I'm an estate planning attorney in NC (Raleigh-Durham area) and have a client asking about Charitable Remainder Trusts. I will likely co-counsel with a more experienced attorney, but want to answer the client's questions about fees before scheduling the consult with the other attorney. What are CRT/CRUT fees like in your areas?

I have been receiving leads from my network for states that I'm not licensed in nor are in my practice area, and need attorneys to refer these cases out to. I don't have much of a network outside of my state. I would rather refer these clients out instead of telling them good luck on finding an attorney. I work primarily in EP, and don't take these cases, many of which are immigration, Employment, and divorce cases. These are largely in the east coast, several I received this past week are in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina. Is anyone interested in chatting about a referral arrangement to refer out these cases? It would be great to have an attorney in each state that I can refer out to, ideal all states at some point.

Hi all,

As I am embarking on the launch of my own law firm with a friend, in the view of hopefully growing, I am looking for a easy-to-use software for billing overview, cash flow management and high-level accounting. The actual accounting will be outsourced to a proper accounting firm, but I will still do some on my own to always have a high-level view of things.

Any recommendations? Or do most of those concerned simply do this with excel?

I have pivoted to a new field and no longer practice law, but I would like to open a law firm just to have something so I can help people out with things in the future, potentially get referral fee if something comes down the pipe, etc... What entity would make the most sense? LLC - S Corp? Just a general partnership? PC? etc.?

Extra info: Missouri entity. I plan to do little to no legal work ever, and in all likelihood will not have malpractice insurance, I just want to have the entity there in case I ever need something. I will not have an office, a dedicated phone line, anything like that. I will open up some bank accounts/IOLTA account in the firm name I think but that will be it. I am not sure what entity makes the most sense, especially since income will be $0 for the majority of years but maybe if I get lucky every now and then, I might get a referral fee for something every 3 years or so, maybe help with some traffic tickets, etc., so randomly some income might come in. I am not really sure how self-employment/FICA taxes etc. and any of that type of stuff would all work in the LLC vs. S Corp vs PC vs some other type of entity scenario.

Thoughts and help appreciated, thanks. Any other random thoughts and advice is welcome as well!

Any thoughts on opportunities to develop business in the L&E space and becoming partner (AmLaw 100). Litigation associate looking to specialize and wondering about the potential client and business prospects in the space vs. general business and commercial lit.

Out of curiosity, what are some non-billable tasks you do throughout the week? I know things like lunches, CLEs, practice group meetings, etc.. but wondering what more regular non-billable tasks entail. As a transactional first year I feel like so much of my work feels like non-billable/assistant work so just curious to hear how you differentiate between billable vs non-billable. I know I can ask my firm and they’re good about “bill to..” and what not but just looking for a more general answer.

Hey everyone - former paralegal here who pivoted into tech for six years and have been building a novel Al client lead finder for solo practicioners and mid size law firms with a solo practioconer immigration attorney cofounder based out of DC. We built it as we were both frustrated with how hard it was to build up a client list when starting out, dealing with bad leads and basically trying to survive. The tool actually started out as an internal tool to solve our pain points then we decided to turn it into a product. We're still figuring out pricing at the moment. Please DM me or leave a comment if you are interested in being one of the first people to test the tool! You will have first access to the tool before we do a public launch as a token of thanks. Going to cap this to the first twenty people that respond as we're unable to demo to everyone as we are a small team. Thank you and have a great Sunday!

Update: response has been overwhelming and we are slowly reaching our cap. I’ll extend it to thirty people. Some FAQ: it can be used for any speciality of law and not just immigration.

Somewhat of a collective belief for personal injury plaintiff lawyers is that insurance companies somehow track how much a particular plaintiff lawyer will settle a certain type of case for, how often they go to trial, etc.

This question is for defense lawyers:

Is there any truth to that? Do insurance companies track and keep data on a lawyer’s past settlements/verdicts? Does that get factored into the offer for resolution that is made? Or how the insurance company handles the case in general?

Our billable unit staff were informed that next year in order to get our bonus we need to hit our billable goal requirement and have a realization rate of 95%. Meaning that no more than 5% of time is written off. I have been trying to look into this and see if I can find any other firm that does this with no success. Of course, 95% is the goal for every firm, and I’ve found some literature on that.

However, some employees are bound to have more than 5% of their time written off, and if a case settles time may be written off as well. Some employees have been told that nonbillable work that they’re required to do would count towards their write off percentage. I fear that this places eligibility to for bonuses completely out of the hands of our staff. Is this common? Does anyone have any experience with having to hit a billable requirement and have a realization rate of at least 95%?

