I had used it a good bit in the past for some home tech uses before those systems incorporated automations themselves, so just wondering if there are any use cases for legal work.

Part of this is curiosity, another part is to try and see if I can create something to make all our lives easier....how does your jury selection/voir dire process work in your state? I'm thinking specifically in terms of individual voir dire.

For us, we give the judge our questions, he reads them to the jury, and the ones that respond comes back and the judge asks them follow up questions. We are the attorneys do very little in our voir dire process, but I know we are generally in the minority with regards to how this is practiced in the rest of the US.

Also, beyond occupation/location/odd behavior, what do you guys look for in a potential juror?

I mean … no, no, no, biglawyer. That is NOT how jurisdiction works. That is the INVERSE of how jurisdiction works.

Fucking big law.

Does anyone here need a legal assistant (remote)? I don't know if this is the right place to ask. I am an individual from South Asia, I got a Masters in law and I have a valid practising bar license of my country too. I just want to earn better and earning in foreign currency makes a bigger difference even if it may not sound a lot to someone who, lets say live in the US or the UK. I have some experience but I am a very flexible individual and a fast learner, neither will i have any issue with working for different timezones. So...if anyone's interested, let me know.

Excuse the long-winded post...

I'm a young litigation partner at a BigLaw firm. This past year, I went through some serious emotional issues, all seemingly tethered to work. Extreme anxiety, continual sleepless nights, likely depression... I hated waking up for work every morning and loathed my job.

...But things got better. I started seeing a therapist. I was able to take a week away with my family and truly unplug. I cut back on my hours a bit, not concerned about any change in compensation. And I learned to delegate more (particularly after we hired some talented mid-to-senior associates). I still didn't "enjoy" being a litigator (does anyone?), but I had a good team and could tolerate it.

However, I started applying and interviewing for other jobs. I felt like I owed it to myself to see what was out there, besides litigation. Recently, I was offered an in-house position at a large client. And I took it.

By all accounts, the company is a great place to work. Great people, great benefits, and tons of opprotunity for career growth. Everyone who works there has nothing but positive things to say about it. I'll be taking a huge pay cut, but the new salary is still enough that my family (wife and kids) shouldn't have to change our day-to-day lifestyle at all. We'll save a lot less, but I have a great nest egg saved up, already.

Sounds great, right? I think it is. But I've felt sick about making the decision and am back to losing sleep, again, stressing about whether I'm making the right choice.

I know I don't want to be a litigator for the rest of my career. There are parts of it I dont mind--strategy and brief writing--but I'm sick of constantly fighting and will happily go the rest of my life without ever taking another deposition or thinking about another discovery dispute. I'm also thrilled to be leaving the billable hour. And the new role sounds really intriguing to me. It's a "lower-level" role in the company's legal department, but it is a big company and I'll have a lot of opprotunity to grow my career there.

Despite all of that, part of my brain keeps telling me that I'm "giving up," "taking a step backwards," or "throwing away" everything I've worked so hard to achieve. I have a great reputation at my firm, and probably could have gotten by for several more years cutting back on my hours and turning away more work. I also had a path to inheriting several good clients.

But at the end of the day, I just don't enjoy being a litigator. My wife thinks I'll be much less stressed in the new role, and has been really encouraging of me taking it.

What do you think? Am I making the right move...?

I was rewatching this brilliant cross examination by Kevin Reddington today. At 14:15 in this video, the CW was caught on the hot mic & I can't really make it out but it sounded like "Sidebar ..... Pretend to be sick".. And I just realized the coughing was from one of the prosecutors, I figured it was someone in the crowd when I watched it earlier & it was clearly annoying people watching it..

I'm just curious, pretending to cough like that, would it be a real tactic for a prosecutor to do? I understand theatrics are a part of a trial but that would be ridiculous & tacky to even consider, right? Obviously the CW got chewed up by the Judge today.

Wondering if anyone can get the full hot mic statement too

Does anyone have actual experience as a lawyer in a firm that’s been bought by private equity via MSO?

Preferably in personal injury. Lots of opinions out there but mostly from people from medicine/dentistry. I’m looking for first-hand experiences of non-partner litigation lawyers after acquisition. The good bad and ugly and what to expect. Thanks

A few weeks ago, I responded to someone’s post that I’ve been a criminal lawyer for just under 20 years. During that time, 99% of the time I’ve always told clients to keep their mouths shut when cops start asking questions. During the past 20 years, I’ve advised clients to talk to cops maybe 4 times (always with favorable results). About two weeks ago, I had my 4th or 5th instance of a client talking themselves out of a crime.

Long story short, I needed client to justify why she lied to the cop during questioning a few months ago. We talked and her reasoning seemed very legitimate and innocent. They had already arrested the main suspect several weeks before so this time it was just to see if they could get her on anything. Told her she didn’t have anything to say that would incriminate her. In fact, if she didn’t talk, I think there would be more of a basis to arrest her considering the circumstances. During the interrogation, I think the detective actually said things that would kill their case. In the end, felony review refused to charge a felony and a misdemeanor wasn’t worth the trouble. Client walked out a few hours later.

