By Merrilyn Astin Tarlton

If anyone ever doubted for a single second what America's lawyers are interested in … well, take a quick gander at page 8 of this issue. There you'll find a list of this year's Edge Award winning articles. And it's marketing, marketing, marketing all the way. Not surprised? Me either. Unless you're one of those lucky lawyers with a stable of steady long-term clients (and there aren't many of them), you spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get and keep good paying clients. And, as someone with way too many years' experience in law firm marketing, I have to say there is a whole lot of bad information on the subject. So we hope you'll pardon us if we're ever-so-slightly proud to regularly bring you the really good hype-free scoop on marketing in the pages of Law Practice.

Speaking of which, while you're turning pages, stop at page 28 for Peter Darling's cage-rattling look at a new way of thinking about marketing legal services. Forget the "me too" approach to lawyer marketing and seek out new markets by identifying emerging client needs. Peter brings a lawyer's experience and an entrepreneur's sensibilities to the question of anticipating clients' needs. It will get your mind racing.

You'll also want to take in the two insightful roundtable discussions in this issue—covering both marketing and management trends and tactics. They are full of good stuff.

While we're talking about awards and busting buttons, our award-winning Art Director Mark Feldman has struck gold once again. He's the proud new owner of an APEX Editorial Award of Excellence in the Cover Design category for our December 2005 issue.