Microsoft Visual Basic.Net Developers

The Counsel Connect Network (“CCN”) publishes legal Web sites, sites that discuss particular legal topics. We also partner with other legal Web sites that place our Web forms and (800) telephone numbers on their site. Our sites and these affiliated sites produce leads from prospective clients, which we then screen to determine if they have a viable case. If they do, we refer the prospective client to a suitable attorney in their area, in exchange for an introduction fee from that attorney.

Within 24 months, we expect to have over 1000 affiliated Web sites, with a typical site producing 20 to 50 actual cases a year (cases as opposed to leads). Accordingly, within two years we expect to be handling approximately 30,000 cases a year. Our business is extremely lucrative, as legal cases often generate significant legal fees. For example, we recently landed a toxic mold case with over 1000 clients to be represented both individually and through a class action, with a settlement value in excess of $20 million; we will receive about 11 percent of that, and that is just one case. Using some very conservative assumptions, we expect to be generating over $100 million in revenues. For further information, see about our company.

B. VB.Net Developers Sought

The Counsel Connect Network is looking for a couple of really good Microsoft Visual Basic.Net developers. Ideally they would know Microsoft Access well, but this is not required.

In addition, currently we could use a good Microsoft Access programmer for a few projects, even if they do not know .Net or Visual Basic. Knowledge of VBA would be very helpful. If the Access programmer lived near Boston, that would be a huge plus.

C. Microsoft Shop

The Counsel Connect Network publishes legal Web sites — sites that provide information about legal topics. Most of these sites are published using WordPress. In addition, we have some .Net sites that use Microsoft technologies to develop Web forms.

For our internal “corporate” information systems, we are exclusively a Microsoft shop. Vista Business and Office Professional on the client side, Windows Server, SQL Server, IIS and Exchange Server on the server, Enterprise editions in all cases. We are very advanced users of Microsoft Office, often writing apps that use three or four of them at once (e.g., Access as a front end to SQL Server, connect Word through Access to the SQL Server database, create a mail merge which outputs as an e-mail, which is processed by Outlook).

D. Internal Corporate Information Systems

We have several information systems which we use extensively, including:

Attorneys and Clients System — Used to process prospective clients for cases, and then to refer these clients to an appropriate attorney
Authority Web Sites System — Used to manage writers, Web designers, domain names and WordPress accounts
Recruiting System — Used to manage the LinkedIn recruiting system

E. Client Database

For our WordPress sites, we have written several forms which are written in PHP and Javascript. These forms are used to add data to our client database. We are now starting to make strategic partnerships with other Web sites which will provide us with leads. Thus, there will be lots of different ways data about prospective clients are added to our database. Accordingly, we would like the business logic that is currently encapsulated within this PHP code to be rewritten at the SQL Server level, so that no matter how a client is added to our database, these business rules will be enforced. This would be done using stored procedures, triggers, inline table-valued functions, and/or multi-statement table-valued functions.

F. Ad Management System

We have developed a system to manage pay-per-click advertising The system is mostly done, but there are several enhancements that need to be made. We are looking for a senior, extremely competent developer who will take over development of this system. He would do the work itself or he would do so combined with someone else. We do not have time to manage this project (The Counsel Connect Network takes all of our time) and thus we want a self-starter, someone who can get the job done without supervision.

We welcome inquiries from:

Those who can manage the project — This person should be highly technical, very hands on, roll up his sleeves and do it. We are not looking for the typical project manager who can’t do the work himself. We are looking for a project completer, not someone who simply nags developers.
A senior developer who can work with the project manager.

G. Social Group

Our CEO runs the most successful “high end” social group in Boston, which we are expanding to other cities. We will be giving parties on a regular basis. Young, very attractive women are admitted for free, the men are charged $100. Each party sells about 250 tickets to the men, grossing $25,000, with very little in expenses. We already have several organizers in several cities who are ready to host parties. We already have made extensive modifications to our Web site to accommodate multi-city memberships, but more changes need to be made.

