The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Day 71/90 – Paying it Forward

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    Ruth Carter

    Day 71 of the 90 Days of Awesome is in the bank! What made today awesome? I got to help a fellow lawyer understand the benefits of blogging to get more clients.

    Hanging with Peter Shankman - Love this guy!
    Hanging with Peter Shankman – Love this guy!

    One of my legal eagle friends popped by my office today to pick my brain about using social media to get more clients. She was thinking about using LinkedIn to post long form content. I suggested she start a blog instead.

    I love blogging and using social media. I prefer blogging to posting long form content on social media platforms because it gives me more control over my content and I have people visiting my site weeks, months, even years after I wrote a post to read my content.

    I showed her the backside of the Carter Law Firm website to see how my readership has steadily grown over the last three years. I wanted her to see that my readership has grown steadily because I keep putting out quality content on a regular basis. Eight out of the top ten pages of my site today are blog posts. I don’t share this to brag. I share this to show that blogging works.

    Helping other lawyers understand how social media and blogging work makes me so happy. It’s my way of paying it forward from the people who have helped me so much over the years. This is an area that is always growing and developing so it’s always fun to see what’s coming down the pike next. Here are the top three people I recommended she follow to learn more about how to use social media effectively:

    If you want to know more about the legal issues that go along with blogging, I wrote the book on that.

    This discussion got me so jazzed up that I recorded an episode of Unsolicited Advice about it:

    In case you missed it: Day 70 of the 90 Days of Awesome – I had a spontaneous dinner date with my friend Chad!

  • Day 60/90 – Being on Fox 10 Phoenix

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    Ruth Carter

    Day 60 of the 90 Days of Awesome is in the bank! What made today awesome? I got to be on Fox 10 Phoenix’s News Now!

    Selfie in the Fox 10 Lobby!
    Selfie in the Fox 10 Lobby!

    Is this the beginning of my career as a talking head? I hope so!

    I was walking Rosie around 5 o’clock tonight when my phone rang. It was my friend and partner-in-crime Jeff Moriarty. He’s the head of social media at Fox 10. He created News Now at Fox 10 – a live video show that appears on Fox 10’s YouTube channel and Facebook account. It’s pretty awesome. He asked me if I was interested and available in being on the show at 7 to talk about some legal news stories of the day.

    Of course I said, “Yes!” and zipped home to take a shower, put on something presentable, and headed to the station where I met Kinsey Schofield. She’s awesome. She had me on to talk about James Woods’ defamation lawsuit against someone to tweeted that he’s a cocaine addict, the woman who was sentenced to 3 weeks in jail for contempt for her outburst during the James Holmes trial, and Hannah Anderson being deposed for the Jim DiMaggio wrongful death lawsuit. We had a lot of fun bantering back in forth about these stories:

    During this interview I mentioned my YouTube channel where I talk about lots of legal issues and respond to questions from readers. I hope you enjoy it.

    I had an awesome time being on News Now! I hope I get invited back.

    In case you missed it: Day 59 of the 90 Days of Awesome – I took a quasi-mental health day.

  • Day 58/90 – Playing Hooky

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    Ruth Carter

    Day 58 of the 90 Days of Awesome is in the bank! What made today awesome? I got to play hooky from work . . . sort of.

    IP16 cropped
    This is how playing hooky feels! Photo by Patrick McLeod from Ignite Phoenix 16 (Creative Commons License)

    It’s probably more accurate to say work played hooky from me.

    Today had a good start. I got to the office early and cranked on some client work, had a few networking meetings, . . . and then our file server went down.

    No worries. As long as I have the internet I can get work done.

    And then the internet went down.

    I looked over at Rosie the basset hound and said, “Well, we’re out of here.” I loaded her up and headed for home. The internet was still working at home so I could still get some work done. It reminded me of how I worked when I was running my solo shop – I only went to my office a few days a week and I often got to leave by early afternoon when my work was done.

    My therapist suggested that I need a vacation. I snickered sarcastically at that. He’s probably right. Rosie and I got out of dodge for a night last summer and it was immensely helpful for recharging my batteries. I think I might work from home tomorrow, have a more unstructured day, especially if the file server at work is still down. I can go for a run, do some errands, and work in pajamas if I feel like it. I think breaking up the monotony would be good for me.

    I’ve actually been thinking about the concepts of time and how we as a society divide our time. How did we decide that we would have a 7-day week where we have a 5-day work week and a 2-day weekend? Why do we work 9am-5pm? I’m not sure this norm is necessarily the best thing for me. Don’t get me wrong – I need some structure to keep me on task, but it might be time to re-think my schedule a bit.

    In case you missed it: Day 57 of the 90 Days of Awesome – I love when my work brings me joy.