IWG Plc, the parent company of Regus, Spaces, HQ, and other workspace brands, is nothing short of a nightmare to deal with. What used to be respected names in the industry, like Regus, have been dragged down to unimaginable levels of incompetence and dishonesty under IWG’s management.

I signed up for services with a few of these brands, and for over two months, all but one have completely failed to deliver basic contracted services such as call answering and call forwarding. Despite their inability to provide the services they sold me, IWG insists on billing me monthly and refuses to allow early termination of the agreement, even though they are blatantly not upholding their end of the contract.

Their billing practices are beyond unacceptable—they’re fraudulent. Here’s what I’ve experienced:

• Random charges to my card, on random dates, with random amounts.
• Duplicate charges for the same invoice.
• Erroneous late-payment notices, even when the charges were made automatically by them.
• Despite admitting to their billing errors, they refuse to remove false charges and still automatically bill for them.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than intentional. Their billing system isn’t just buggy; it feels designed to steal as much money as possible from their customers.

I’ve now had to engage lawyers in two countries and contacted consumer protection authorities to deal with this scam. If any journalist wants to uncover the true extent of IWG’s malpractice, I have plenty of evidence and horror stories to share.

If you’re considering using any of IWG’s brands—Regus, Spaces, HQ, or others—don’t. Save yourself the stress, the frustration, and the financial losses. Find any other workspace provider that isn’t associated with IWG Plc. You’ll thank yourself later.

Hello List:

I am not a new attorney, but I previously worked in a job where I did not need to document my time. I have worked for a firm for a while now. My billables are a lot lower than I would like. I am working approx 60 hrs a week, so I am not slacking. I am not on my phone, social media, or reading personal email. My billing is effiicient and not the cause. I would like some suggestions about how to improve this.

After looking at my time, I spend a lot of time on administrative tasks which are personal to my practice, not the firm. I generally spend 2.5 hrs a day on this. In addition, I sometimes am reading new caselaw, watching CLE (usually over lunch), or reading other professional articles.

Here are some things I do that I would like to find ways to do more efficiently. I maintain paper and e-files. (This is not going to change, so please don't suggest that.) that time is mainly spent:

filing electronic filing notices, printing, hole-punching, filing documents .-2hrs/wk manage my caseload every 2 weeks with a spread sheet that is updated-30 min. plan my day and update my to do list-20 min/day.email 1-2 hr ( some of which is not billable) weekly review and plan the next week for approx 1 hr.

Thanks for your input

Hi all! I hope you are all well. I am currently a penultimate law student in the UK with hopes of one day becoming a practicing lawyer in New York. So far, my plan is to finish here in 2026 then go back to my home country(Nigeria) and qualify as a lawyer there. Once that’s done I plan to return back to Canada (where I have just relocated to on PR) to start applications for the NY bar, hopefully I am able to take it without the need to go to law school in the US.

What are your thoughts on this? Any foreseeable setbacks? Is this plan flawed, if so why? What are ways I could start looking into to make myself stand out for future NYC job applications purposes?

I’ve emailed quite a few law firms in NY and I’m still yet to hear back.

Anyone using Ai for dictation? I use outlook to dictate my emails ?

I'm considering using this company to qualify and chase down leads, and they don't appear to have many (any?) reviews. Anyone have any experience using them?

I practice mainly in appeals and it’d be nice if I could have transcripts read, but of course the general / built-in text-to-speech software reads the numbers.

When I search I find a ton of speech-to-text software but I’m looking for the opposite.

I refuse to believe this doesn’t exist

My spouse works in a small law firm that's been around for less than 10 years. It has grown a lot in the past couple years, but is remarkably unstable. Lots of turnover, employee burnout, etc. The firm has less than 5 attorneys, including the firm's owner. I'm worried that this firm is at risk of going under because of this instability, and I was wondering if anyone has any information about how often firms of this size under, or what the realistic risk of this happening is.

Thanks so much for any information!

I have a solo PI practice that I run with 2 assistants. My cases are mostly referral. I’m going to gross close to $1m this year and net about $500k. I spend about 30-40k/yr on marketing.

I have a great pipeline for 2025. The caseload might be a little more than I want to handle on my own. My work/life balance is awesome and I’ve never aspired to have an army of associates and run a huge firm. I’m more of a 10am-4pm guy and I love it.

I’m considering hiring an associate to help out with some of the litigation next year.

I have a ton of reservations about bringing on on an associate. Looking for some advice from anyone who has made this type of jump before. Please share your experience. Did scaling up a bit improve your quality of life?

Hi happy thanksgiving guys.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. My bird is almost done and I’m looking into my emails and notice a recent strange trend.

