Did you know that you can listen to all of our blawg posts? Using Odiogo, visitors to our site can choose to listen to any of our blawg posts by simply turning on their volume and clicking on the “listen now” tab displayed at the top of every blawg post. In our continued efforts to make Olea and the law more accessible we are thrilled to be able to provide visitors with this option. If you have any comments or questions about listening to our blawg posts please email us or post a comment!

In an effort to make Olea LLP more accessible we recently added  Google Translator to our sidebar. There are many languages to choose from and we encourage users who speak a language other then English to try it out and report back to us! Also, during our research about website accessibility we came across an excellent resource by the BBC. The website “My Web My Way“ provides website users with a wealth of resources to make browsing the web easier. Specifically, the site explains the many ways users can change their own browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible. The BBC website is an inspiration to us and we look forward to evolving the Olea website to provide our clients and visitors with a very positive and user friendly experience.

Lawyers use a lot of paper! According to the ABA and an informal survey conducted by Arnold & Porter in 2006, attorneys are using 100,000 sheets of paper per year! That translates to a half-ton of paper use per attorney per year! As a result of the survey findings, the ABA partnered with the EPA and created the “Law Office Climate Challenge.” The purpose of the challenge is to “encourage law offices to take specific steps to conserve energy and resources, as well as reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.” Meeting the Climate Challenge is quite simple. In fact, the EPA has laid out a few specific practices law firms can undertake to radically change their over consumption of paper and energy!

Specifically, the ABA and EPA suggest:

1) Adopt best practices for office paper management by reducing paper usage, increasing recycled content in paper purchased, or increasing recycling.

2) Participate in EPA’s WasteWise program, which encourages organizations to save energy by reducing waste, and adopt best practices for office paper management (described above).

3) Participate in EPA’s Green Power Partnership (Green Power) program by purchasing energy from renewable sources to cover at least a portion of electricity usage.

4) Participate in EPA’s ENERGY STAR program, which encourages law offices to reduce energy use by at least 10% through, among other things, the purchase of ENERGY STAR-designated equipment and implementation of better energy management practices. This program has features that recognize the issues associated with tenant law offices.

At Olea LLP we are committed to using as little paper as possible. In fact this past week, we proudly became a “lesspaperfirm”
Using less paper is just one goal among many we aspire to achieve in order to lessen our carbon footprint. If you have any advice about going green or are operating a green office we would love to hear from you!

To learn more about making your office green check out The Green Guide for Lawyers and to learn more about the ABA-EPA Law Office Climate Challenge visit: http://www.abanet.org/environ/climatechallenge/overview.shtml

We are excited to present our new and improved site!  We launched our website and blawg in March 2009 and thanks to the steep learning curve that blogging necessarily requires, Charlene and I learned over the last months what changes were needed to make our site more user friendly for us and our clients.  We will be working out the last of the cosmetic changes over the next few days but the core of our site has not changed, nor has any of our website’s security features! Feedback always welcome!

We have a GREAT web designer, RT Lechow, who has been a patient teacher.  Thanks RT!

“Charlene Quincey, a Canadian living in Toronto,  and Katy Sheehan, an American living in Washington State, both graduated from the City University of New York School of Law and wanted to work together. But they figured the distance would make that impossible. “We started to do some research, under the assumption that Charlene would move out to Washington,” says Sheehan. “Long story short, Charlene discovered a virtual law firm, and we decided to give it a try.”  To read the rest of the article click here.

I was reading an article in the ABA Journal last week entitled “A Day at the Virtual Office” (online excerpt of article).  One of the issues the author, G.M. Filisko, raised was that clients may wonder whether their attorney is licensed to practice because they don’t have a framed diploma from law school hanging behind the attorney’s desk (or at least you can’t see it online).

This issue is not solely an issue virtual law offices face.  Anyone can put up a shingle and create the appearance of a law practice.  That is why its important to make sure that your attorney is a legitimate member of your state bar association if you have any doubts whatsoever.

