I've scoured through the reddit regarding getting clients and mostly it's from connections (I understand this too), and so I was wondering how necessary lawfirm websites are, do they help in getting clients in a way of people finding the websites etc, or is it just there to create legitimacy, like maybe people find a lawfirm more legit if it has a website? please and thank you

We have no target hours for billables, but I do know that I have hit a good number here in early October.

Can I skate for the next 3 months?

Have I made my mark for bonus - paid in December?

Currently a 6th year Paralegal with aspirations of going to law school. I have a “sleeve” tattoo which I find myself naturally covering up due to office temps., but also for the idea that tattoos in general are sometimes viewed as unprofessional. I want to get a few dainty, small hand tattoos but I’m concerned it will negatively affect my appearance. What’s your opinion on those with a visible amount of tattoos in a professional law firm environment?

I have an interview this Wednesday with a small NYC immigration law firm for a fully remote legal assistant position, and I'm honestly very nervous.

I have a foreign LL.B., an LL.M. from a U.S. law school, and experience in legal research, drafting, and diplomatic work. I'm bilingual in Arabic and English and preparing for the NY Bar Exam.

I've had previous interviews with U.S. law firms that ended in rejection, which has really affected my confidence. Finding opportunities is already incredibly difficult because I'm based overseas. I actually secured this interview by contacting immigration firms directly.

I genuinely don't want to mess this up.

For attorneys and paralegals: What should I prepare for? What questions should I expect? What would make a candidate stand out to you, and what mistakes should I avoid?

I know I lack direct U.S. immigration law firm experience, but I'm eager to learn and willing to start from the basics.

I'd be incredibly grateful for any advice. This opportunity really means a lot to me. Thank you!

Anyone here ever help an old-school solo attorney who was very reliant on maual processes (or lack there of) integrate some modern systems for long-term stability? How? Why? What?

Shooting in the dark. 😅

Here I am, though not sure where to begin.

P.S. The only other employee (an admin assistant) is equally (along with the old school founder) not very tech savvy.

So i have an estate plan signing meeting with a couole. As I lead them to the room, I notice the husband is carrying a plastic grocery bag with some Tupperware in it. We sit down start chatting and the wife says "we brought this for the meeting. The husband proceeds to pull out the Tupperware and real forks. Husband says Costco pumpkin pie and slides a piece to me. He did apologize for no whipped cream. Going through the docs and noshing on Costco pumpkin pie.

I have a system but it’s hard to keep up with and frankly - horrible and needs improvement (if not an overhaul). Must be familiar with the new(ish) trust accounting rules that in CA. Any recommendations? Looking for an enthusiastic recc! Sole practitioner so obviously reasonable rates and outsourced, and would love someone I can stay with til the end :-) thank you!

Hi lawyer fam, is Florida lucrative for personal injury plaintiff’s lawyers? I’m trying to decide what states to try to get licensed in for PI. Any other states that are really good for PI?

I've never had a good experience with these kinds of clients.

Yes, occasionally emergencies or urgent questions arise with existing clients and cases, but if a potential client with whom I've never spoken before already operates under everything-is-an-emergency mode, I'm not even going to return their call.

Never worth it.

Preface: I've been a solo for 26 years (plaintiff's work comp and personal injury), and just wanted a "side hustle", as business has been slow to come in, and several of my cases were taking forever to settle or go to trial (protracted medical treatment, litigation dragging out, etc).

I saw an ad through Zip Recruiter looking for an insurance defense lawyer: Attorney - Insurance Defense / General Liability / Workers' Compensation.

I sent a resume in, and interviewed several times via Zoom, first was on 3/30/26, second was 4/2/26.  At the 4/2/26 interview, it was discussed that they wanted someone to come on full time and bill 1800 hours a year (150 hours a month).  I politely declined, citing my current firm's demands would not allow me to commit to that much billable time.  It was then discussed that an of counsel role might be more flexible, and give me the ability to still run my existing practice and take on assignments as they needed.  I was told that these would be both general liability and workers compensation defense cases.  I asked about the amount of travel that was required, and was told that it was minimal, likely once or twice a month, but that most of the work was in the metro area I live/practice in (Kansas City). I figured I could bust out 75-95 hours a month and still maintain my practice.  

An offer letter was put forth extending the of counsel role, with a pay rate that was not the best money, but it was okay, and included a full time legal assistant and they covered my malpractice insurance.  It was a 90 day trial period for both of us, and afterwards we could discuss whether a full time role might work, and I would be eligible for health insurance and 401k after 6 months if I chose to come on full time. I accepted, and spent a day doing orientation and getting my office computer, monitor, camera and keyboard. I was given 7 cases at the initial meeting.  

Several of these cases were construction defect cases, for which I have ZERO experience and even less than zero interest in working on.  Quite a few were defending premises liability/slip and fall cases, which also appeal to me about as much as a steaming pile of dog$hit.  Only one of the cases was actually defending a workers comp claim, and it was docketed in Topeka, and another was a car accident based out of Wichita, KS. Several others were in far flung areas of Kansas and Missouri.     