H. Visual Basic.Net

Yes, we know that there is strong controversy within the .Net developer community about the merits of VB.Net (just called “VB” hereafter) as compared to C#. Both are great languages and as far as we can tell, Microsoft intends to continue development of VB for the foreseeable future. We have chosen VB because:

Even though all of the .Net languages compile down to CLR, we feel it is important to standardize on one language, and we felt comfortable standardizing on VB if for no other reason than we know it better.
We do perform code reviews, and we simply know VB a lot better than C#.
We very much believe in following standards. For VB, there is an excellent programming standards book, and we can simply say to our developers, “Let’s all follow the standards in this book.” We know of no equivalent standards book for C#. (The best standards book ever written is Code Complete 2, but that is not specific to any language, and we need a language-specific standards book.)

As James Mitchell likes to say, “Write it so I can understand what the hell is going on.” We have a few specific quirks, such as using Hungarian notation (for us, it simply makes the code easier to read) and separating connecting words with underscores (int_Initital_Purchase_Price rather than intInitialPurchasePrice).

I. Stored Procedures et al.

As much as possible, we like an application to run at the database level, thereby assuring consistency and data integrity. So we write a lot of stored procedures, triggers, inline table-valued functions, and multi-statement table-valued functions.

J. Microsoft Access

We use Microsoft Access 2007 extensively, solely as a front-end to SQL Server, never to store data. We know of no other tool that allows for faster development of forms, queries and reports. For our internal systems, we almost always use Access. For forms and systems used outside our company, we would typically write a Web form.

K. Documentation and Comments

We are sticklers about in-line comments with the code as well as technical documentation. We take this more seriously that most companies do.

L. Daily Conference Call

Managing remote, virtual teams of developers is frankly difficult. We have learned that one of the best ways to ensure daily progress and to facilitate communication among team members is to have a daily conference call, typically using Skype. The project manager does not need to spend as much time reaching people because he knows he will be able to talk with all of the team members at least once a day. On this conference call, people make commitments and they know the next day, every team member will be asking, “What did you accomplish yesterday.” It is a fantastic way to overcome some of the limitations of operating remotely, and we use this technique for most of our projects.

M. Ideal Background

Ideal background includes:

At least four years’ experience with Visual Studio
Expert in Visual Basic.Net
Highly experienced with Microsoft SQL Server (ideally 2008)
Highly experienced with Microsoft T-SQL, stored procedures, triggers, inline table-valued functions, and multi-statement table-valued functions.
Highly experienced with Web services and writing Web forms
Highly experienced with Microsoft Access 2007
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Willingness to abide by our programming and documentation standards. We document extensively, both within the code and in writing technical specifications. We look for clean, well-documented, well designed, well structured, straight forward code that makes sense.

N. Team Leader / Project Manager

In addition to VB.Net developers, we would love to find a good team leader / project manager. Currently we have two such people and we would like to find a third. Ideal characteristics include:

Demonstrated ability to manage multi-developer software projects
Management ability — the will to manage, to take charge and be responsible for the success of the project
Leadership skills
Outstanding oral and written communication skills
High level of availability. When your team members have a questions, if they cannot reach you for three hours, it’s possible they will be twiddling their thumbs for three hours.
Excellent table and system design skills
Ability to write detailed functional and technical specifications well
Excellent technical skills in .Net and VB.Net. You will be providing technical leadership for the project.

Please note that all of our team leaders/project managers have strong technical backgrounds in VB.Net, SQL Server and ideally Microsoft Access. At our firm, being a term leader means being a technical lead, someone who provides overall technical leadership of the project. If you’re a project manager without such technical skills, we are the wrong firm for you.

O. Entrepreneurial Approach

We work with our partners on an entrepreneurial basis. This approach allows us to attract a higher caliber of person than if we just paid $X per hour and it aligns our long-term interests with our partners’. In return, our partners make more money — actually a lot more money — than selling their time by the hour. We feel it is only fair and just that our partners enjoy and benefit from our extraordinary success so far and our anticipated success in the future.

P. Please Read

If you are interested, please read:

Q. When You Apply

When you apply:

Please include the questions along with the answers; otherwise, we have no way of knowing which question you are answering. If you do not, we will simply write back and ask you to resend.
Please format your responses. Make it easy for us to read your answers. The best is to copy and paste the answers and responses into Microsoft Word, and then send us the Word file.
Please include the headings in your responses.
Please send us a resume.
If you have a writing samples, please send them.
In the subject line of the your e-mail, please include the position you are applying for.
Please send your response to jmitchell@kensingonllc.com, and also send it (including any attachments) to recruiting@kensingtonllc.com.

