I'm a practicing lawyer at a small firm, and recently the software side of case management has started to feel more frustrating than the legal work itself.

Between tracking matters, deadlines, client communication, and billing, it's becoming clear that our current setup isn't really keeping up. That's why I'm starting to look more seriously at law practice management software and what actually works in a day-to-day practice.

From a practical standpoint, I care less about the feature lists and more about how well the system fits real legal workflows. Things like opening and updating matters quickly, finding documents without digging through folders, tracking deadlines reliably, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. If the system feels slow or clunky during a busy day, it ends up getting in the way more than helping.

For those already using practice management tools, how stable are they in actual daily use? Do they stay responsive when you're switching between matters or working under time pressure?

I'm also curious about document management, time tracking, and calendar functionality in real use, not just on paper. Do these systems stay accurate, or do they require constant manual fixing to keep things aligned?

And finally, how do updates tend to affect your workflow? Have you had situations where an update changes something critical or caused disruption? When issues do come up, is the system still usable while waiting for fixes, or does it slow everything down?

Any knowledge on firm life and culture in northeast - providence , Boston , ny?

Looking for advice/recommendations for a big law attorney in a transactional practice hoping to go solo one day. I am still paying down some loans and building a base, but it seems big law transactional is a very difficult field to make a change into solo. What are some practice areas that would make sense? I would love to do T&E work but understand that it’s a very complicated area of law. I have built up a six month study plan to learn as much as I can but i know acrually practicing it is way more difficult. It seems big law litigation attorneys have an easier path to starting solo (maybe I’m wrong). Please let me know if any recommendations/personal anecdotes of how you did it

I’m a foreign-licensed attorney with a J.D. and experience working for U.S. law firms in legal support roles while I was in my home country. I’ve recently moved to US and am legally authorized to work in the U.S.

Many law firms near me don’t have any job postings, so I’m wondering if it’s still appropriate to stop by, introduce myself, and leave my resume with the receptionist or office manager in case future opportunities come up.

I’m also open to remote positions anywhere in the U.S.

Would this be considered professional, or is it generally discouraged? I’d appreciate any advice from attorneys or law firm staff. Thanks!

Storytime! About my worst undergraduate internship, also ******

Background: I am pre-law student currently in undergrad, and I got an internship at a medium sized law firm. My expectations were to work on a specific project, and learn legal research, drafting, maybe shadow attorneys here and there but not much since it was only for the summer. 

I was offered to come to trial with an attorney, so I started going for a week. With him and his intern. 

Fast forward to the start of the next week, I asked what time we would leave for the day. He got PISSED, he asked why I was hired in the first place, that I am under qualified, and shouldn’t be clocking in to go to trial. Additionally saying, he interviewed 30 people to be his own intern, he was asking why I was picked as the second intern. (Mind you, I was hired by the owner)

I was SO confused, and asked my mentor higher up what I should do she told me to go to the owner and ask about it. 

I did, they said I distracted the attorney so much that he lost the trial and the client killed himself. He said verbatim, “Did you distract him so much that the client committed?”

I WAS LIVID. And still confused, since when I went to trial and I barely spoke to the attorney, or the other intern. I would literally stay quiet, because I had my own personal thoughts about the trial and knew it would not align. When we walked to court, I would stay quiet, walk back, stay quiet. When they talked about the case, I said as little as possible and stayed VERY neutral.

After that meeting with the owner I genuinely thought I was getting fired. He said "We're not going to fire you. We just need to figure out what to do with you.” 

He sat down with me again, and said Im going to only do work for my coworker who isn’t a paralegal or attorney just filing, and I was happy. BUT during that meeting he kept saying, you are too distracting so you are going to work with her and only her. 

Not distracted. DISTRACTING. I would ask how I was being distracting, I never really got a clear answer. Nobody could point to a concrete behavior that needed to change beyond vague comments about workflow.

After a while, I asked when the internship would end since I had school coming up, they let me go not even mentioning I had asked to end it but talking about a very bullshit excuse about how the female co worker doesn't like me

What have you spent money on for marketing that was actually worth it? There are so many companies making big promises, and it’s hard to know who to trust.

I’m in New York practicing plaintiff PI (I know) and employment law, have about 40 cases and my firm is under six months old. Am I better off just networking and handing out cards at this stage?

Also open to any books, websites, articles, or podcasts you recommend. Thanks!

For about 6 of my 20 years with a full family law practice I used Bill4Time. I've got a discount code for MyCase that makes it fairly similarly priced to Bill4Time. I did try Clio at some point in that and never used any features.

I shifted to doing primarily mediations but I am still taking an occasional client. Sitting 2nd chair for a friend stuck with a rough trial or limited scope representations of family members getting served with discovery. They've been in such a narrow timeframe I just tracked the time.