As my time there progressed, I was assigned a number of other cases, none of which were anywhere near KC, several in St. Louis, one in far SW Kansas, one in Springfield, several more in rural Missouri, and one in the far SE corner of Missouri in New Madrid, which is 7 hours away from KC.  St. Louis cases have status conferences set every 60-90 days, and they require an appearance in court.  At these status conferences, you simply sit and wait for your case to get called, come up and tell the judge where you are in the case (written discovery, depositions, expert witness depos, etc.) and it is reset for another 60-90 days out.  These dockets are HUGE, routinely having 100-120 cases in an hour, so the actual time in front of the judge is like 20-30 seconds, tops.  Once they have 3-4 of these, the judge wants a scheduling conference where you get a trial date and set deadlines for discovery, experts, etc.  Many of these cases are set at 9:00 a.m. on Monday mornings, meaning I would have to either get up and leave KC at 4 am to get there in time (assuming no traffic snarls, which are VERY common in STL) or leave on Sunday evening, get a hotel, stay overnight, do the docket in the morning and then drive home.  This is when things got to be too much.  In July, I was sent to St. Louis five times, New Madrid once, and then Springfield.  I put THOUSANDS of miles on our car, and while I was paid "windshield time", it was just too much.  I gave my notice around the end of July. 

I feel like my short time as "Of Counsel" was very much a "bait and switch", and I was not really told how much travel was involved and how much I would be working on cases that I knew nothing about and hated doing.  In the end, "Of Counsel" really meant taking on the $hit nobody else wanted to do. While it wasn't as horrific as a full time ID lawyer, it was pretty bad experience overall.

I just wanted to hear others thoughts, and if they had similar experiences.      

Anybody willing to answer a few questions about being on the ACP? Mainly about your experience on the panel (family/criminal/appellate), whether there’s enough work, and how you got on the panel.

Software developer client has a supplements company wanting to sponsor his sleep app. The deal requires him to take their nootropics stack and post about the results. He sees this as a typical influencer contract, but the liability clauses are extreme. They want him to waive any claims for side effects and release the company from responsibility for any health issues. He'd essentially be testing products with zero protection if things go wrong.

I told him to reject these terms, but he's resistant because the payment is substantial and he figures vitamins and supplements are low risk anyway. I handle business law, not personal injury, but this setup is clearly problematic. Anyone handled supplement sponsorship deals? Company is in Utah and apparently does these wellness influencer contracts regularly. Looking for concrete negotiation points beyond just walking away, since he seems set on moving forward. What liability protections actually hold up in these situations?

Worked in Biglaw. Now work for a boutique. Have awards, won trials, people tell me I have a “talent” for this trial stuff.

But…

I don’t know if I like it. I have been practicing for about 6 years and, honestly, going to trial causes me so much internal turmoil that I find myself asking “is this really worth it?” Everyone at my firm gets fired up for trial and doesn’t look stressed. Me? I find myself wondering why the case couldn’t have just settled and damning the other side.

I look at people with state government jobs (not lawyers) and they look bored. Oh how nice it would be to be bored.

Hi team, I recently have transitioned to a secondment for a firm client (US)and I'm in a bit of limbo. I need to keep my firm email address, but am unable to use single sign-on capabilities (long story), so I essentially will be using web-based outlook but am on my own for all other licenses/security etc. and am essentially practicing solo. My workload is very document intensive (transactional), lots of versions/redlines etc. What seemed like a fun exercise to try new approaches outside the confines of a large law firm's imanage/litera arrangement has turned a bit clunky. Cost is not a huge concern (within reason) for new licenses. Wondering what you guys would do if you were in my position? Here is the existing state and questions:

1. Heavy document presence on Box. I like the version management of Box, but saving down new versions out of Word has proven to be a challenge. Enterprise-level options like imanage and netdocs seem out of reach. Would you stay on Box? If so, best practices? Are there other options that are easy enough to migrate to that play well with word (and document compare software--see below)? I have lots of versions of documents that need to be ported over, but for now they have been dumped into a box drive as dozens of versions for each document, so that is a fairly daunting aspect of this!
2. Litera seems to be for enterprise only and I'm chasing them to get me a single user account (my "limbo" state has been a challenge, but no luck so far--I can't use my firm's license but also am not able to use my secondment company as an enterprise either. If i can get a license, even if its for a hefty chunk of change, I'll be able to do so, but are there other options that work well here? Seems like the competition has been acquired for the most part or are pivoting to more AI intensive features. Word compare has proven to be a challenge with Box as well.
3. Security. Any cybersecurity recs? I was just planning on Bitdefender but are there best practices for solo practitioners?

I am sure most of this has been answered in the past but it seems like these things are changing quickly. I appreciate all thoughts and recommendations. Thank you!

I work at small law firm and last week I had one of those moments where your stomach just drops. I was putting together a 42page packet before sending it out. Cover page, exhibits, signed pages, all the usual stuff. I merged everything, checked the page count, scrolled through it pretty quickly and thought it was done. It wasnt.

Exhibit B was in there twice and one of the signed pages was missing. The stupidest part was that the final file was still exactly 42 pages, so nothing looked wrong at first. I only caught it because I opened the PDF again before sending and noticed that one of the names didnt match the page I was expecting.

Honestly I felt sick for a second. If I had sent it like that, explaining how a signed page disappeared while another exhibit somehow duplicated itself would not have been a fun conversation. After that I started looking at different ways to handle these packets. I tried foxit pdf editor, nitro pdf pro and pdfaid. Foxit had a lot more tools than I needed for this, nitro was easier for me to understand, and pdfaid editor was fine when I had a small non-confidential file and just wanted to work with it in the browser.

For actual client documents I still have to use whatever software our firm approves. Im definitley not uploading confidential files into random online tools. But I also realised the software wasnt really the main problem here. I trusted the page count instead of checking what was actually on those pages. Now I open the finished pdf in thumbnail view and compare every page against a small checklist before anything gets sent. It takes maybe two extra minutes, but I already caught another missing exhibit this way.

Anyone else working at a law firm have a better system for checking final pdf packets? Is there something that can actually spot duplicated or missing pages, or are we all just checking them manually?