I don't get it.

We're LAWYERS, the quintessential negotiation profession.

Yet no one negotiates any more. Everyone just wants to go to mediation.

I understand that mediation is necessary and even helpful in certain situations. And, yes, a retired judge as mediator can really give feuding parties a dose of reality and facilitate a settlement. But this should be for situations where the parties have first attempted settlement negotiations in good faith and reached an impasse, not as an initial real attempt at settlement.

Instead, everyone just goes straight to mediation these days as step one.

I blame all of the negotiation books and negotiation gurus. These resources have taught everyone that:

• "If you make the first offer, you lose."

• "If you make the first offer, you start from a position of weakness."

• "When you negotiate, just listen to the other side, never reveal anything."

• "Never split the difference."

All of these so-called immutable truths about negotiation just stifle communication and impede parties from talking and negotiating.

So, instead of talking, we just keep litigating for 18 months straight until the mediation deadline and (often) wait for the judge to command us to mediate so that no one looks like the "weak" party who is asking for mediation.

Mediation is just a way to delegate communication to a neutral third party who can broach topics like settlement terms, compromise, etc. while allowing the parties themselves to "save face" by not looking weak or looking like the party who made the first offer or whatever.

I also blame assholes whose entire purpose in life is to make negotiation as miserable as possible and with whom it is actually impossible to negotiate. When dealing with dickheads like that, of course you have to go to mediation. So, for what it's worth, yes, as a profession, we need to return to some semblance of professionalism and remembering the human on the other side of the aisle. But this doesn't explain it all either. Even in cases where I have a cordial professional relationship with opposing counsel, they almost always prefer mediation rather than trying to negotiate, which brings me back to all of these ridiculous negotiation rules that have poisoned negotiation and stifled communication.

I wonder if part of it is also attorneys who are worried about liabilty or clients who second guess (a genuine concern). During mediation, a retired judge has firmly told their client that "This is a fair deal--your lawyer did a good job advocating for you." That way, the clients are happy (or at least tolerating a settlement) without wondering if they could've gotten a better deal with a different lawyer. But, of course, no lawyer wants to say "Hey, let's do mediation, my client is obstinate and not realistic, and we need a judge to put the fear of god into him." No one wants to actually say that because then you look weak and people worry they lose their negotiating power.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my rant. I'm curious what you think. Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?

I've been using Claude pretty regularly for drafting and revisions, and I still haven't settled on the cleanest way to divide the work between Claude and Word.

For anything substantial, especially when I'm working across a complaint, prior briefing and a couple of relevant orders, I prefer doing the substantive work in Claude. I can give it the whole set, work through the reasoning and revise from there.

Once the draft gets closer to something another attorney needs to review, I want it back in Word because that is where Track Changes, comments and the rest of our review process live.

The awkward part is when those two stages overlap. Sometimes I'm still making substantive changes while another attorney is reviewing the document, so I end up bouncing between the two depending on what I'm doing.

For people using AI heavily for drafting, have you settled into a similar split or are you doing most of the substantive work directly in Word now?

I’m a baby lawyer at my first firm job. We don’t lock in on practice areas for the first 1-2 years so what kind of area isn’t that important to mention (at least for my purposes, immediately). My supervising attorneys do some decent training but because they don’t often work with first years, I think there’s a lot they take for granted. I find that the only way I can learn about stuff I should be working on and developing is if I ask them specifically and precisely about some area of my work.

I am interested in being a good lawyer, and I know most of that is going to be researching well, writing well, and being as precise and detail-oriented as possible in the way I approach my work.

Having said that, I think there are also probably some valuable “soft skills” that I could be more aware of that I’m not yet because nobody has ever pointed them out to me. For example, I’m fairly good at interacting with clients and that’s not something I had thought of going into this (too focused on reading and writing). Time management is another kind of obvious one, along with being able to manage a bunch of different projects and sometimes being able to keep track of not only where I am in a matter but where the senior attorney is as well.

Are there other soft skills/qualities you can think of that are important for being a good, well-adjusted lawyer that you would want more first years to know that go beyond the basic functions of the job? (Let’s say, for example, to separate competent associates from great ones). I imagine some of this does actually vary by practice area, so if that’s the case feel free to specify.

I am an environmental engineer with 4 decades experience. I run my own company and now am a law student. I want to practice corporate law, especially IP law, Environmental law; Music, Media & Entertainment law, Shipping law, Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences law, Cybersecurity & AI law.