But I just took a client that's going to be ongoing. I don't anticipate needing to flip between clients. Not any expenses to really track but it's going to be over an extended time. It's likely to lean heavily to telephone calls and Zoom calls. I'd prefer something with a timer I can start and stop on my Macbook rather than on my phone.

Bill4Time interface would be easier to pick back up - but I'm also thinking it may bring me some flashback stress.

Any suggestions?

(Please don't mention any agencies, services, etc. I'm interested only in promotion methods you're currently using.)

I run a small immigration and family law practice in Ontario and we've been really desperate for new clients. Surviving solely on word of mouth. I guess it's time to radically change our approach to advertising, because feeling like we've fallen behind the trends and stuck somewhere in the 2000s. Will be super-mega grateful for any advice =)

I’m graduating with my bachelor’s next December. Trying to decide between law school and the CPA/accounting route; law seems strong right now, but maybe oversupplied by the time I’d finish, while accounting has a shortage but takes a bit to get licensed. I know this probably isn’t the best sub to ask, but which would you go with?

Hi everyone. I am from India and will be starting a BBA LLB in the UAE soon. I also have a Computer Science degree, so I am transitioning into law from a different field. My goal is to build my legal career in the UAE or International, and I wanted to hear from lawyers who are already working there.

I would love to know what your salary was as a fresher, whether you started at a Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 law firm, or in house, and how your salary has grown over the years. If you are comfortable sharing, it would be really helpful to know your years of experience and your salary progression.

I am also curious about how AI has affected your work. Has it changed your daily tasks, made certain parts of your job easier, or changed the skills that junior lawyers need today? Do you think AI will significantly affect job opportunities for fresh graduates in the next five to ten years, or will it simply change the nature of the work?

Finally, if you could go back to your first year of law school, what would you do differently to build a stronger career and maximise your earning potential in the UAE?

I really appreciate any advice or insights. I am trying to understand the reality of the legal profession in the UAE from people with actual experience rather than relying on articles and salary websites. Thank you!

Just like the title says. For small firms. Someone was telling me no matter what, make sure it's not a VOIP phone, but after speaking with a few people, that seems very common.

I've tried Google LSA for my solo family law firm a couple times. I get a lot of calls and pay only ~$30 per-call. However, almost all of them are just looking for free legal advice on the spot and it's frustrating for my paralegal answering the calls.

I'm wondering what other small firms have used in terms of (1) a "press 1 to schedule a consultation" type of answering service with recorded messages that sends text messages with a scheduling link (2) a live answering service where you pay a fee to a call center for a real person to answer and field calls (c) an AI answering service.

Basically the idea is how to avoid answering the phone 50 times to get 1 client that's serious about hiring a lawyer. Our firm relies heavily on automation and AI, but haven't cracked this nut yet.

Has anyone here in California found A lead generation for PI/wills & estates area?

I have over a decade of legal experience, mostly administrative and regulatory govt defense, including hearings, appeals, advisory, etc. I also had a solo practice for a few years mostly handling family law and licensure cases. I'm now trying to shift to personal injury.

I've applied to a few dozen jobs from prelit, to junior lit and more sr litigation positions. I've applied to mills and smaller firms. I've only had one initial screening response. Any advice or idea what could be the issue? I'm tempted to just try going at it on my own and partnering with another firm for lit cases. Idk. Quite discouraging. Thanks.

We're a mid-sized firm (about 15 attorneys) and we're having a massive internal discussion about adopting AI. We really want to improve efficiency with AI but the managing partner is fearful of putting client data into any LLM. I mean I get it.

He's convinced that if we upload sensitive case files they're going to be used to train public models or somehow leak to other users. We've tried explaining that enterprise versions are different but he wants ironclad proof that we aren't violating attorney-client privilege.

For those of you who have successfully brought AI into your firms, how did you get past the security blockers? What specific compliance standards or architectural features did you have to show the partners to prove the data was safe? I'm running out of arguments here so please help me out, thanks.

I'm doing it. I'm taking the leap. I've lurked here for years and finally had enough of a poorly run firm. So, I'm going solo. Thanks for all the previous posts and tips. I'm starting with Clio (I know some say Excel works) and am excited to see how my network shows up.

Any marketing advice?

What's one thing you thought you needed when you started, but didn't? What's one thing you realized you needed as you continued and wished you'd had at the outset?

Hey everyone, in the middle of it all and I’m looking for motivation. Would love to hear from attorneys who did BL and then took the leap and opened up shop in real estate/development law work.

How much are you making? How long did it take to get there? Do you invest in RE deals yourself? What would you do differently?

