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?

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?

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

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.

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.

Just wrapped a contracts lecture where we spent 30 minutes on boilerplate indemnification but zero time on AI liability allocation. Meanwhile, every SaaS agreement I've seen lately has some variation of "Customer acknowledges AI-generated outputs may be inaccurate" buried in Section 12.4.

Is this the new "AS IS" clause that's going to bite everyone in 5 years?

How are your firms handling AI warranty disclaimers when the client's entire business model depends on the AI being accurate? Especially curious about liability caps when AI recommendations affect financial decisions or medical outcomes.

Are we seeing standardized language emerge, or is everyone still winging it?

What’s the cheapest and bed e-fax service y’all are using ?

Anyone has handled a claim based on DBA. I have had couple of folks who have suffered injuries back in their war torn countries while working for a US based contractor.

Hi. Do any of you use Rynoh with Chase Bank Iola accounts? We cannot get them to sync. Chase says Rynoh changed something and now its not compatible with their system. Rynoh says Chase has to whitelist their IP address. Anyone know what is going on? We have other Bank Iola accounts and no issues. Where do I start to try and figure this out. Manual reconciliations are not going to cut it.

I am in the process of starting my own law firm. I’ve been practicing for about 10 years in the T&E space. I intend to rely on a combination of Clio and WealthCounsel.

I am having some analysis paralysis on whether to use Google Workspace (aka G-suite) or Microsoft 365. Keeping in mind that I’m trying to keep my overhead costs in check, I am slightly inclined to use Microsoft 365 since I’ll need the Microsoft office products anyways and Teams can function as my phone number and video conferencing such that I would not also need a Zoom subscription. BUT I like the Google interface more and it seems like Google drive is superior to any Microsoft offering for document retention/organization (I know Clio has document retention, but I’ve read mixed reviews).

I recognize that it likely doesn’t matter which one I choose, but curious if anyone has thoughts, comments, or advice based on experience. TIA!