MinnLawyer Blog

I didn’t attend Minnesota CLE’s solo/small firm conference in Duluth earlier this week, but the reports I’m getting are that the event was, once again, a big hit among practitioners.

This was the sixth year for the family-friendly “Strategic Solutions for Solo and Small Firms Conference,” and it keeps getting bigger. It was attended by a record number 421 attorneys this year, plus at least 200 of their family members. According to Peter Berge, web education director for Minnesota CLE, 52 percent of the attendees had attended the year before — a feat he says is “almost unheard of in our industry.”

Speakers included Carolyn Elefant, a well-known blogger and lecturer on solo and small-firm issues; Barron Henley on technology; and social networking and legal writing guru Lisa Solomon. Also, back this year was Matthew Homann, who consults, speaks and hosts retreats and conferences to help lawyers serve clients better.

Richard Hendrickson

Osseo solo attorney Richard Hendrickson said that the plenary speakers were generally good, a few were very good and that most folks liked their breakouts. “The techy stuff was very helpful,” he reported. “All in all it was a good, learning, fun event.”

Hendrickson also noted that the weather in Duluth “was almost perfect.” In an e-mail, he described the evening before the final day of the event: “Around 11 p.m. the moon came up over the horizon. None of us had ever seen a crescent moon like this before. It was big and almost a translucent blazing burnt orange. It took us about 10 minutes before we accepted the fact that it was the moon and not one of the tall ships, some large sail boat with the sail lit from behind by a huge red light. Everyone with a camera took pictures. Everyone was transfixed.”

Kudos to Minnesota CLE for another successful conference!

Tags: Minnesota CLE; solo/small firm practitioners