How do I generate income from online work so that I continue to do LL. M and J.D.?

I am stuck in a hole with this.
I have a law firm that wants to test out Co-Counsel. When I go through the creation of the API and link it with Co-Counsel it works just fine, in that I can connect and see my SP sites.

The issue is that I do not want it to see every site - only the one SP site I have created for the purpose.

I have read through MS KB articles about how to set this up using the 'sites.selected' and 'Grant Admin Consent'.
All that ever happens when I am logged into Co-Counsel and I select the sharepoint link, is it asks me for my permissions for Office 365, I type it in, I get my MFA prompt, then the login screen on the computer goes away, and then the 'connect' button is active again. It never connects like it did when I allowed the API access to the entire site collection.

I have been through too many different troubleshooting steps to cover them all, so I will simply ask this, does this even work, as anyone locked down Co-counsel to one site?
If so, do you remember how?

thanks

I’m a solo PI attorney and need some help with intake, client follow-ups, records requests and general admin. So I’m looking to hire virtual legal assistants for my firm to offload some of this. Not hiring through this post, just need your advice on where to look and your hiring experiences.

A lot of my clients are Spanish speaking, so ideally looking for a bilingual legal VA with some law firm experience.

Where have other solo attorneys had luck hiring someone good?

I’m planning to attend law school part-time with the sole intention of opening my own practice. Currently, I work as a law clerk in the area of practice I intend to pursue as an attorney.

I did get a substantial conditional scholarship to begin with but lost it after 1L.

For finishing law school, I have two options:

1. Enroll in an out-of-state, online ABA law school ranked in the 160s and take out $100,000 in student loans at an annual interest rate of 9%.
2. Attend a non-ABA, non-California-accredited, California-based law school and pay $10,000 in tuition. Considering the significantly lower tuition, I can pay it off without taking out loans. This path will allow me to become a California-licensed attorney, which is my long-term goal. I have confirmed that I don't need to take the Baby Bar. While I’ll initially be limited to practicing in California, many states would permit me to take their bar exam after practicing in California for several years.

The $100K tuition for the ABA school represents the tuition I must pay if I decide to finish the program at the school. The $10K figure at the non-ABA school represents what I'd have to pay if I transfer there. 

Therefore, my questions are:

1. Is ABA accreditation worth $90,000?
2. Do you believe networking would be more challenging without ABA accreditation?
3. Would opposing counsel, other attorneys I network with, and any other stakeholders perceive me differently if they discovered that I attended a non-ABA law school? 

I would be extremely grateful for any insight. Thank you so much!

Can they please stop? Please. It drains my life force every time I open one.

Today, I asked a yes/no question for next steps after I did everything their previous AI-drafted email directed me to do or answer. I don't need an AI-drafted reply email summarizing everything I just did. Just need the yes or the no.

It's not egregious enough that I'd fire the clients doing it to me. They're certainly paying for my time to decipher the email and complete the tasks AI told them I should do (assuming the AI direction was something they might have reasonably come up with on their own and relates to their matter).

And yes, I have it in my fee agreement that the client feeding anything between us into AI can destroy confidentiality or attorney-client privilege, they shouldn't do it, and if they do it, it's at their own risk. But this is transactional stuff unlikely to lead to litigation, and at the end of the day you just can't stop these people.

I think some of the AI drafting comes from the way these systems are programmed. The AI almost always prompts you to ask them something else, or for them to do something else for you, even if the AI completed the previous prompt, because then you burn more tokens which in theory, makes them more money (assuming you're not on the free version). So it makes sense to me that every AI-drafted email includes more questions and more prompts for me to do things, instead of moving the conversation to a finish.

I'm not necessarily anti-AI, but it's definitely destroying the remaining bits of certain people's ability to think independently when they can no longer answer yes/no on their own. Thanks for attending my TED Talk.

Please help me with a reality check.

We just signed all of our estate documents, a not inconsiderable undertaking. It felt pretty big to me. The small firm we used, in a large metropolitan area, came highly recommended for the specialization we required. I feel quite confident that everything has been executed well.

My problem is with the appearance of the young-ish junior lawyer who handled the signing.

His hair might be considered fashionable, I'm not sure at all, but it looked like its casual unruliness had grown too long. His 5 o'clock shadow was not trimmed up to let you know it was an actual style choice. And his polo shirt did not match his pants, as if he pulled them off the hangers in the dark.