R. If You Are Interested

If you are interested, please answer the questions below. Many of these questions are computer questions. CCN is an exceptionally advanced user of computers, and it’s important that every professional who joins our firm is highly competent in using them and is keenly interested in becoming more proficient. We have included an extremely comprehensive set of questions. There is probably no person alive who could truthfully provide a favorable response to all of them, not even our Chief Technology Officer. Please do not let these questions scare you, we do not expect favorable responses from you to most of these questions. We have included all of them in order to get a comprehensive view of your skills. At the same time, after reading these questions, you might say to yourself, “Realistically, I am not very good at computers.” In that case, it makes no sense to apply, as we are the wrong firm for you.

If “(1-10)” is listed after the question, that means please provide an answer in English and also answer the question on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = no experience or knowledge and 10 = world class guru.

If for any section you do not use that software package, just say that in your answer to the first question and then feel free to ignore the remaining questions in that section.

In your e-mail, please tell us:

Name and Contact Information

What is your full name?
What is your e-mail address?
Do you have any other e-mail addresses? If so, what are they?
Please list all of your telephone numbers.
Which telephone number is best to call you on? As noted below, please state this in your local time and in Boston time.
Do you have Skype?
If so, what is your Skype ID? (If you live outside the United States, please install Skype (www.skype.com) now (ideally before you fill out this form), so that when we want to call you after receiving your e-mail, we can do so.
Where do you live (city, state, country)?
What is your mailing address?
James Mitchell lives in Boston, and Boston is the same time zone as New York City, namely the East Coast time zone. When it is 9 a.m. in Boston, what time is it in your time zone? In other words, how many hours ahead or behind Boston are you?

Education and Professional Training

Briefly describe your education. If you have sent us a resume, then you can just refer us to your that.
Which professional organizations, if any, are you a member of?
Which Web sites and blogs topics do you read for professional purposes?
What other forms of professional development do you engage in, if any?

David Allen

Have your read James’ essay on David Allen?
How interested are you in learning and implementing David Allen’s system? (1-10)

Personal Responsibility

We are looking for professionals with an exceptionally high level of personal responsibility. Please tell us your thoughts about how this applies to you.
We are looking for professionals who are self-managing. How does this apply to you?

Responsiveness

How easy is it to reach you on the telephone? In other words, if 100 people call you in X days, what percentage of them are able to reach you when they call, as opposed to your calling them back?
How quickly do you return telephone calls?
How quickly do you respond to e-mails?
We will most likely need to talk with you at least once a day. What are your thoughts about that?
Have you read our CEO’s essay on what is the most appropriate form of communication? How do you feel about his statement that in many cases, it makes more sense to have a telephone call rather than sending e-mails back and forth?
We are looking for professionals with an exceptionally low total cost of interaction. How does this apply to you?
Are you able to be available for a daily conference call? What times of the day would you not be available for such a conference call?

LAMP

What does the acronym “LAMP” stand for?
How well do you know Linux? (1-10)
Which Linux control panel (e.g., cPanel) do you use?
How well do you know Apache? (1-10)
How well do you know MySQL? (1-10)
How well do you know PHPMyAdmin? (1-10)
Do you know how to program in PHP? (1-10)

Microsoft Development Technologies

Which version of Visual Studio are you using (2005, 2008, 2010)?
Which edition of Visual Studio are you using (Express, Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Team System)?
How well do you know VB.Net? (1-10)
Have you ever written a Web service in VB.Net?
Have you written a system in VB.Net which interact with a SQL Server database?
Have you used VSTO? (1-10)
Have you used .Com, OLE automation or other desktop application interface protocols? (1-10)
How well do you know C#? (1-10)
How well do you know Microsoft ClickOnce? (1-10)
How much experience have you had with Web services? (1-10)
Do you have any Microsoft certifications? If so, which ones?
How much experience do you have in analyzing network traffic and Web logs? (1-10)
Are you interested in the team leader position?