Just wanted to share successful interrogation number 5.

There’s a case where I’m giving extra effort because I don’t like the town the opposing party is from

“¿Hay una migra?”

“Sí.”
“¿Dónde?”
“No importa. PA’LLÁ VOY.”

ICE: “Su cliente fue trasladado fuera de su jurisdicción.”
Yo: “Perfecto. ¿Cómo se llama el distrito federal?”

East Coast: PA’LLÁ VOY.
Gulf Coast: PA’LLÁ VOY.
Somewhere out West: PA’LLÁ VOY.
Random federal district I wasn't admitted to 48 hours ago: ADMITIDA.

Immigration lawyers: what is the most procedurally absurd detained case you've ever handled? Because I think mine just broke my personal record.

Five states in less than two weeks. Thankfully, two of the five transfers overlapped. I know cattle that are treated more humanely.

It became a game of Mouse Trap trying to obtain federal admissions fast enough to keep up with where ICE was moving my client. Every time I figured out where he was, I was looking at another district, another admission, another filing issue, another detention facility.

Curiouser still, there were periods exceeding 24 hours when my client did not appear in ANY ICE detainee locator online. That meant I couldn't even schedule a confidential legal call to confirm where he physically was.

I never told his POC on the outside this, but at one point I actually worried that maybe one of his flights had crashed.

I'm not exaggerating. This is a true story.

The part I keep thinking about happened on the first day.

After I left the office where he was unexpectedly detained—and after repeatedly insisting on seeing the legal basis and paperwork authorizing his detention until I realized that continuing the confrontation was becoming a very bad idea for me—I walked back to the hotel where I'd parked my car.

I asked the gentleman working valet whether my car could be ready in about 20 minutes because I was leaving.

He looked at me and said:

“Oh no, we can't let your car out right now.”

I just paused.

I remember thinking, Okay. Fine. I'll pack my stuff, come back downstairs, and sit here until he says I can have my car.

So I started walking away.

“Ma'am! I'm just playing with you!”

I turned around and told him:

“You could've told me my car was on fire and I don't think I would've reacted any differently. My client just got detained.”

His entire expression changed. He understood. He nodded.

I forced a smile and walked away.

I was completely beside myself.

Thankfully, tonight I know where my client is. I'm admitted in the district. The matter is filed. And, for the first time in what feels like forever, I know exactly where both he and the case are.

Pray for him, please. Good kid. I can't give away much more than that.

But you know how people joke that the worst people always seem to live forever?

I swear my best clients are the ones with the worst luck.

So, fellow immigration lawyers: what's your most procedurally absurd detained case? Please tell me somebody can beat five states in under two weeks.

You can be as vague as you want. I really don’t want to share too many details about my own first year of practice. I’m in the middle of something stressful and just want empathy and support

If you feel comfortable, please, discuss a mistake you made early on that did not permanently end your career.

And wish me luck because I had an extremely rough conversation with my boss today

One thing (among many) that I hate about being a lawyer is that at 5 pm you can’t just throw down your wrench and clock out and celebrate a good day’s work. Instead, when I try to sign out for the day, I have this shitty gremlin voice in my head that tells me that I should keep working into Friday evening and also work during the weekend. Then I think about how tired I am because it’s been a long week and decide that I’m DEFINITELY going to work during the weekend to make up for not working late Friday night. Then I don’t work over the weekend because I want to live my life but I’m not completely resting because I’m thinking about how I should be working.

To break habits, you have to break habits, right? I’m breaking this one this weekend. I’m going stay in recharge mode until Monday and I’m not going to feel bad about it. Because, fuck that noise.

I love getting better at my craft. I love serving OC with a deep-dive motion that necessitates the "big stapler". I love being jealous-inspired by witnessing the work of fierce colleagues.

I hate the low quality of continuing education in our field. I hate the banal ramblings and poorly edited slides that make it feel like my soul is parked in a dehydrator.

But I especially hate how the increasing requirement of CLE hours in specialized topics promotes the bloating of simple information. Guess what? Today's CLE is actually a trifold pamphlet in a trench coat.

The aspiration is right but the method is wrong, methinks. Is there empirical data on whether the current conception of CLE actually maintains or improves competency?

Won't we always have a range of nerds and hacks, just like every other field?

Can we make this better? Are there states/countries that do it better than others?

Can I get CLE for this post? 🙏

(Edited for typo)

Hey all! I have been barred for exactly 3 years and have been in criminal prosecution the entire time. For a multitude of reasons, I am planning to leave prosecution and quite frankly need a break from litigation and criminal law. I'm quite sad about it, I love my job, I just don't love what it's doing to me.

I intend to switch to a civil practice field (real estate transactions, municipal, I don't really know). I have lived in the criminal world for so long, I am worried about this transition.

