member Profile

We don’t think it’s possible to build an incredible educational experience without a strong community. Creating profile pages for student and faculty members at Solo Practice University™ will be an important community-building feature.

That is why one of the features at Solo Practice University™ that we’re the most excited about is the Member Profile page. Each member at Solo Practice University™ will be given a profile page where any content, whether derived from within the community or around the web, can be put on display. And we can’t wait to see the profiles you all create.

For example, I added my Twitter feed to my profile and Susan added her FriendFeed to hers. But you could just as easily add your blog feed, a link to your website, photos, videos, and anything else you can imagine. =)

Once the community is up and running, your friends, groups and personal activity feeds will be added to your profile page unless, of course, you’d prefer to keep them private.

Stay tuned for more sneak-peeks into Solo Practice University™ in the coming days.

All the best, Dave