Writers
J. Entrepreneurial Opportunity
A. About Us
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. Writers and Editors Sought
We are looking for a few excellent writers/editors for legal Web sites we are developing.
C. Authority Sites
For these new projects, we are seeking several excellent writers/editors. Ideally we would like someone who can both write and edit. You would research a particular subject we are developing a Web site for, write original copy, and find the better articles on the subject and seek to obtain permission to publish the article. You would also seek to find two, three of four experts in this field and see if they would like to blog on this subject. Their blog would be published within our Web site and we would make it easy for them technically. You would be responsible for managing the bloggers, making certain their copy is interesting and relevant.
D. Legal Website Watch
We have purchased the domain name Legal Website Watch, a site we will launch soon. It will be written for owners and publishers of legal websites. The site will discuss monetization strategies, trends in payments of referral fees, search engine optimization, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, other pay-per-click networks, Google Analytics, other Web metrics tools, WordPress, social networking, the evolution of HTML and XHTML, hosting companies, monetization, the FCC “must carry” regulations and other topics of interest to such owners and publishers of such sites. We will also write reviews of legal websites: their history, traffic, competitive positioning, future plans, and monetization strategies.
Consider, for example, Online Personals Watch, a site that examines the online dating/personals industry. OPW provides comprehensive coverage of its industry and almost everyone in the industry reads it. Our goal is publish a similar site for owners and publishers of legal websites.
If this topic interests you, please let us know.
E. Desired Characteristics
Obviously you would have to be a good writer and editor. Other desired characteristics include:
- Proactive, self-managing. We simply do not have the time or energy to manage you.
- Able to research other sites, figure out which are the good ones, and approach them and their writers
- Competence in using computers. If you’re not good at computers, at least at the basic level, this is the wrong situation for you.
- Any hands-on experience with developing or designing Web sites would obviously be a plus, but is not required, since WordPress makes it very easy to write and edit copy which will be published on a Web site
F. Time Commitment
In terms of time commitment — we would want a minimum of twenty hours a week. Anything less than that, the amount of work created is simply not worth the time we have to spend to get you up to speed. If you can work more than that, great, the percentage you would receive would go up more than proportionately.
G. Location Does Not Matter
This is a telecommuting situation so you can live anywhere. We will consider applicants who live in the United States and Canada. In certain circumstances, we will consider applicants who live abroad, even though our experience has not as been as favorable as with Americans. If you currently live in India, we are sorry, but we cannot consider your application, as we have had so many unfavorable experiences. (If you are an Indian living in the U.S. or Canada, that is a different matter, we welcome your application.)
H. Frequent Communication
We will need to speak with on the telephone frequently, most likely a few times a day. Those who seek solely an e-mail relationship should look elsewhere.
I. Personal Responsibility
We seek to partner with and employ people who are “at the top of the food chain” in terms of personal responsibility and follow through. You must have a high level of personal responsibility. You do what you say you are going to do, you meet deadlines (or at least be reasonably close, since there really are no absolute deadlines in this business), and you are the furthest thing from a flake. You are diligent at returning e-mails and telephone calls not promptly, but quickly. We are highly successful entrepreneurs who get things done and we have zero (actually, negative) tolerance for flakes and space cadets. Please read our CEO’s essays on total cost of interaction, most appropriate form of communication, and the process should go smoothly, as well as his essay for prospective business associates.
J. Entrepreneurial Opportunity
This is an entrepreneurial situation. That means there is no salary or draw. Once a month, you will receive a check for a percentage of the revenues your Web sites generated in the previous month. We are entrepreneurs, always have been and always will be. We are not looking to work with those who seek or need a salary. It’s a different mindset and we have found that through an entrepreneurial approach, we get a higher caliber of partner. You obviously need to be able to afford something as entrepreneurial as this. If you have a full-time job and can work 20 hours a week on top of that, this could be ideal for you.
