Legal Talk Network - Law News and Legal Topics

Where do you want your firm to go in the new year? Do you have a plan to get there? Intentional firm design and strategy trumps reactive growth every time. Don’t let your firm run you; take charge today!

Guest Kellam Parks is a partner with the metrics- and technology-driven family and cybersecurity law firm Parks Zeigler PLLC, and he runs the coaching program “The Motivated Lawyer,” helping firms craft a path to a successful future. Hear how he recently took on one new client pro bono to demonstrate how his coaching helps lawyers visualize and achieve their goals.

Parks began his own Virginia Beach firm as a “paperless” entity nearly 15 years ago, incorporating emerging tech to maximize efficiencies. As the firm developed, tech tools have helped his team automate the routine and focus on the most important and demanding tasks. He is a regular speaker and provider of CLE programs for attorneys and firms and produces educational videos and a popular newsletter packed with tips.

Do you need help building out your technological capacities and marketing? As Parks points out, “Nobody knows everything.” Always be learning and open to new ideas. 

Questions or ideas about solo and small practices? Drop us a line at [email protected]  

Topics:

Too many solos start out with no intentional plan, opting instead to gather as many clients as they can then scrambling to keep up. A recipe for stress and inefficiency.

In 2026, think about what you actually want from your firm. Then create an intentional plan to get there, step by step.

Technology is not an option. Use the tools available to you. But remember “technology does not fix chaos.” It all starts with your plan, your established systems, and understanding what you’re doing (and why).

 Mentioned in This Episode:

Previous appearance on New Solo, “Tech, Automation, and Cybersecurity: A Pioneering Attorney’s Perspective” 

Previous appearance on Legal Talk Network’s Digital Detectives, “Cybersecurity: Getting to Good for the Small Law Firm” 

Ben Glass, Great Legal Marketing

Gino Wickman, “Traction” 

Allie K. Miller, understanding AI

“Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire,” by Dan Martell 

Clio

ABA Techshow 2026

Clio Cloud Conference 2026

 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The recent fatal shootings of Renee Good & Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota shook the nation and the world. In recent months, the tactics and actions of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE,  have reached a boiling point in communities and have come under scrutiny for the treatment of civilians. In response, many  have taken to the streets to protest.

With the Trump administration's mission to deport dangerous criminals, a recent internal ICE policy specifically allowed agents to go door to door without a judicial warrant, in direct contradiction to the Fourth Amendment (unreasonable searches and seizures by the government). As protestors lined the streets, an individual’s First Amendment rights—freedom of speech and assembly in particular—were also under attack. 

Are we currently witnessing the shredding of the U.S Constitution and the rule of law?  Will there be investigations into the actions of ICE? Will the legislative branch step in? On this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, Craig joins David Cole, Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown Law and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Craig & David discuss the legalities behind the actions of ICE, the constitutional rights of individuals who encounter ICE agents, the recent tragedies in Minnesota surrounding ICE agents and civilians, and the overall impact these actions are having on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Subscribe to Lawyer 2 Lawyer: https://play.megaphone.fm/6kyeqlhety25kgmgqdr7cw
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world of legal technology can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, we have a guide in Chelsey Lambert, founder and author at the legal tech education, consulting, and guidance platform Legal Tech Decoded, which features articles, reviews, and opinions on the latest in legal tech.

This episode is kind of about marketing, but kind of about operations, but also kind of about AI, because tech is coming for every aspect of your legal practice. What developments will drive your firm forward, and what’s smoke and mirrors?

Lawyers who’ve been in the business long enough have gone from reviewing cases on paper and in books, maybe even yellow legal pads, to the Internet revolution, to online research and filing, to today’s AI revolution. Is AI remaking the practice of law, or just the next progression? (Spoiler, it’s kind of a big deal.) 

“I don’t know that we’ve ever trained lawyers how to buy technology in the first place,” Lambert says. Now add the complexity of AI, a tool you have to train, guide, and trust. Hear about the evolving world of legal tech, even developments you probably haven’t heard of, and the evolution of the profession, including the potential for non-lawyer ownership and private equity. Don’t fear or ignore the revolution, embrace it.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Association for AI in Legal, A4l.law

CaseMark

RocketLawyer

LegalZoom

Nolo

Foundation AI

Subscribe to Un-Billable Hour: https://play.megaphone.fm/qxfro4f-suekajnwe_solw
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Case Doctors explore what legal recourse Taylor Swift fans might have when the tickets they bought for $14,000 didn’t turn out to be what they paid for. Plus, John Simon and Alvin Wolff discuss strategies for an attorney contemplating how to handle a case involving 200 garden gnomes that allegedly violated Homeowners’ Association rules.

Subscribe to The Case Doctors: https://play.megaphone.fm/d8rovuhcqx6msdzgbqfaja
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the movie 1973 film Walking Tall, Sheriff Buford Pusser is a heroic law enforcement officer in small-town Tennessee whose fight against the Dixie Mafia leads to an ambush and shooting that left his beloved wife Pauline dead.

The movie and its sequels and remakes made Pusser, who died in a 1974 car crash, into a folk hero. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson played him in the 2004 Walking Tall remake. The Pusser legend became a cottage industry for Adamsville, Tennessee, where the Buford Pusser Home and Museum is based.

Mike Elam, a former law enforcement officer, started researching Pusser's life as a hobby back in the 1970s. Once the internet became an avenue for exploration, "I started a social media page and I was very much a fan of Buford Pusser at that time," Pusser tells Modern Law Library host Lee Rawles. "And it was one of those things where I got to researching it and learned far too much for my own liking, because I did not like the man I saw as opposed to the one that was in the movie."

Elam's decades of research and interviews with people who had encountered Pusser led to a book, Buford Pusser: The Other Story. It also led to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations reopening the case into Pauline Pusser's murder and exhuming her body. In 2025, they announced that the investigation revealed details that pointed to one suspect: Buford Pusser himself.

In this episode, Elam discusses his long investigation, tips for other true crime citizen detectives, what he thinks now about the way Buford Pusser has been memorialized–and how he found the gun that killed Pauline.

 Subscribe to Modern Law Library: https://play.megaphone.fm/93wtgxnatpsubsdxwklzwq
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices