How do you guys not take rude behavior from a Partner personally? I’m a newcomer, so, naturally, I am pretty inexperienced. The Partner at my firm is super cool and nice one second, and the next, says something extremely harsh in a really shady way… I’m trying to just go with it but it affects me to no end.

It’s a very small firm (like 3 other people), but I know the job market is bad right now so I shouldn’t just quit.

I just have crippling anxiety all the time

I am wondering if I need to write a proposed settlement if trying to aviod filing suit. I have a tort and civil liberties as well as constitutional rights, with elements of negligence under color of law case. Slam dunk case. City hall is all ears, just never been here before. So, do I submit a proposal or just voice it??

Is there a certain time of year when law firms hire?

For context: 1st year associate in HCOL looking to to get out of insurance defense. Been looking and applying for a couple months now and it feels like there’s less and less postings

It seems like all in-house attorney jobs are non-litigation.

As the title reads. 

I obtained an "entry level" paralegal position while completing my undergrad, prior to applying to law school. I started approx. 6 months ago, and oh boy, did I sign up for some sh**. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy. 

First off, my boss is a solo practitioner with approx. 20+ years of experience in the legal field. Our primary area of practice is....... divorce. Yes, absolutely delightful so i've learned. When I am not dealing with custody battles over purely innocent children or trying to console a housewife who has been cheated on by her husband of 30+ years, I have to deal with my boss every which way in between. Things started out great, and seemed more than reasonable or normal, I should say? Fast forward to a few months on the job, she began giving me increased day-to-day responsibilities. Not a problem. The thing is, I have definitely begun to question if the work she has been giving me is more or less something a paralegal would do or if she is simply dumping it on my lap and doesn't want to deal with it. For instance, one thing I have noticed is the lack of completing or drafting time sensitive documents. Clients have been waiting MONTHS for either the most simple of a document to be prepared (ex. a 2 page cut and dry Consent Order), or a more complex document such as a MSA or Pendente Lite. She simply keeps putting it off and putting it off until either the client blows up, opposing counsel volunteers or insists to take it over, or the Court contacts our office like "hey... what is taking you so long?". The thing is, SHE insists on preparing the agreements. Even to the extent of having me demand more money from the client in order to prepare the agreement, she never prepares it, and passes it off to opposing counsel at the 11th hour. I would need more than two hands in order to count how many instances she has dropped the ball with matters such as this. This has led to an unnecessary amount of stress and last minute scrambling for me. 

The most recent task I have been assigned is managing the firm's AR/AP. Lovely. When I began this position, her monthly invoicing was on track without a hiccup. Fast forward to October, I found out she still had never issued invoices for August or September! When I offered to handle it, her excuse was that she is so backlogged on entering her billable time and she has not been able to catch up. This has led to massive confusion by our clients as they have no idea where they stand financially with the firm. Furthermore, she picks and chooses who is to pay what and when. There is no consistency between clients. For instance, we have one client who has done everything in her power to finance a 20k+ divorce over the past year. (SIDE BAR: I noticed bosses fees are/were drastically inflated for this client, but this is a conversation for a different day). This client's divorce was completed back in August. This client is a single mom, struggling to make ends meet and will have to sell her home in order to cover her son's college tuition next semester. As a college student myself also from a single parent background, I understand this challenge. For the life of me, I simply cannot figure out why my boss has it out for this lady. Granted, this client is not the easiest person to deal with, but that is part of life. Since I began working with my boss, I have been the main point of contact throughout this client's divorce. My boss would REFUSE to speak to her during several on-going negotiations or last minute issues that needed to be addressed. Nonetheless, for some miracle I will never understand, this client is beyond thankful for everything "we" have done to navigate her through her situation until her divorce was finalized despite my boss deliberately ignoring her. Like previously mentioned, this divorce was finalized in August. My boss did not issue invoices for August or September until October. In addition, my boss agreed for this client to split part of the balance owed through November. My assignment first thing tomorrow (Nov. 1) is to issue the Fee Arb. to this client who is trying her best to pick up the pieces and get her life back on track. I know for a fact she will not be able to pay until the sale of her home. We have SEVERAL other clients who have not paid FOR MONTHS (definitely clients who owe more than this lady). As if things weren't already exciting, I have been assigned to maintain her collections account which is beyond outdated. She has directed me to send several previous clients to collections for balances owed such as $40 or $200 for services rendered in 2019!! These previous clients have not seen an invoice in YEARS!! If it were a significant amount of money I completely understand. The way I look at it is if I was sent to collections over a $40 bill 5 years ago, I would lose my....

Based on the above, her actions have caused several clients to leave. We had a client request a refund of his retainer to proceed elsewhere (approx. 6k retainer on account) which was requested was well over a month ago and she still has not issued the refund. We had a different client also leave a few months ago following my boss refusing to speak with him the day before a (NASTY) Court appearance for custody of his children because a phone call with him "was not necessary". She has been utilizing me as her puppet to call these clients to convince them not to walk and to send demanding emails to existing clients ordering them to pay without being invoiced or an SOA will be presented along with a Fee Arb. and collections shortly following. Oh, almost forgot to mention, she works from home 85% of the time, starts "working" between 10-11am with a hard stop at 3 to pick up her dumb kid from school, lives 10min up the road, and creates every excuse not to come to the office to assist me with the day-to-day despite me having afternoon/evening classes. Between sending people to collections based on her feelings, the blatant disregard/lack of respect for SOME of our clients, and the adamant refusal to handle day-to-day responsibilities of being a business owner, I feel like I am losing my mind. As a college student with heavy a workload in general, this lady is dragging me and our clients through the mud. I can't help but ask myself, what in the world did I sign up for....? I thought going into the legal field would allow me to help people; not to destroy them and myself in the process. 

I am handling a very contentious family law case in which both parties are idiots. I, for the most part, believe my client and what he tells me.

The Plaintiff, mother is constantly trying to find ways to make my client look bad. She’s also about 7 months pregnant with another man’s child.

The case got so ugly that at one point, I filed a motion to have a GAL appointed. The Court granted my motion but opposing counsel wouldn’t agree to anyone I suggested being the GAL and wanted the Judge to decide. Fast forward, the Judge appointed a woman of which I am familiar and my boss thinks of her as somewhat of a mentor.

Since she has been appointed, she has called the Plaintiff her client and has completely taken her side on most issues. She also told me today that my client isn’t going to be awarded anymore time that what she wrote in her report if we go to trial. I found this appallingly. Every interaction I have had with her she sounds nice and then makes a crazy comment or statement attempting to embarrass me or my client.

I believe she’s in her early 60’s. I am in my 30’s. I don’t want to make waves but she’s a terrible GAL and I don’t think she should be appointed to anyone’s case. She has really rubbed me the wrong way but it’s also akward because my boss considers her such a good friend/mentor. I want her off my case. Not sure how to approach this with my boss or her going forward.

I’m a solo immigration lawyer working with clients in California, but licensed in Pennsylvania. Since my practice is entirely federal, I’m a bit stuck on where to set up my IOLTA, trust, and operating accounts. I reached out to both the California and Pennsylvania bar IOLTA hotlines, and both basically told me that because immigration is federal, their specific IOLTA rules don’t really apply.

Before I start accepting client payments, though, I want to make sure I’m doing everything by the book. I’ve scoured the AILA website and professional ethics rules, but the usual multi-jurisdictional guidelines don’t seem to cover this situation. If anyone’s been in a similar spot or has any advice, I’d really appreciate it! TIA

I’m looking to work through a sample case that includes all the foundational documents. Initial complaints, motions, discovery files, final submissions, etc etc.

Ideally I’d like a case where I can see the progression from initial filings through to closing arguments (or similar stages in arbitration).

Does anyone know where I can find such materials, either publicly accessible or commonly used for practice?

Some have suggested mock cases but I cannot find anything I like.

Thanks in advance!

I’m looking for some brutal honesty, but maybe also some encouragement and advice. I’m in my 50s. I graduated from law school when I was 40 after spending a lot of years in sales and business development in business to business technology. I was so late to law school because I dropped out of college after my grades performance was terrible. I later returned to finish my undergrad degree on a one-or-two class per semester basis and did very well for that half of my college career. It was a challenge to get into law school, mostly because I wasn’t great at test taking (LSAT), but I got in and did OK - not great, not terrible. I wasn’t very involved in anything other than getting up in the morning and going to school and doing my work at night. I was a dad of two, and my wife was working two jobs while I was in school. Law school was my job for three years. I have been barred for 13 + years now.

After graduation, I papered my home office walls with rejection letters from various firms and judges’ chambers to which I applied. After losing count of the rejections, I went back to sales and business development, and did well financially, but it didn’t scratch the itch. I always wanted to be a lawyer, and I became one. I just couldn’t get a job. So, I opened an office and hung my shingle. I never got enough clients to make things work, probably for two reasons: (1) I didn’t network well enough; and (2) I never got the experience I needed to feel confident enough to take most of the cases that I did get an opportunity to grab. Asking other lawyers for help started to feel like more of a burden on them than a mentor/mentee relationship thing.

I have continued since hanging my shingle to search and apply for positions - so many that I can’t even remember how many. I have gotten a total of 1 interview, and I believe the firm ultimately went in a different direction because they didn’t like my age compared to legal experience. My impression was they didn’t want to train me. But here’s the thing: I know I can offer a lot to a firm. I know how to sell. I understand that an attorney is really a sales person for the firm, and I also understand how to talk to and relate with a firm’s clients and their business needs. I see firms hiring these kids out of law school every day with absolutely no real world sales and people experience. Why can’t I convince them that they should hire me? I just want to put my legal brain to work.

Be brutal. I’m looking for real thoughts here.

I’m an attorney who is looking into different policy holders for my first malpractice policy. I will be doing mostly PI work. I noticed there seems to be a big disparity in pricing.

Is there any insurance companies you would recommend? I’m looking into attorney protective but it’s about 4K a year which seems to be high compared to others. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Hi all,

Let me know if you have a subscription to the Daily Journal.

In the tile. I’m in biglaw commercial lit but have always dreamed of going solo and doing plaintiffs work. My goal going to law school was to be independent, have my own firm, etc. but I couldn’t turn down the money. Now I’m 5 years in and a slave to high pressure clients and partners. I’m really over it, I was going to go solo earlier but chickened out (have a newborn). Any success stories would be great. My exit plan is probably 1 year.

Insurance defense here: client litigation reports are genuinely so annoying. They literally take hours even updated ones. On top of updating to them everything on emails, formally reporting on stuff they already know takes so long. And each client prefers different reporting format and it gets annoying. It’s genuinely the worst part of this industry. I’d rather do anything else. Thats all.

I have nothing to lose, so, if anyone is open to hire a transactional attorney in Texas (preferably the Fort Worth-Dallas area), please let me know. I apologize beforehand if my post is obnoxious (I know, trust me). My qualifications include:

• Good regional school (places in Biglaw, but definitely not a T14, and not a TX school)
• 3.6 GPA with honors
• AmLaw 100 background
• Paralegal experience prior to law school
• Fluent in Spanish
• Waiting for approval of my TX’s C&F, but already a licensed attorney in another jurisdiction
• Class of 22’

Again, I apologize for posting this here, but I miss all the shots I don’t take. Thanks to everyone in this subreddit who has offered kind words!

I can't stand this user hostile piece of garbage any longer. Absolute trash.

Is there something that is less irritating to use?

I don't need invoicing, I use square.

I don't need payroll, I use ADP.

I would like to have it automated with Zapier, if possible.

(i.e. it downloads all my square sales, identifies clients, and puts in the information automatically)

Our estate planning firm, Oath Law, is beginning both a small sponsorship program for local groups, and starting to host community philanthropy events ourselves.  We’ve tested the waters with a free estate planning event for first/emergency responders. We'd like to do more of those for next year, but we have small teams at multiple locations. We also just launched an internal program where we are going to collect sponsorship requests from our firm members and/or the local office community. In general, do other attorneys' and/or firms’ have efforts along these lines? Any dos and don’ts learned along the way? Do you take requests as they come, or is there a plan in place with someone as the program steward?