Subersion and QA

How much experience do you have with Subversion (the version control software package)? (1-10) One member of our team needs to act as the Subversion systems administrator. Do you have the skills to do that? Would you be willing to do that?
How good are you at testing and quality control? (1-10) At least one member of our team needs to be in charge of testing and quality control. Do you have the skills to do that? Would you be willing to do that?

The Internet and the Web

What kind of Internet connection do you have (e.g., cable, DSL)?
How fast is your Internet connection?
How reliable is your Internet connection?
Do you have your computer connected to the Internet via a wired connection (such as Ethernet), or do you use a wireless connection?
Which browser are you using?
Do you know what a top level domain is?
What does “http” stand for?
Do you own any domain names, and if so, which one?
Which domain name registrar do you use? Why do you use them?

Web Design

How well do you understand Web design? (1-10)
Have you ever designed a Web site?
If so, how many? Please provide the URLs.
How well do you know HTML? (1-10)
Are you aware of the features that have been added to HTML 5? (1-10)
Do you know how to write a hyperlink from scratch, using the HTML href tag? (1-10)
How well do you know CSS? (1-10)
How well do you know CSS positioning (the box model)? (1-10)
How well do you know XML? (1-10)
How much experience do you have in programming Javascript? (1-10)
How well do you know Adobe Dreamweaver? (1-10)
Other than Dreamweaver and WordPress, are there any other software packages you use for Web design or layout and/or as a content management system (“CMS”)?
How well do you know Adobe Photoshop? (1-10)
How well do you know Adobe Flash? (1-10)

WordPress

How well do you know WordPress (“WP”)? (1-10)
Which version of WP are you using?
For how many years have you used WP? In which year did you start using it?
Are you currently using WP? If not, in which year did you stop using it?
Do you know how to automatically update your version of WP? (1-10)
Which WP plugins do you like?
Which WP themes do you like?
Do you have any experience with the Thesis theme? (1-10)
Do you understand the WP loop? (1-10)
Do you know how to program in PHP? (1-10)
Do you know how to modify a theme? (1-10)
Do you know how to write a WP theme? (1-10)
Do you know how to modify the code in a WP plugin? (1-10)
Do you know how to write a WP plugin? (1-10)
Which WP plugins do you use on a regular basis? (1-10)
Have you setup a WP blog/site from scratch? (Using a script such as Fantastico is acceptable.) (1-10)
Which blogs about WordPress do you read, if any?
Which syndication services (such as RSS) do you recommend and why?
How knowledgeable are you about RSS? (1-10)
How knowledgeable are you about FeedBurner? (1-10)
How much do you know about BuddyPress? (1-10)
Have you ever installed BuddyPress?
How much experience do you have with BuddyPress? (1-10)
The BuddyPress website suggests using their default theme for a WP site that uses BuddyPress. How necessary is that?
Does BuddyPress impose any special maintenance requirements? If so, tell us about them.

Search Engine Optimization

How much do you know about search engine optimization (“SEO”)? (1-10)
Which programs do you use for keyword discovery? (1-10)
How well do you know Google Analytics? (1-10)
Which traffic measurement services do you use (e.g., Compete.com, Quantcast)?
Have you read Aaron Wall’s SEO Book?
Excluding black hat techniques, are there any SEO techniques you think are particularly clever?
Which SEO blogs, if any, do you read?

Microsoft Access

Which version of Microsoft Access are you using (e.g., 2003, 2007, 2010)?
How well do you know Access ? (1-10)
For how many years have you used Access? In which year did you start using it?
Are you currently using Access? If not, in which year did you stop using it?
Do you know how to create tables in Access (i.e., column definitions)? (1-10)
In defining tables, how many different data types have you used?
Do you understand the relationship between a parent table and a child table (i.e., one-to-many table relationships)? (1-10)
What would an autonumber field/column be used for?
Do you know how to create a query in Access? (1-10)
Do you know how to create a report in Access? (1-10)
In creating a query, do you know how to link two or more tables to each other? (1-10)
In linking two tables, do you know the difference between an inner vs. outer join (i.e., and vs. or)? (1-10)
Do you know how to create a query upon a query? (1-10)
Have you ever created an update query? (1-10)
Using the wizard, do you know how to create a form in Access? (1-10)
Do you know how to create a subform in Access? (1-10)
In creating a form, have you used the radio button control? (1-10)
In creating a form, have you used the check box control? (1-10)
Using the wizard, do you know how to create a report in Access? (1-10)
Do you know how to create a report from scratch in Access? (1-10)
In creating reports, do you know how to use sorting and grouping? (1-10)
In creating reports, do you know how to use subtotals per group? (1-10)
Have you used macros in Access (e.g., Access macros as opposed to VBA modules)? (1-10)
Have you written Visual Basic for Applications (“VBA”) macros in Access? (1-10)
If you are not highly proficient in Access, we may want you to read a book such as Microsoft Office Access 2007 Forms, Reports and Queries. How do you feel about that?
In general, how interested are you in becoming highly proficient in Access?

