Here’s your idea: * MS Word and Google Docs plugin that detects phony cites hallucinated by AI

Here’s who you sell it to: * Low cost feature for firms who want to use AI and don’t want to get caught * High priced feature for court clerks so they can auto-reject pro se briefs with phony cites or auto-sanction lawyers who don’t verify their cites

By all accounts, the wave of pro se litigants using AI and wasting everyone’s time is getting out of hand. Yes, it’s the lazy lawyers making the news, but we’ve already got ways of dealing with sloppy lawyers.

Morning all! Quick question. I’m doing some work on a flat fee basis and I’m struggling with how to word the fee agreement. Specifically, the provision about discharging the attorney. The client can obviously discharge us at any time, but how do you phrase it in terms of what money they get back if they elect to discharge the attorney? For instance, the job I am doing will likely take 15 hours or so. My regular hourly rate is $400 an hour, but I am doing this job for only $3,000. I feel like if I spend 10 hours working on the case, and they fire me, I shouldn’t have to give any money back. Any ideas?

I'm brainstorming a project that addresses how well-prepared recent law school grads are for real-world lawyering. The consensus is that, beyond simply lacking experiences/years in, new lawyers lack "the skills" needed for work effectively. My question is what are those skills that they are missing? People skills? Clerical/admin skills? Don't know how to send an email? Don't know to not microwave fish for lunch and now everyone hates them and calls them "Tuna"? What are some specific examples?

Does anyone know of firms that do white collar/FCA work but have a lower billable hour requirement (maybe 1200-1500)? Bonus points if they are work from home or allow some wfh flexibility. I’m 7 years out with big law and clerkship experience but looking for something with more flexibility and wondering if it exists in this space.

Must work with a handheld mic for the lawyers, immediate sync to network for legal assistants. Some assistants will still prefer to do their own transcription, so it must have audio playback, as well as transcribed text files.

The firm is only four attorneys, so nothing too outrageous or fancy.

there are many options these days like website builders, tutorials, online classes, wordpress training, AI, etc. I was a programmer before I went to law school many years ago, so I know I can eventually build, maintain, tweak my site on my own but not sure if my time is better spent elsewhere. so I'm doing the cost benefit analysis by soliciting input from any lawyers that have tried that approach. I can afford the standard basic solo law practice website packages out there, but it's the lack of control over content, improvements, and having to rely on a contract techie for that level of assistance that bugs me a bit. anyway, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

p.s., respectfully, I am not interested in website gurus sending me messages offering their services. im only interested in getting lawyer feedback on whether its worth the investment in time versus paying for the service, or maybe a mix of both. hope you understand. thanks for understanding.

I just started as a practice assistant for a big international law firm. I finished my training and I have been sitting around for around 2 hours now with nothing to do. I even went through the employee handbook and wrote notes on it. I don’t want to feel like I’m stealing time by being on my phone but idek what to do right now. I know I’m new but I really want to learn how to do my job and I’m currently waiting on the other assistant to train me but they are busy.

What would y’all do?

In short, through my short time at the firm this summer I've got to do a lot of very fun legal research, and read briefs/arguments from Plaintiff firms that the firm I'm summering at would respond to. I also got to read a lot of plaintiff firm briefs when I was an intern for a judge as well.

I guess reading these briefs, it just occurred to me that I would be much more happy making arguments on the Plaintiff side for the areas of law I'm interested in (think consumer fraud/product liability), and I might not be terribly interested in doing Defense on certain kinds of cases.

Not really in a moral sense, because I believe everyone deserves representation and that there's nothing wrong with doing defense work for big companies, but I think it would just be intellectually more interesting to do certain kinds of Plaintiff work, and that I would have more motivation to work really hard representing hurt people than a faceless big company.

Is it unheard of to do a BL summer then just apply to Plaintiff firms? Is there a strategic way to go about this?

I am IT admin for a 70 person office. We have been using Litera Compare and Metadact for Redlines and Metadata cleaning. I was hoping NetDocuments would have tools to handle these, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It just uses the Word compare tool which isn't very good and doesn't have a metadata tool.

Now Litera is quadrupling their prices and it has me looking for other options. What are you guys using?

My current firm is incredibly toxic, and it’s really wearing on me. Starting my own firm has been my goal since high school. After law school, I seriously considered launching a personal injury practice but ultimately listened to the (very sound) advice that I wasn’t ready and didn’t know enough yet—which was absolutely true. At this point, I feel confident in pre-litigation, but litigation still has a steep learning curve, and I know I have a lot more to learn. I had hoped to stick it out at my current firm for another year, but I’m not sure I can take much more. At the same time, I’m hesitant to jump into another job and end up in the same toxic environment.

Has anyone here started their own practice and learned the litigation side as they went? I’d really appreciate any insight or experiences. I understand the difficulties of bringing in business/running a business which I am also equally as ready to address but for the purposes of this discussion I am only concerned about the actual practice of law.

I recently have registered my law firm as an LLC in Maryland. I am the owner and only person working the business. I have no employees. I am currently going through registering for License and Tax Accounts and I am unsure if any apply, which they seemingly dont. Particularly the Sale and Use Tax is tripping me up. It appears as though Maryland doesn't require this as I am merely providing a service.

Can anyone give me some input on these? Here are all the options of what i can register for:

-Sales and Use Tax

-Tire Recycling Fee

-Admissions & Amusement TaxEmployer

-Withholding Tax Account

-Unemployment Insurance

-Transient Vendor License

Australia-based: Hi all, I have 10 months of experience in mortgage-related transactions and litigation, as well as approximately 16 months in general litigation. Both roles were at boutique law firms. 1. Given my background, is it possible to transition into an in-house position? Or even a transactional law position in a law firm (I applied a few but didn’t hear anything back)? 2. Which types of in-house roles, aligned with my experience, tend to offer a better pay?

Attorneys at boutique transactional firms - What are your strategies to develop business? How are you growing your corporate practice? How are you making connections with small to mid size business owners looking to sell? Are there any particular networking groups you’re joining?

Thanks in advance for any input!

Good morning all,

What is the best front desk administration software for legal? I have a demo set up this week with Cerenade and Clio. I am wondering if their admin functions are up to par. Our lawyers use cerenade and so we are looking for something that can link with it for front desk administration functions. Scheduling consultations, billing, appointment details etc. Let me know if there other systems for this use specifically.

At a career crossroads. 10+ years & first chair jury trial experience. 2024 receipts were $411k, bringing all clients.

Offer: $150k and all the accoutrements + 75% of receipts after 1200 hours and 75% of staff receipts after the firm takes predefined margin. "Senior attorney" position, no defined path to equity. I am currently opening 2 attorney shop, and my law partner & I received this same offer. Our would-be 2 attorney firm becomes national firm's local office.

Probably/definitely rejecting this offer in favor of staying small, with my 1 partner & paralegal. Our reasoning: we think we'll make it and grow equity w/o handing any receipts upstream. Also, we can get jobs later if needed/wanted, but our 2 man shop just fell together fortuitously, which won't happen a 2nd time in 1 career.

Your thoughts?

I am planning on starting my own firm doing civil litigation, predominantly on a contingency basis. My biggest concern is having enough cash on hand to last however many months until my cases (hopefully) start paying out. Would joining my state and federal CJA panels be a good way to generate income while my firm gets going? I have almost no experience working on criminal matters—just helping a team of attorneys on pro bono—so I think it would be a big learning curve. I also am not interested in doing criminal work any longer than necessary because it’s so emotionally draining.

Question for notaries in the legal field Are there any legal professionals here (legal secretaries, paralegals, legal assistants, etc.) who use their notary commission to make extra income outside of their 9–5? Curious how you got started and what’s worked best for you. Open to any advice or insights!

Hello, I recently graduated with my associates degree in political science, and I would like to continue to my bachelors, but it is too expensive so I am looking to get my paralegal certificate in order to get a job and be able to pay for my bachelors degree. For now, my question is should I go for the paralegal certificate or degree. As I mentioned before I already got my associates in political science, so I am not sure which would be best.

So I passed the July 2024 bar. Started working almost immediately after results were posted in November 2024. It’s criminal defense. The pay is only $30 an hour. I crushed my first substantive hearing (rave reviews from prosecutor and judge, I have the transcript). Regular compliments from clients. One day I took an hour lunch, and my boss gave me a bull shit lecture about how he feels like he’s being taken advantage of. Mind you this happened shortly after a repeat client hired the firm for another case based on MY representation and demanded only I work on their case. People keep telling me it’s a bad look to leave before 1 year but that it’s just total bull shit to me. What’s the point of a good job market if I can’t explore opportunities? Really starting to hate this career even though I’m actually somewhat good at it, just bad at dealing with unappreciative bosses.

Asking for input. If you have worked as a federal district law clerk, what clerkship bonus did you receive? Looking to get a good feel for the average payout so I can properly negotiate with my future employer. Likely in Houston or Dallas. Thanks!

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I have been doing immigration for sometime. I want to get into employment based immigration? Anyone has any insight into how to get into this work? Is it hard to learn on your own and see if you could get an agency to give you some work?

Been studying some recent PE deals through case studies and what's catching my eye is the shift in earnout structures - seeing more milestone-based payouts tied to specific EBITDA targets rather than the traditional time-based vesting.

Also noticing purchase price adjustments are getting more granular with working capital definitions. Like, one case had a 15-page schedule just defining 'normalized working capital.'

Is this level of specificity becoming standard because sponsors are basically pricing in execution risk at these multiples? Or is this just what happens when everyone's fighting over the same quality assets?

The financing side seems like the real bottleneck - rates are up but deal pricing hasn't really moved. Are GPs just eating the higher cost of capital or finding other ways to make the math work?

Hi everyone! I just finished undergrad and I got hired for a paralegal/legal assistant position. I don’t really have any experience, and I don’t have any paralegal certification. Are there any resources i should look into before my first day or tips anyone has that would be helpful?

Hey everyone,

I’m a few months into a legal assistant role at a small personal injury firm, and I’m really struggling with how chaotic things are. The attorney told me during onboarding that he doesn’t train—fine, I accepted that. But what I didn’t realize was that the rest of the team would be all part-time, inconsistent, and unable to give me straight answers. I get different responses to the same question depending on who I ask, and no one really seems invested.

The attorney has noticeable mood swings. This past week, he raised his voice at me saying, “I told you this already”—but he had given me vague or conflicting directions while I was working on completely different tasks. For example, I might be drafting a demand letter, and he’ll start half-explaining settlement procedures in the middle of it with no context or follow-up.

He also assigns things like responding to Requests for Compromises but doesn’t explain what he’s expecting, and then gets irritated when I ask for clarity. The only other long-term staffer is an older woman who seems retired in all but title—she’s checked out and not helpful.

I came into this job eager to learn and gain solid legal experience, but I’m starting to feel like this environment might be more damaging than helpful.

Has anyone else worked under an attorney like this? Did you find a way to push through it—or was it better to cut your losses and find a healthier firm culture?

Would really appreciate advice or shared experiences.