I’ve been doing solo work that’s completely only through my friend network. It’s really small projects and advisory work. It works for me rn.

Well lately I’ve been getting an uptick from random potential clients and tbh I’m not really looking to take on new cases but some of them have definitely caught my interest. I just find it strange I would get contacted with it coming from left field.

Has anybody ran into scams with this? I’m thinking it might just be people trying to get free legal advice but otherwise have not dealt with this in years of solo practice bc again I don’t market.

I’m an experienced litigation associate (both ID and commercial) who hopes to go solo in the near future and have always been intrigued by ADR and hope to eventually include it as part of my practice.

For those of you who are mediators/arbitrators: 1) which courses did you take/ would you recommend; and 2) how much of your workload has become dedicated to ADR?

I am currently with a boutique law firm, primarily focused on creditor’s rights (mostly handling FDCPA/FCRA litigation defense). I’ve been practicing for five years, and have hit the point where I am trying to figure out what my next steps should be.

As background, I am someone who never anticipated going to law school. I decided (pretty much on a whim) to take the LSAT a couple months before the exam. I did well enough to get admitted to a tier 2 law school that is well-respected within my current market.

As I mentioned, my firm’s primary practice area is creditor’s rights. As for comp, rather than a set salary, the firm essentially has an “eat what you kill” set up. Specifically, attorneys are paid 40% of all fees collected by the firm each month for the hours billed by that attorney. For example, if the firm collected $60k in fees in March for my prior billable time, I would be entitled to $24k in April. In addition to that, when an attorney brings in a client, they are entitled to an additional “origination fee” of 25% of all fees collected by the firm each month for the hours billed for work for their client. For context, I brought in around $180k (gross) this past year. Also, based on our structure, attorneys do not have paid time off. Basically, any time I am not working, I am simply not making money. Because of this, there is no billing requirement (since there is a clear incentive for attorneys to work as much as possible under this set up).

From a practical standpoint, virtually all of the firm’s large clients (that would generate substantial origination fees) are clients of our partners. As an associate, it is possible (yet difficult) to bring in small clients. However, because of the niche area we are in, the firm already has a significant footprint in the space, so there isn’t much opportunity to grow as far as obtaining new clients. That said, I’ve managed to build a small portfolio of employment litigation work, although it is tough to fully break into that space dealing with potential clients’ insurance carriers.

The work I do is not overly challenging by any means. I am five years in, and I already have a handle on 98% of what will come up day to day. I think that is largely because I started basically day one as a baby attorney handling a full case load and every aspect of litigation/client management for virtually each case. Regardless, I find myself at a place where I am trying to figure out what my best options are to grow professionally and financially—without sacrificing my entire life outside of work (as some in big law do). Because I have been at the same firm my entire time as a practicing attorney, I admittedly do not have a great concept of what life outside of a small boutique firm would look like. I am not afraid of change or to challenge myself, but I do value work life balance which my current environment excels in (its is extremely rare that I need to work on the weekends). I spent the majority of my time in law school focusing on making it through and becoming an attorney. From there, I’ve spent the past five years focusing on making sure I am able to do my job at a high enough level to “make it”. The past few months have been the first time I’ve “looked up” from that pursuit of making it, since I entered law school which would have been almost 8 years ago now. I say all that to say, for the first time, I am trying to figure out what I would actually like to get out of this profession. I know that is something only I can determine but I am looking for advice on some solid options and paths.

I live in a MCOL city that is rapidly evolving into a HCOL. I enjoy my current job, mainly because of the autonomy, flexibility of work schedule, and the fact that I have a good grasp of the task I’m asked to do on the daily basis. That said, because it’s a niche area we practice in there is not a lot of opportunity to develop my own clients, which is the real benefit of the firm’s comp structure. Also, in looking to start my own family, the idea of not having any pay time off is pretty daunting.

I am hoping that I can obtain some feedback on the following: (1) my compensation at my current firm is competitive with the market and (2) what options are available for work at a larger firm that will not significantly impact my work life balance (preferably little to no weekend work.

It’s tough to get a gauge on how “good” your situation is when your current environment is all you know. Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Has anyone here taken action against a debt settlement company and the escrow (aka dedicated account or special purpose account) provider? I have a case against the DSC and the escrow company. The case against the escrow provider is with JAMS and will go to a hearing before the one against the DSC (with AAA). I would like to know who (not necessarily their exact name, but job title or job responsibilities) you deposed and what questions you asked them. If you can help us, we can pay for your time.

Also, you can recommend a consumer lawyer you know has relevant experience, and I can contact them.

We can also access Lexis+ AI and the NCLC digital library if good questions can be found there.