Hi everyone,

Our firm has been around for 40+ years. We handle a sizeable amount of family law matters, but this could also apply to other areas of the law.

How do you manage financial information intake for the purposes of filling out a financial statement?

For instance, in Ontario, there's a form required for court where someone lists all their assets and debts for their date of marriage, date of separation, and today's current value. We also have to provide proof of each value either with bank statements, credit card statements, etc. I am trying to make the process easier, because half the time clients come in and they have a current statement, but not the statement for their date of separation, or they didn't know to include their retirement savings account, etc. It's frustrating. The court form is not exactly "user friendly" for laypersons and includes unnecessary jargon and questions that we normally take care of.

I'm thinking of using a much simpler form. But I'd like to be able to send them something electronically to fill out such as "Do you have any bank accounts?" and have follow up questions if they hit yes. Maybe google forms??? Anyone out there have a more elegant solution?

Bonus question: How do you handle clients that are difficult in getting this information? I am always amazed at how a client will claim they don't have online access to xyz bank account or retirement fund, and when I tell them to go into a branch and request, for example, their August 2020 monthly statement for their account, they look at me like a deer in headlights and usually end up taking a month to do what I asked. There must be a better way.

EDIT: I had someone pm me the suggestion that I have clients fill out a million blank directions and fill them in and get them directly from the source. I am not above doing this, and if this is common practice among other firms, this may solve our problem. The issue is, I'm trying to keep costs down for clients. Having us do it all raises costs significantly.

Hi. I'm in a bit of a tough and exhausting situation. I graduated from a pretty great law school, GPA is okay, & resume is also impressive (not to toot my own horn - i have awards, certificates, journal). I've been looking for a first year associate attorney position for months and I am so exhaused and don't know what I am doing wrong. I've networked my ass off my 3L year & during bar prep and a little bit after my bar trip. My interviewing skills are good and I know how to hold a conversation with these attorneys. I've made decent connections but those connections don't seem to be helpful when it comes to me trying to find a job. I've applied and cold emailed RELENTLESSLY and, nothing. I'm so tired that, while I really want transactional, I've also broadened my scope to litigation.

So I applied to this firm in their location nearest to me in the city, which is actually one of the most important factors for me. I applied in that location because there was availability on their website. Come to find out that that location is no longer available and another location is, and that location is so not in the city. I know that geography is so miniscule when trying to find a first job but to me, its a big deal and I felt a little blind sided when I met with the attorney. Not just that, but the pay is incredibly low, it is almost insulting. It is in the practice area that I like but the pay is so low and the only way I get more pay is by commission (what is this, sales?).

Idk I'm feeling a little hopeless and just had to rant.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that I am aware that a lawyer's job is primarily selling legal services. I guess I was just surprised because most of the job openings I saw were only base salary with yearly bonuses and I've had interviews with 2 law firms where the salary was base + commission.

When a doctor gets sued, what work does the medical malpractice defense attorney do, and what work does the doctor's insurance company's (insurance defense) lawyer do? Can't figure this out after asking multiple attorneys.

Working as a paralegal in the legal profession has shown me how unfair life can feel. Clients often tell me, “Why does it feel like the system is working against me, even though I wasn’t at fault and someone else hit me?” It highlights how systems, whether in law or in life, can sometimes feel stacked against you, regardless of the outcome. The same goes for workers’ compensation cases—things happen beyond your control, and you couldn’t have prevented them, yet you’re left dealing with the consequences. The ripple effects of incidents like car accidents often lead to additional challenges that further impact your life. This experience has made me even more empathetic because you truly never know what others might be going through.

I would like to know opinions on owning an office and practicing from an office in a commercial mixed bulding.my husband thinks is not a good idea, I think the opposite.

