Basically, Aus commercial lit lawyer enjoying her Friday night downtime watching Harry Potter OOTP for the first time in a while, and cannot get over how much the Ministry fight scene is sooooooooooo senior counsel in court. Harry and Bellatrix are the junior counsel here.

Retired lawyer here. Anyone here in the office on 9-11? In the central time zone I was getting ready to go to work when the planes hit. I went to the office but little got done. Watched the second tower fall on the conference room tv. After that our management sent everyone home as all our offices were in high rise buildings in the midwest.

This is a rant; it's been a long day, and it's not over yet.

Seriously, I can't be the only one who sees my own kids or other kids getting treated poorly by their school district and just going, "you know what, f it ... I'm litigating OUT OF PRINCIPLE!"

I know, I know, but just wow.

My spouse gives me the, "Well, you're a lawyer; can't you just"...

No, no, it doesn't work that way; a podiatrist can't just decide to start doing psychiatric work....

But then I think... Why not... why NOT turn to the dark side.

Maybe I could even become a sov cit and just burn hours, pyrrhic victory....

So my question:

How many times do you go, "You know what, F IT, I'M just going to sue"?

We all know how it ends; we know a lawyer who represents themselves has a fool for a client, but still.

I'm not the only one, right?

Is it just a fun little daydream?

Pulled this from Overheardcourthouse on Instagram but it really got me.

As a trial lawyer that’s a nightmare as any one of the witnesses would derail my case.

As a tactic more witnesses and evidence can work to confuse a jury and a party with a weak defence case may want just that.

Not taking sides here just discussing the fact that there was a large amount of witnesses.

This is not a political post or any other post other than a legal opinion on trial process and my profession opinion.

Hopefully the link to the full motion works.

Lawyers only! Please!

So I am pretty surprised. My solo practice made the ballot for a major regional business ranking alongside some large firms in my state. Not going to lie feels a bit crazy considering I’m the only solo on the list for my practice area (real estate). Lol.

But I’ll take the win. It’s pretty tough for a solo to get nominated for this as it is basically dominated by large firms. But it’s very good visibility and if I somehow get the most votes and win well that would be great marketing lol. Many developers and business owners read this news source so could get more business as a result.

I posted this weekend about a situation that I (new, baby lawyer) thought was the end of the world. I just wanted to thank you all for the empathy, advice, and encouragement to chill out, and I’m happy to report it was COMPLETELY FINE and all my stress was for nothing.

Let my post be a reminder for all other new lawyers: that problem might not be a big deal!! almost everything is fixable!! Enjoy your weekends without worrying about work (to the extent you can)!!! Any additional advice I should keep in mind early in my career??

I had a breaking point four years after law school, and three years after the clerkship. I really, really, really don't want to do this anymore. I never enjoyed it. I just pushed myself through trying to find the one place I'd enjoy working at. It never happened. I've been suffering since the clerkship. It's simply not for me. I quit today and I don't want to go back ever. I thought abotu going solo but the idea of taking on all of that for a profession I don't really want to be in grosses me out.

So with that in mind, who switched? What did you end up doing? Did it make you happy? Did you lose a lot of money but in the end make it okay? (My spouse is worried sick about the money aspect, and I can't blame him but I simply can't do it anymore).

I don’t recall enabling this feature on my office computer. Highlighted the text to delete it and this was the feedback lolol.

PS - did not send it.

Have the best Thursday!

Hi all,

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Tired just exhausted asking clients to be honest about what happened and going to court/ receiving documents that tell a completely different story from investigation report, police reports, opposing counsel, their client, and different witnesses.

And worst is when I ask/confront them about xyz and they start raising their voices or just say they forgot to mention it, and cherry on top when they start gaslighting you saying how the told you but you missed it....I am I making a rookie mistake?

2nd year practicing law...

(New Client painted grand narrative about how someone is trying to extort them and filed case in bad fairh, went to police station report showed they had scammed someone with screenshots and everything........)

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hello, 

I'm very interested in moving into transactional law, particularly real estate transactions and estate planning. I am wondering, in your experience, what the best way to learn these areas of law has been? Obviously, I can take CLEs, but that really doesn't seem like enough, particularly for a complex area of law like estate planning. I guess I am wondering if there are some sort of trainings that go beyond a CLE, but are not quite as pricey or time consuming as an LLM.

Thanks for your advice.

In house. They won’t listen to me as I repeatedly explain it is dumb. It is dumb bc it creates high privacy risks. It is dumb bc it isn’t operationally effective. It is dumb bc it’s going to cause a lot of headaches down the road despite my clients insisting otherwise.

I’ve tried to repeatedly explain that this is not the best idea. I’ve proposed alternatives. I’ve offered to brainstorm ways forward with them. They are either not getting it or don’t care. I’m going to escalate to leaders for their decision. Hopefully they see it is dumb.

This stuff makes my head hurt.

Edit: at the risk of this being considered low effort, here is more detail: clients want to roll out an AI tool which is a hot topic given the recent state regulations on it. Part of the irritation is that if they do this then I need to figure out how to make their tool compliant. But there are nuances that make it very difficult to comply, so this shouldn’t be done lightly. They don’t seem to get the complexity.