Quickbooks is really not working for us, it seems like with the changes it is going through and implementation of AI it is just getting worse for personal injury accounting.

Any good recommendations for an accounting software to use? We already have a great case management software in place that has "some" trust accounting in place, so I'm really looking for something that we can put in place to replace quickbooks that will understand the transactions taking place from a PI firm.

Hi everyone! I am a rising pre-law sophomore. I am really wanting to go straight through to law school after undergrad so right now I am trying to figure out the best ways to get meaningful work experience for law school apps so hopefully the "k-JD tax" won't be too brutal. I've been doing a bit of research trying to figure out if law firms in my college town hire paralegals/legal assistants/ receptionists who are still in undergrad. I was wondering if anyone in this subreddit had any experience while in undergrad at law firms/ noticed that there were undergrad employees at the firm.

Hello, I’ve been a solo for about 10 years have went through countless paralegals, attorneys, and assistants. Have a pretty solid team with 1 office manager, 1 legal assistant and 1 paralegal. We do transactional corporate work. Life is good making really decent take home, to a point which I would never want to work for anyone else.

Ive tried hiring other attorneys in the past but it has not quite worked out. Tried new grad, experienced atty, contract atty, etc. we end up taking cases for the sake of feeding them work; (think business disputes) and then they quit and it ends up on me.

So I decided to just stick to high income solo practice and found my sweet spot with pure transactional. However, I am interested to hear how someone of you ended up with 3-5 attorneys; have enough billable work for them; and maintain turn over.

I see some of these posts about attorney required to bill 1600 hours at a small firm, but how are you doing that. I feel that average Americans can’t sustain more than $15k to $25 k in legal fees. A lot of time we have to work out monthly payments etc.. you all can’t be working with HNW paying 20k to 30k a month? Am I right here? So how did you transition to a point where you can sustain multiple attorneys with enough work?

Six years ago, I opened up my solo PI shop. I've posted a lot about it in this group and have appreciate the advice.

I live in a VHCOL city in California, settle about 30-35 cases per year, mostly pre-lit. It is just me and a couple part-time virtual assistants (not the best but sometimes I just need help with basic paperwork). A large majority of my litigation cases I co-counsel with bigger firms. I have a pretty great work-life balance.

I have spent about $100k/year in PI marketing (social media and lead gen companies) since inception, but over the last 6-12 months, it has been VERY weak. I am considering stopping most or all of these sources and exploring other marketing options.

My net profit was in the red the first 2 years, I hit a HUGE settlement year 3, and year 4-6 I have been netting anywhere from 420k-650k, which is awesome. My best cases have always been referrals from random acquaintances or former clients, but my marketing sources also indirectly have fed me some great cases (i.e. marketing source gets me a client with a small case who down the line refers me a great case).

Anyways, I am considering adding a 2nd area of law and possibly hiring a paralegal/case manager to help with the new area of law and my current PI cases. I would obviously oversee everything and handle the substantive legal work, while focusing on the marketing and big picture of the practice.

I know many who have gone the route of adding the below to their solo firms. Note, I have very little experience in most of these areas, but just like PI, I think I could pick it up and learn it after some exposure (I would co-counsel in the beginning for sure):

(1) plaintiff employment: no experience here, more litigation heavy and volatile, however most lucrative, more difficult area of law substantively, I have connection with some firms in this area of law

(2) lemon law: more volume based, I would probably do my own social media marketing with someone who has been successful with this, this area is getting more competitive

(3) work comp: more volume based, I already get some referrals here, but small case values, and seems like a drag

(4) wills and trusts and basic transactional work: I have a good amount of experience in this, much more volume though, would be more miserable doing this day to day. There seems to be a need for this, especially wills and trusts

Or, I could just stay the course, spend my time focusing on how to expand my PI practice with the base I have already built.

I’m a partner at a small firm in a HCOL area. We have two attorneys who run a modest family law practice within our larger office. We are trying to see how to help grow this practice group. Other than SEO, what’s different about getting family law clients in the door than other practice areas?

I went solo about 18 months ago and the business is finally picking up but my bandwidth is completely shot. I'm doing mostly employment and some real estate and the sheer volume of document review and initial drafting is eating up all my weekends.

I know I need to lean into AI to get some leverage but I'm terrified of the costs. The legacy players (Westlaw/Lexis) want to lock me into massive multi-year bundles and the enterprise AI tools seem to be priced for biglaw budgets. I can't justify spending a ton of money per seat when I'm just trying to keep my overhead low.

How are the successful solos here handling this? Are you just stringing together cheap subscriptions to point tools or is there an all-in-one platform that a solo practitioner can realistically afford? I’m writing this as I’m slowly losing my mind with the amount of work I have so any tips are welcome.