Jay Parkhill June 21st, 2008
Anyone who has talked to me for any length of time knows that I am nuts about bikes and cycling. Getting out regularly is incredibly important for my mental as well as my physical health and well-being.
It helps in my work too. I realized today that I have puzzled through a remarkable number of work problems out on my bike. Being in the office involves so many distractions that it can be hard to find time to think straight through one topic for very long. Once I get out on my bike I usually end up rolling around one idea for a while in my head, thinking it through from a lot of angles.
I’m not an especially fast thinker on the bike. Traffic, stop lights and navigation all take pieces of my attention. Somehow that helps too, perhaps because those distractions are transient compared to the 
demands of multiple long-attention-span projects I face while sitting at my desk. I let an idea bounce around a bit, set it down to focus on getting over a certain hill, then pick it back up.
Sometimes I get lucky and it seems like the idea has kept tumbling on its own and some new angle appears that I hadn’t considered before.
I find this all fascinating. Some problems can’t be muscled through. They just need time and quiet space in my head, and then the path to a solution start to lay itself out. Cycling is how I make that space. It sure beats lying awake at night stressing out about them.
Jay Parkhill June 19th, 2008
File this under pet peeves: I work through a lot of agreements of all different kinds. Every single one has a “Notices” provision. The purpose of this language is to avoid arguments about whether notice was properly given of certain events. It only becomes an issue when the relationship has broken down, and basically serves only to avoid arguments about the terms of the argument.
That said, 95% of the agreements I get say that notice may be delivered (i) in person, (ii) by Fedex or registered mail, or (iii) by fax with a confirmation copy by mail.
How often do you communicate by fax with people compared to email?
It’s not a huge point, but one of the items on my transaction-document checklist is to make sure that the communication methods reflect the way we actually communicate. I have a standard paragraph I drop in to agreements that says people can provide legal notices by email (with a confirmation copy). It takes about 30 seconds of extra time on my part and has saved a bunch of running around on the few occasions I have had to actually follow the notice procedures.
Jay Parkhill May 30th, 2008
June 1 marks the two year anniversary of starting my solo law practice. Recently a friend asked if it was what I expected, and it has taken me until now to think about how to really answer the question.
The answer is yes and no (you expected something different from a lawyer?).
Yes, the work itself is what I expected. I do more or less the same thing I did when I worked in larger law firms- a mix of (i) brand-new startups focused on getting off the ground and raising money and (ii) later-stage companies concerned with negotiating and signing revenue-generating deals as efficiently as possible.
The no has to do with the structure of the business itself. Working for yourself means wearing lots of hats. The other day someone called and asked for the “billing department”, which interrupted the “maintenance department” in the process of changing a light bulb in my office, both of which stopped the lawyer from doing the actual work of my business- advising companies and negotiating transactions.
I knew that part intuitively, but experiencing it firsthand is totally different. I have advised startups and company founders for ten years now, and having been through the startup process myself I have a *far* deeper understanding of how hard it can be to juggle all the balls that need to stay in the air to keep a business running.
So to all my past and present founder clients- nice job keeping it all going, and keep up the good work!