These days its easy to check in Washington.  Just go to the Lawyer Directory of the WA State Bar Association and type in your attorneys full name.  The search will include their address, email, phone, bar number, and their status.  If an attorney’s status is active it means they are practicing law.  If they are inactive it means they are not practicing.  A lawyer might choose to go on inactive status for a number of reasons like their current job does not involve the practice of law.  Bar fees are cheaper for someone on inactive status so most people don’t want to pay extra for something they don’t use.

It is more difficult to know whether or not your attorney graduated from the law school they claim to have attended.  The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects students’ educational records from being publicly known.  A student may choose to allow their information to be open to the public but they must request that it be open.  As I was writing this blog entry I contacted my own alma mater CUNY School of Law to ask about my status and discovered that my status was closed.  I am now in the process of opening up at least that much information to public inquiry.  I think most graduating law students don’t realize when they sign those releases that this information is closed to the public and prospective employers.

Its important to know that just because your attorney passed the WA state Bar, doesn’t mean that they went to law school.  Under the WA State Court Rule 3 a person may complete a law clerk program in place of attending law school.  WA State Court Rule 6 outlines the requirements of the program a person must meet before they are qualified to sit for the bar exam.  Some people believe that this is not as good as going to law school.  Others believe that this path ensures more hands-on learning.  For myself, I think there are many ways to skin a cat and that there shouldn’t be only one way to become a lawyer.

In any case, if you have any questions about whether or not your attorney is licensed to practice first try to find them in the WSBA’s Lawyer Directory.  If you can’t find them there then you should contact the Washington State Bar Association and let them know about the inconsistency.

For the record, my full name is Kathryn C. Sheehan and my partner’s full name is Charlene Quincey.

Charlene and I just had a really funny conversation that I think reflects exactly why democratizing the law is so difficult.  Charlene discovered a great website:  Free Canadian Legal Resources.  Their tag line is: “Democratizing the law one question at a time.” You may or may not know that Olea’s mission with this blog and our practice is to democratize the law too.  In an off-hand comment Charlene said, “Geez,  we should have copyrighted the idea of ‘democratizing the law!’”

There was a pause in the conversation just long enough for us both to realize how contradictory that would be and then we spent the next few minutes laughing at ourselves.  The reason I bring it up is that it is very difficult not to try to claim credit for anything that is different or progressive.  There are financial and professional incentives for trying to claim something as my own creation that make a thought like that automatic.

The irony is that evidently we didn’t come up with “Democratizing the Law” first although we did come up with it on our own.  Hopefully this is a sign that the idea is spontaneously coming to people all over the world.  The last thing that would help achieve actual democracy in the law would be to limit use of a term, but that is exactly the kind of thinking we have to learn to overcome as lawyers and professionals.

Although Katy and I are in different countries and on opposite coasts, we are celebrating Earth Day together.  Protecting the environment is a cause Katy and I are both committed to and we strive everyday in our practice and in life to reduce our carbon footprint and protect the precious world in which we live. By operating our law firm using the internet and working from home and when we are lucky out doors in the sunshine, we are not only saving money but are more importantly, reducing our environmental impact by saving water, energy, and reducing waste and emissions.

We know that we can do more and we will continue to strive to be as Earth conscious as we can. We hope that you all have a wonderful Earth Day!

To learn about Earth Day events in your Community check out the following links!

USA: http://www.epa.gov/earthday/
Canada: http://www.earthday.ca/pub/index.php

Olea is the root word for oleaceae, the latin word meaning “olive family.”  Historically olive trees did not bear fruit during war time because they require a great deal of care and cultivation and that was not necessarily available during times of great conflict.

We chose “Olea” as our name because people are the same way, they don’t tend to flourish during times of great conflict.  At Olea LLP we practice law in keeping with this philosophy when dealing with a client’s current legal issue and when trying to prevent future legal problems.   Although its difficult to remember, the legal system is in place to try and help us navigate through a problem and towards a peaceful solution so that we can all move on with our lives.  Rather than remind us of our names (Quincey and Sheehan – Attorneys at Law), we want to remind ourselves of the fundamental purpose of the the law and our purpose as attorneys.