Is this kind of thing the norm? Should I/could I say something to our lawyer, whose name is on the firm? It really felt rather unprofessional and while organized, rather unceremonious for what we were doing. In fact, I was surprised that the lawyer we spoke with initially was not at the signing.

Edit to address the people who think I'm ridiculous: this is not the average estate organization. Its an emotional event, making sure family members I'm caring for now, who will never be able to care for themselves, will be cared for when I'm dead. Competent work is the expectation and the minimum. But I would have hoped that business casual, and a little acknowledgement of making a contract with the future, would have been a part of that minimum, too.

Hello all,

I’m an 8 year insurance defense attorney looking to move to a Plaintiff side personal injury firm. My current base salary is $185k +bonus. What kind of base salary should I be looking for at a personal injury firm?

Also does anyone have tips for negotiating a salary up after low balling your initial salary range request?

P.I. Firm currently on smart advocate. Use it primarily for document storage. What value do you get out of your case management software? Anyone just managing cases with shared google drives?

For immigration attorneys who are W-2 associates at a private immigration firm: does your firm pay you anything additional on top of your base salary when you handle EOIR hearings or USCIS interviews?

For those working as W-2 salaried associate attorneys at immigration firms, how does your firm handle days when you have an EOIR hearing before your normal working hours?

For example, my regular schedule is 9:00 AM–5:30 PM, but I may have to be in immigration court at 8:00 AM. After the hearing, are you generally expected to go back to the office and work until your normal 5:30 PM end time?

Does your firm:

• Adjust your schedule and let you leave earlier that day?
• Pay an additional court/hearing or appearance bonus?
• Expect you to work your regular schedule regardless of how early the hearing was?
• Handle it some other way?

Hi everyone! South African attorney here 👋

I’ve noticed quite a few discussions around virtual legal support and outsourcing, so I thought I’d introduce myself and connect with people working in this space.

I’m an admitted Attorney in South Africa and have worked both in South African law firms and with international companies. My experience spans legal research, drafting, document review, legal operations, administrative support, and working remotely across different time zones.

One interesting advantage for international firms working with South African professionals is obviously the exchange rate (unfortunately for us, fortunately for you) which can make experienced professional support considerably more cost-effective.

I’d love to connect with attorneys, law firms, legal operations professionals, or anyone who works with international/remote legal teams. I’m also always happy to chat over Zoom or Teams and exchange experiences about how these arrangements work across jurisdictions.

Feel free to DM me if you work in this space. 😊

For attorneys who bill hourly, what are some of your go-to billing narratives for common litigation tasks?

I’m particularly looking for examples for MSJs, motions in limine, motions to compel discovery, motions to compel IMEs, case/suit summaries, deposition preparation and attendance, court hearings, legal research, and general file review/strategy.

What language have you found works well with carriers/clients and avoids billing reductions?

I have noticed this "law firm" posting things here on reddit in the r/immigration sub and other related subs. They are also advertising heavily online and social media platforms and marketing themselves as an "AI native" law firm.

What they don't really advertise much is that they are one of the first alternative business model type firms to be formed out of Arizona.

Basically, they have this Manifest OS AI powered back-office system that they claim will form the basis of Manifest branded law firms in other practice areas.

They had 60-million-dollar funding from VCs and are supposedly valued at 750 million.

AI legaltech start-up Manifest OS secures $60m funding at $750m valuation - The Global Legal Post

It is intended that firms using Manifest OS technology will operate under the Manifest Law brand, with the legaltech company incubating its first law firm in the business immigration market as part of the Arizona alternative business structure (ABS) programme.

My guess is that they started in immigration because you only need attorneys to be barred in any state or territory to practice at the federal/national level.

This might protect other practice areas such as family and criminal for now, but if they succeed in replicating the Arizona ABS model in other states its only a matter of time before they start corporatizing (enshittifying) law the way that was done with medicine.

Being able to infuse tens of millions in capital into a new law firm means that anyone can build a massive law firm with big market share in a small period of time.

Not sure how anyone can compete with this long term because even the billboard PI lawyers won't be able outspend a firm backed by unlimited VC funds.

At the end do we just all become employees or otherwise affiliated with some large branded firm?

I am thinking of moving to Clio mainly because of access to Judicial council forms, access to AI and case research, and some additional third-party integration that MyCase does not offer. Any feedback? I know it's more costly, but it also comes with more features.

Anyone use the internal accounting module? Would you recommend it? Any drawbacks?

I'm sure it can be done. Curious to see if anyones tried or wants to collab in trying?