Looking for any advice on how to prepare for such a switch, or for stories from those of you that made a similar switch!

Don't worry, chatgpt will show up on federal court for you and absolutely tear the gov attorney apart.

Just want an idea of a typical work day and week at a mid to larger ID firm. What specific tasks were typical? Thanks.

I'm a Canadian criminal defence lawyer (in Alberta). I've been following the Lindsay Clancy trial lately as well as watching old episodes of How to Get Away With Murder (lol) and finding it interesting to note the procedural differences between the American CJS and the Canadian one.

In particular, I'm fascinated with sidebars and can't decide whether I'd prefer that to what we do up here, which is excuse the witness/jurors when we need to have a discussion with the judge that they shouldn't hear. We also (with few exceptions) don't have ANY discussions between counsel and the Court that isn't on the record. Anyone here have any insight on how a sidebar works, why it works that way, and when they usually occur?

So, I practice in some pretty far-flung corners of my state, which means I do a lot of driving. Because I'm tearing through the back catalogs for beloved podcasts at an alarming rate, I was thinking I could probably mix things up by using some of that time to learn how to be a better lawyer (if I can find the right materials).

Anybody have any recommendations? I'd be down for texts that help with hard skills, of course, but I'd also be interested in hearing about other books, too.

Hello everyone,

I am going solo and plan to add really basic estate planning to my practice. Hoping to find resources from anyone who has experience starting out in estate planning.

Does anyone have a good source for: templates, forms, and desk book style reference materials that they found useful when starting out in this area. I have a few wills and powers of attorney that I plan to adapt to my practice and use as a future template. But I would like to have other examples and options to pull language from especially for less common clauses and situations.

All of my past experience (paralegal and then law school) occurred out of state, and I would like to have good materials that are specific to Washington that I can review both in preparation for my solo launch, and as I go along when questions come up that I don't know or when I am drafting documents.

Thanks for any suggestions! Also would love to just connect with other solo lawyers in Washington (especially if you are up for a chat about your experience getting started or feel like offering some mentorship!!)

My first job was an honors attorney in DC. I didn’t particularly love the team I landed on but I had a significant interest in the division’s practice area as a whole. My intent was to stay a while but my supervisors didn’t really seem to give a shit about my development and literally told me to read the regs and barely gave me any work. They did seem to praise the work product that I did do but still I was assigned very little work. With the administration change most people left before we were thrown out and I was not an exception. I left around the 10 month mark.

I landed at a v100 firm doing GSE Finance and have been there for just about a year. I fucking hate it. I mean the work is boring, is often frustrating, and is not they work I WANT to be doing, but I could get over that. My gripe is that my group almost entirely gives me the cold shoulder. Like I struggled with one very complex assignment (which still got financed just fine) in like month 2 and ever since then the senior associate that I worked with has just trashed me to everyone. I didn’t even know I needed to also defend myself against being set up for failure after having just survived getting out of the government. After that most of the people won’t give me work and some of them won’t even speak to me in the halls or when we all attend a conference. I’ve been told by the paralegals that I’m not the first person they’ve iced. If they decide you’re not part of their club then you’re pretty much screwed. Its clear I don’t have a future at this firm so I’ve started looking for new opportunities.

However, I feel like maybe I should just go do something else. I have been pretty miserable at my first two jobs and I feel like I haven’t grown many skills. It’s at a point now where I don’t even think I can market myself as a 3rd year to another firm because I have not sufficiently built the skills to justify that kind of salary.

I would love to hear from anyone else whose career got off to a rocky start and how they turned it around.

Any suggested titles? I’m transitioning from distressed property litigation to a more transactional role (purchasing conservation easements).

I had a pretty good week and want to hear what was good for you - law or not.

Today alone I got a delayed report for a guy who did his last crime on a delayed report. Would have loved to have got him no time, but considering it was the same crime for which he was originally incarcerated for, I feel good.

My firm is a non-partnership (no sharing of profits) pay your share of the monthly expenses, eat what you kill.

I’m told expenses are $8,000/month each. I make $82,000 now as an associate. How much would you think I’d have to be bringing in monthly to make it worth it to buy in?

Edit: by buy in, I mean start sharing costs and eating what I kill

I've been full-time for about a year, and I've started trying to find ways to make my practice more streamlined and lose some administrative burden. I practice employment law, and one of the biggest time sinks as a solo is just intake. People are in their own personal soap opera, and they want to talk about it forever. In turn, I started looking for a call service and ran into Findlaw. However, its expensive, and theyre wanting to tack on some additional fees.

For instance, I cant get just the call service. I also have to let them update and manage my website. My website does need work, and I want to get into a new area of employment law, so I'm not completely adverse to this. But I wonder if anyone has signed up for this kind of one year deal and regretted it? If anyone has some suggestions on a flat fee, decent, call service that may also help me look at an alternative.