I have an upcoming phone screener that will be with the HR head. I’ve never had a screener with the HR team before, I’m curious what types of questions they usually ask?

I imagine why this firm / why do you want to leave, but what other types of questions they ask? Do they typically ask about comp, etc?

I work at a corporate law firm. Kinda bougie. For Christmas every year, we have two separate parties, one for the staff and one for the attorneys. The staff party is a catered lunch in a work day in the conference room and the attorney party is at a members club with a fancy dinner, drinks and desert and it’s around 4 hours on a Saturday. I find this to be pretty gross, but I don’t know if this is the norm at law firms. Do you guys do that too? Naturally, upper management is all early 60’s so they’ve got an old school mentality. What’s your thoughts? Standard or really really shitty?

Been looking into this firm a lot. As a mom of a young child, it’s really important for me to be with a firm that Is not SO cutthroat that it is unrealistic to have a family to take care of. I’ve spoken with a few associates, who say that there is a general good atmosphere at the firm, and lots of people have children. But I would love to hear more about people’s direct experience. Obviously, the most important thing is that you get the work done. But, I want to still be able to give my child a bath and put him to sleep! Please no rude comments. Just looking for insight.

i posted something similar here a few months ago before the bar, but i've recently passed the NY bar so thought i'd get some more advice since I'm still desperate for a full time job! I've been applying and networking constantly for over a year now so wanted to see if people here had constructive advice about what options i realistically have at this point, as my mental health has been taking a real nose dive.

i have low but not abysmal GPA of 3.5 (still above median) from a t-20 school and went to a higher-ranked undergrad fwiw. I am looking for jobs in NYC and the surrounding area (i live in NYC but am willing to commute outside the city if I have to). I've been working part-time remotely since taking the bar but haven't been able to get anything full-time. I've had my resume reviewed by career services at my school and from people I've networked with, I've been told my interview skills are great from mock interviewers, people I network with, and people I've interviewed with in the past so I don't think my personality is the problem. People i network with tell me they really like me but they aren’t hiring entry-level and to give them a call after 2 years and always follow up to see how my search is going.

I think im maybe setting my sights too high? I was wondering what’s realistic to get at this point that isn’t going to dig me in a hole so i can still have an intellectually fulfilling and lucrative career in the future. I've had some interest from ID/medmal firms which I am not fully against taking, although my CS office advised against going down that path because it could trap me in a career path that ultimately doesn't align with my intellectual interests.

really open to hearing any thoughts and happy to provide additional info to paint more of a picture! i’m just trying to get an idea of what my strategy should be and what my future moves look like. i'm basically just networking now but i think i need to be smarter about how im doing it and what im looking for so even if my first job isn't the dream i can still set myself up for a good path going forward.

It's one thing for a slow down with clients but recruiters?!

I am trying to put the pieces together to go solo. I have done a shitload of premises liability cases and I know very few litigate these cases and many firms don't take them at all in my area. I understand that lead gen through companies for premises is the same for motor vehicle. Is this the same for google ads? Is there any way to get a discount anywhere because these cases are less desirable? Perfectly fine doing 100% premises liability if needed. Other ideas / experiences?

Anyone work for either of these two firms as a lawyer drafting IT contracts?

Some positions have come up and I am thinking about it.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

I have a friend trying to make their solo firm succeed but it's been hard. The other day we were talking and he told me about considering outsourcing as a way to save some money. I don't know much about that so I didn't have any great advice for him, so I'd like to know what everyone here thinks since you guys probably know a lot more than me.

Edit: Spelling.

So my firm switched from quarterly bonuses to monthly bonuses.

Of course I had a great start to the year but life happened, got covid, was out a few weeks, etc. I made my yearly billables of 2,600 so I thought I was fine.

Got a memo today stating that they "overpaid" me $22k because I didn't actually bill over 2,600.

I don't get it... Did they not get the benefit of me busting my ass off? Are they going give the clients the money back?

I'm mostly confused because there was never anything in the bonus structure stating that we needed to bill x y z at the end of the year to justify the monthly bonuses.

How should I go about this?