You would receive a percentage of the revenues each of your sites generate. Please note this is strictly an entrepreneurial situation, there is no salary. Instead, you receive a cut of the revenues. Over time, you will make more money — actually a lot more money — than selling your time for $75 or $125 an hour. We are open to part-time relationships. Unlike the writers, who receive a percentage of the revenues from only the sites you work on and only work on a few sites, since you would be designing several dozens of sites, you would be receiving a percentage of revenues from several dozens of sites.
K. Please Read
If you are interested in this position, you should read the following:
- Prospective Partners, Jobs and Careers
- Characteristics We Seek
- Our Entrepreneurial Approach
- Prospective Business Associates
- Total Cost of Interaction
- What is the Most Appropriate Form of Communication?
- Responsiveness and Dependability
- The Process Should Go Smoothly
- Total Cost of Interaction
L. 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.
M. If You Are Interested in Working with Us
If you are interested, please answer the questions below. We have included an extremely comprehensive set of computer 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 computer skills.
Please send us an e-mail at three different e-mail addresses: (i) jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com; (ii) recruiting@kensingtonllc.com, and (iii) writers@kensingtonllc.com. The subject line should state “Applying to be a Writer for Web Sites.” Obviously you should include a few writing samples. (It’s OK to refer us to a Web site as long as we do not have register to read your article.) If you have a resume, send it, but don’t worry if you do not. 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.
Please include the questions and answers in your e-mail.
In your e-mail, please tell us:
- 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 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?
- How much experience as a writer do you have? (1-10)
- How good at you at copyediting? (1-10)
- How many Web sites have you written for?
- 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?
- How strong are your oral communication skills? (1-10)
- How good of a writer are you? (1-10)
- How detail oriented are you? (1-10)
- Have your read James’ essay on David Allen?
- How interested are you in learning and implementing David Allen’s system? (1-10)
- 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?
- 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?
- Do you have your own PC (as opposed to using one at work or at a library, for example)?
- When did you purchase it?
- How much RAM do you have?
- How many monitors do you have connected to your PC?
- Tell us about your computer skills. (1-10)
- How often, if ever, do friends of yours ask you for computer advice? (1-10)
- CCN is an exceptionally advanced user of information and computer technology. Whatever your level of computer skills, we will want you to become more adept at them than you currently are. How interested are you in enhancing your computer skills? How capable are you of learning new software packages?
- If you have a Macintosh and you do not have a PC, are you able to run Windows on your Mac? Do you have to boot your computer to switch operating systems or are you able to run both operating systems simultaneously? Which program are you running to run both OS X and Windows?
- If you have a Mac, have you read our page for Macintosh users?
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- What do you think of our idea for a website written for owners of legal websites?
- 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?
- Is your computer running Microsoft Windows?
- If so, do you have a PC or are you have a Mac that can run Windows?
- Which version of Windows are you running (e.g., XP, Vista, Seven)?
- Which edition of Windows are you running (e.g., Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate)?
- Are you running 32 or 64 bit Windows?
- How often do you use the Command Prompt?
- How familiar are you with the Windows PowerShell? (1-10)
- Do you know how to add or remove programs from the Startup folder? (1-10)
- Do you use any text editor other than Notepad? If so, which one?
- Do you use any file manager other than Windows Explorer? If so, which one?
- If you had a program and were unable to close it through the “normal” way, would you be able to close the program using Ctrl + Alt + Delete?
- How familiar are you with the Windows Control Panel? (1-10)
- How much experience do you have in editing the Windows registry? (1-10)
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- Have you sent us a chronological resume?
- Have you sent us writing samples?
Name and Contact Information
Professional Experience
Education and Professional Training
Skills
David Allen
Personal Responsibility
Responsiveness
Personal Computers
The Internet and the Web
Web Design
WordPress
Legal Website Watch
Search Engine Optimization
Microsoft Windows
Your Availability for CCN
Salary History and Earnings Expectations
Miscellaneous
Have You Sent Us
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
