I’d love to point you to three great collections of materials for Solo and Small Firm lawyers, all from the American Bar Association. (Well, two graded great and one "needs improvement.") But, due to inconsistent ABA policies, the explanation of what is available, when and to whom, is a bit complex. So I’ll cover these three potential gold mines in my next three blog posts.

The current good news should be first. The first issue of Law Practice magazine under the able leadership of new editor-in-chief David J. Bilinsky came out several weeks back and much of its contents is now available on the ABA web page. This great issue is called SOLOS, Rising to the Challenge and is all about solo lawyers. Here’s the link to the table of contents. If you are not an ABA Law Practice Management Section member, you should go there soon and read/save/print what you deem important as the LPM section may soon lock up this content behind a member’s only password. (Hopefully there appears to be movement within the LPM Section to reevaluate this policy.)

But what an issue!  A newly launched section is described by Bilinsky as "our new Law Practice Case Study feature, which looks at a lawyer facing a complex real-life decision and asks the experts to provide forward, context-relevant advice." The first one is Wide Open Spaces: Advice for Starting Up a Solo Practice. Here, a fictional lawyer contemplates moving from a large firm to solo practice. Offering advice are practice management advisors Jim Calloway and Reba J. Nance, law firm administrator Lori J. Kannenberg and two well-known small firm lawyers—Stephen J. Harhai and Cory Furman.

Other articles include Going Solo: Rising to the Challenge, How to Set Up a Law Library: Solutions for Solos and Small Firms, A Financial Checklist for the New Solo Firm by David Bilinsky and Laura Calloway and Locking the Doors and the Windows: Security in the Solo World by  Catherine Sanders Reach.

As I said, there’s a lot of great content in this issue and I have not mentioned it all. Go. Read. Don’t delay, especially if you are not an ABA LPM Section member. (And if you are already an ABA member, why aren’t you?)