START THE YEAR OFF RIGHT

I've been a very bad blogger. It's difficult to make meaningful blog posts about interesting things in the law because to write something I feel I have to research it thoroughly so I don't pass any misinformation.

That means a single page post may take 3 hours of research and another hour of writing to get the wording clear and accurate. I need to allow myself to be a little more sloppy - or a little more superficial.

In either case I will be blogging more this year and will be talking about all sorts of things that may or may not be related to the business. I have to make it free-form so that I don't tie my own hands doing research and in the end writing nothing because I can't find the time.

So my first off-topic post is my bucket list.

I read a great bit of advice recently: make a bucket list, and when you accomplish one thing add a new goal. You will never finish your list, but that's the point.

Also, give yourself deadlines - and not literally as in most bucket lists.

I'm starting here with things to accomplish this year.

1. Get published

This doesn't have to be big. I've been published before, but it was a while ago and I should really do it more. This means to me that some other entity over which I have no control, will put my words in print - on paper. It doesn't have to be paid. If the Washington Post publishes a letter to the editor that counts.

2. Get paid to speak publicly.

The nature of the payment doesn't matter. If someone covers my dinner that's good enough. Of course I get paid to talk in court all the time but for this goal it has to be something outside the context of a litigation. Either for entertainment or educational purpose rather than advocacy.

3. Come up with more things for the bucket list.