Many thanks, Kyle

My attorney was hired on contingency, essentially only paying $1000 and only getting paid more if I win a settlement or they get court awarded fees.

Discrimination was found in my favor. Yet, they were awful in terms responsiveness or meeting deadlines. For example, I'm the one who typed the appeal and submitted it. As they said they were going to review it but never did.

So, asking questions of what's proper or not for obvious reasons.

In the beginning they charged my retainer to their secondary business , a horse farm and said they forgot to change accounts. With it being such a small amount. Are there any issues with this?

I know this gets debated a lot. If you learned to put two spaces after a period, it's because you learned on a typewriter. Or you were taught by someone who learned on a typewriter. Modern word processing requires one space.

I'm negotiating a trust with another attorney. Sending back and forth with track changes. Opposing counsel did a find and replace changing every one space after a period to two. I'm debating changing it back. If I really want to be a dick I'll turn off track changes, change it back and turn track changes back on again

EDIT: In my post, I sounded more annoyed than amused, but it's really the reverse. I got all of the substantive points that I wanted, so I'll leave things as is.

I am actually asking on behalf of my boss because he's not on reddit, but I told him this would be a good place to find advice!

He is in a unique situation where he is a solo estate planning attorney (with a bit of elder law/Medicaid mixed in) but he already has five staff-members. I am his full-time legal assistant, we have a full-time paralegal, a part time scheduler, and two part-time admin assistants. We are getting to a point where we're so busy that he has exhausted the number of appointments he can take per day/week so if we want to continue growing it seems like we need to hire another attorney.

I have just been accepted to law school but will continue working full-time through evening classes and our intent is for me to be promoted to attorney when I pass the bar, but that will take 3.5-4 years depending on the program I choose. He is looking for advice on what to do in the meantime. He knows he should probably hire another attorney but unsure of whether he should go for experience or someone younger and a bit cheaper, and will they need their own para/assistant, etc.

His long-term goal is to get the practice to a place where it can be successful without him here every day so he can travel more and spend time with his family. Short-term goal is to bring in the bacon so we can all share in the success of the firm together. Fwiw, we are currently spending a ton on advertising and office space (3 offices in a high rise) - I think we should get our own office, but he likes that we get secretarial services/utilities included in our rent at the building we're in now. Where do we go from here?

HCOL, Midwest. 3rd Year Associate, 115k plus 25k bonus, employer paid health.

Billable requirement 2000, extremely easy to meet- some attorneys bill 2600-3000 annually. 30 attorneys, associate billable rate is 160, was told partner is closer to 200 but could be wrong.

What kind of salary progression can I expect? Possible to be making 175k plus bonus in 5 years? Do partners also make 1/3 of their billables? What is the general rule of thumb for raises- is it 10-15% per year for the first 3-5 years, then tapering out? Do partners make a lot doing ID (I know nowhere near biglaw). Wondering whether to look for something else, although I really love the firm I'm at. Yes, I know, ID gets a bad rep, and most of it seems deserved.

Thanks!

Should I file a retainer agreement that portrays the split we have agreed on now?

In my practice I've run into a not-insignificant portion of people who are very kind, understanding, and reasonable, who "just want this matter resolved so [they] can move on" and pay their bills right up until the moment they get a negotiated settlement or a court order/judgment giving them everything they asked for except for one seemingly small thing. Almost on a dime or over the next week, they become war-hawks. "Make a motion/disqualify the judge/appeal/I'm not paying your outrageous fees", calling the opposing counsel or reporting OC to the board type of stuff.

At this point in my career there are very few things I can't do at least reasonably well, but managing these clients is one of them. Does anyone have any tips for how to manage clients who suddenly decide it's time to salt the earth after a win?

Has anyone transitioned from insurance defense/personal injury litigation to other forms of civil litigation? If so, can you provide helpful tips in making a transition.

Thanks,

Sorry I can see that the question is not very clear.

Premise:

A lawyer has been a solo practitioner for seven years. He got his training from his dad before he passed away who was also a solo practitioner. The father graduated from a fourth tier law school and never worked for a law firm. Not sure how his father got his skills but the lawyer learned courtroom litigation from his father. The lawyer graduated from a second tier law school but failed to get recruited by a law firm during his law school years. After seven years, solo practice is very difficult because he has to do everything himself. He cannot afford a paralegal nor even a part-time legal secretary. He has gone to several law firm recruiting agencies and all have rejected him.

Recently got some suggestions that I could use software products to improve my practice. Which products have you found to be useful, save time, or provide overall value? Any tips would be welcome. Looking specifically for suggestions for the following:

1. Legal document drafting
2. Case management
3. Client communication

Thanks.