Microsoft SQL Server

How much experience have you had with Microsoft SQL Server? (1-10)
How much experience have you had writing stored procedures, triggers, inline table-valued functions, and multi-statement table-valued functions in SQL Server?
How much experience have you had with Microsoft Database Mail? (1-10)
How much experience have you had with Microsoft SQL CLR? (1-10)

Commitment You Can Make to CCN

Are you currently employed?
How many hours per week are you currently working in your current job?
If so, are you planning on continuing with your current position, or would you quit your job to work with us?
If you will be quitting your position, how much notice do you need to give?
How soon would you be able to start?
Once you start, for the first 90 days, how many hours a week are you able to devote to this opportunity?
After those 90 days, how many hours a week will you be able to provide?
We want to get a sense of when you would be able to work, stated in both your time and in Boston time. Monday through Friday, when would you be able to work and for how many hours each day? Again, please state both your local time and Boston time.
On Saturdays and Sundays, when will be you able to work and for how many hours each day? Please state in your local time as well as Boston time.
Are you looking for a short-term, medium-term or long-term relationship with JI? How long can you commit to working with us?
Please tell us about family commitments. If you have kids, who takes care of them? Are there other relatives (e.g., parents) that you take care of?
What else is going on in your life? Hobbies? Board memberships? What other commitments do you have?

Salary History and Earnings Expectations

Please provide your salary history for the past five years, broken down into base salary, bonus, commission, and any other categories you think are relevant.
How much a month do you need to live on?
How much would you realistically like to make 12 months from now?
24 months from now?
36 months from now?

Miscellaneous

Is there anything else we should know about you?
Any comments you have on our idea?
Which topics for new legal Web sites do you think would be particularly worthwhile?
Are there any areas of the law, particularly in the area of mass torts, that you think we should be paying particular attention to?
Do you have a blog or Web site? “You” means yourself or a company that you control. If so, what is the URL?
What questions should we have asked but did not?
If we or one of our associates sent you an e-mail through LinkedIn, there was a nine digit number towards the end of the e-mail, immediate after their name. It would be in the format of 100-029-987, or something like that. Please list that number if you can find it in the e-mail we sent to you. If you cannot find it, do not worry about it.

Have You Sent Us

Have you sent us a chronological resume?
Have you sent us writing samples?
For each of the projects listed on this page, please tell us your level of interest.
Can you afford an entrepreneurial situation such as this one? We do not need to pry as to your finances, but we will eventually want to know some details as to whether you can afford this. At a minimum, state that you understand this is an entrepreneurial opportunity and you can afford such an opportunity, even if you provide no details.

S. Team Leader / Project Manager Position

If you are interested in the team leader/project manager position, please also tell us:

For how many projects have you been either a team leader, a project manager, or both?
For each of these projects, how large was the project team in terms of personnel?
How good are you at writing detailed functional and technical specifications? (1-10)
How much experience have you had in managing a virtual team? Describe past experiences.
Team leaders and project managers need to have an exceptionally high level of availability and personal responsibility. How do you feel about that?
Do you have the “will to manage”? How would you convince us that you do?

We will respond to every inquiry with 48 hours. Our founders have an impressive track record in starting, managing and selling businesses successfully. We are kick ass, get things done type of people and within 24 months, we expect to have more than 1000 affiliated Web sites. For the right person, this is an extraordinary opportunity.

We look forward to hearing from you!

James Mitchell
(781) 718-1301
jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com
www.jmitchell.me