Members of the Buncombe County Bar are encouraged to post information about their accomplishments and notable achievements. All posts are moderated by the Editor and must be approved by the Communications Committee before being posted online. Submitters will be contacted if their posts are not compliant with the following guidelines.
Guidelines for Weekly Bar Briefs submissions
The Bar will respect the time and inbox space limitations of its membership, as well as the privacy of those who provide email addresses to it.
Guidelines:
- Content must be in complete sentences, without bullet points or numbers.
- Content fitting all requirements must be received by noon on Fridays for inclusion in the Tuesday Bar Briefs email. The editor and the Communications Committee have final editorial control over whether content meets requirements. Editorial control will be a secondary means of assuring the relevance of content to the practices and lives of a meaningful number of Bar members.
- Content not fitting requirements may be omitted without prior notice to submitter, but editor will make reasonable efforts to notify submitter that omission is intended.
- Content must communicate the following categories of information in this order: “what”, “when” [if an event], “who”, “where” including a link to directions [if an event], “why/how/purpose.”
- Use of fully functional links to fast-loading web pages formed in widely-used software/applications is strongly encouraged, in lieu of lengthy content.
We accept submissions in the following categories:
- Membership News-– announcements such as new law office openings, personal events such as birth of lawyers’ children or retirement; event announcements such as luncheons, CLEs, and law conferences
- Submissions announcing/welcoming new members will only be printed if they contain the following, and reach us by 15 days before the first of the month of issue:
- a. Full professional name [required]; go-by name [optional]
- b. Statement of what you are doing professionally: options: (i) joining firm or entity X as a ____[associate/partner/other title], (ii) starting the firm of Y, (iii) seeking employment, or (iv) self-drafted statement that is subject to our final editorial approval
c. Either your last residence or last employment, or both [expressed as town or judicial district, and/or firm] - d. Marketing information is not permitted, but a phrase about your practice area or specialty is permitted. The distinction is in our sole discretion. Our Member Profile on our website provides ample opportunity to showcase more information about your practice.
- Awards & Recognitions–announcements of special achievements of lawyers in the profession, such as elections to national, state or local political or Bar office, awards for professional or community service, and similarly-themed news
- Official reports— news messages from legal authority figures such as letter from Bar Councilor, message from NC Bar Association President, and similar
- Classified ads–The website will accept classified ads for member lawyers/law firms announcing offers of, or requests for, a specified good or service related to the practice of law for free. Non-member North Carolina lawyers may place compliant ads for a flat fee of $10; lawyers from other states may place compliant ads for a flat fee of $20, and members of the public may place a compliant ad for $50. Ads remain on the website for 10 days, but can be renewed.
- Articles— catch-all category where submissions must meet all these criteria:
- is not an advertisement, information tending to drive traffic toward a particular provider of goods/services/processes, or otherwise commercial in nature [narrow exception: an article by a lawyer that enlightens lawyers about an area of law in which s/he practices but does not tout his/her firm or services other than to briefly introduce him/her in the manner of “The author is an attorney with Doe & Smith, specializing in family law” does not violate this prohibition]
- does have the tendency to educate lawyers on topics that are law-related or of general interest to lawyers,
- comes from a source having established credibility as a source of accurate, timely information of benefit to a significant segment of the legal profession.
Note that Bar Briefs is not a space for posting recurring or official legal notices.
We will endeavor to grant your stated preference. However, we reserve full editorial control over the Bar Briefs, and as such the rights to refuse any submissions, and to amend or remove content from your submission for purposes including space, formatting, and accuracy; and the avoidance of redundancy or offense to readers.
We cannot assure that physical materials presented to us with your submission will be returned to you unaltered, so do not submit original, valuable, or irreplaceable items.