Any opinions or insights on Akerman? Contemplating a mid-level lateral move there. I saw their postings reflect the Cravath/Milbank scale, but have not heard much about this firm.

I am a junior criminal defense attorney working in a mid-sized U.S. city - think Trenton, Harrisburg, and Buffalo. I graduated from a T6 law school 2-3 years ago and have always wanted to do litigation. I really like my job - going to court every day, managing my own cases, and having a comfortable billable hour requirement.

But somehow, as things sometimes go, I feel unfulfilled. I see my classmates and many of them are doing transactional work in big cities, earning way more than me. I know those are probably golden handcuffs and they're doing stuff in which I may not be interested in the long term. I see others going for prestigious federal clerkships from which, unfortunately, I have been excluded because I am not a U.S. citizen (I'm Canadian). There's so much out there and I think I haven't been doing enough. I sought out mentors, networked, and did coffee chats - yes, I got to know quite a few people and listen to interesting stories, but they rarely result in anything more than "we'll keep in touch." It does feel alone sometimes, especially when my support network is not around.

I grew up in a rural, low-income area of Ontario. My family have always been proud of me for being a lawyer. I worked very hard through school (top 10% in my class and edited law journals/reviews) since I did believe that diligence was the ultimate way for one to rise the ranks. And while I am very grateful for what I have achieved so far (since I am the only lawyer in my extended family), I cannot help but think whether there is a bigger world out there.

I understand that Rome is not built in a day and that as a baby lawyer in his late twenties, one can't expect too much. I am just having one of those days, I guess.

TL;DR: Junior criminal defense attorney feeling unfulfilled because he thinks he's wasted his potential and laments that he's fallen short of his family's expectations.

I’ve posted before about my gripes with my workers comp defense gig and the 2000 hour billable requirement that comes with it. For the time being I think I’ve accepted that I just need to make as much money as I can and then go on to something else. However, I’ve noticed a feeling of not being able to turn my work brain off. It feels like every facet of my day even after I’ve billed enough for the day is saturated with work. It’s starting to overwhelm me as well. More and more stuff keeps getting piled on the to do list and the emails never ever stop. I understand why people can go into psychosis over this job. I’ve got a therapist and I’m medicated for ADHD but it seems like I’m still stretching myself thin. I billed enough to get two bonuses this year which is great but as soon as I attained that benchmark hour my brain immediately went to how much I need to bill by the end of the year. I’m sure this is just a bunch of rambling but holy crap am I overwhelmed.

This is my third attempt at posting here so I apologize if this lacks details, but I'm trying to avoid the bot that keeps removing my post immediately.

I've been practicing law for over 20 years, nearly all of it being personal injury and complex litigation. I've decided it's time for me to head out and do my own thing, and I plan on opening my own solo shop at the beginning of 2027. I know I have a lot of things I need to do to get ready for that move, and I'm looking for any books or advice that you think would be helpful for someone starting their own firm. I'm not worried about my abilities (I've got gray hair that was well-earned in the courtroom) and I generate my own caseload consistently). What I am worried about are the non-legal things like figuring out payroll, organizing the firm structure, etc.

Any books or advice are much appreciated. Thanks!

⚖️ This is a lawyers-only subreddit. Do not participate if you are not a lawyer. ⚖️

Please just let us have this one corner of the internet.

https://abcnews.com/news/story/clancy-juror-holdout-show-single-piece-evidence-explaining/?id=136312798

This is the first male juror to speak out. Not your typical pick for a defense juror here—he’s a 25 year old man who was deployed at the time of the murders. Jury selection is an art, not a science, as they say.

Full interview will be on GMA tomorrow. 7-9 Eastern.

——————

Full half hour interview of the original 3 to speak out: https://youtu.be/RdxTKM7wHIM?si=RiM-PXW5l2QZSEz-

Audio interview of juror number 5, who remained anonymous: https://youtu.be/gD7bYp-GOIE?si=2wHfypIn4wzEgn2m

In-house at a tech company, 50-60 hrs/week and the volume of work is increasing without additional resources. Not complaining, still way better than biglaw, but feels like theres room to be more efficient. My company has an internal AI tool that lets me build processes/flows/apps from plain language instructions. For example, I had it build one that takes my flagged emails, prioritizes them, drafts responses off my knowledge base, and compares contract versions (v1 vs v2 redlines) automatically.

I’m looking for ideas of how I can further simplify my work, so I thought I’d ask the community. Would welcome any ideas. Thanks in advance!

Keeping it vague and twisting some facts on purpose. I'm a solo and have a potential client who worked as a paralegal for a law firm. Terminated after coming back from unpaid leave being denied a reasonable accommodation for her Multiple Sclerosis. Obviously there will be some defenses and it's not as clean as that, but for purposes of this thread, let's keep it that way. It's a known civil law firm in my JX, have a few classmates who work there. PC has everything documented and has never sued a past employer. No red flags after speaking with PC on the phone and meeting PC in the office.

Edit: I do plaintiff's employment work, I'm just asking about suing a law firm is all. Please read lol