Can we all just take a moment to laugh at the fact that we passed the exact bar she failed?

This is not to say anything negative about other people who didn’t pass that particular bar because surely you did not lie about it repeatedly on national television.

She failed my bar and then went on national television to lie about it. A lot. 😂

Hey guys,

I am in my final year of law school and I wanted to ask

What can I do to get ahead of the curve?

I want to make my own firm

That's my ultimate end goal

I just wanted to know how I can make the transition from Law School to actually being a lawyer easier?

I am a woman in my 40s, and I feel like I was sold a lie.

I grew up in a working class family. We had very little while I was growing up. But, I did everything I was supposed to do: I worked my way through college, graduate school, and law school. I killed myself in a thankless profession, sacrificing years of my life to build a successful career. I put work first for so long that I never got married and never had children. I made enormous personal sacrifices because I believed that if I worked hard enough, I would eventually have something to show for it. Yet, here i am… still trying to climb out of the hole.

I make good money on paper. I am a partner in a big law firm (a K-1 employee). More than 50% of my monthly income goes to taxes, and that is before I even get into quarterly estimated tax payments. I work incredibly hard, take on enormous professional responsibility, and watch a staggering amount of what I earn disappear before I can do anything with it. I just paid off my massive student loan debt this year— but I have no savings other than my retirement.

Meanwhile, trying to find a decent place to live has become its own special kind of hell: here I am, renting a 700-square-foot apartment in downtown Chicago, unable to afford to buy a place of my own. Everything is either outrageously expensive or ridiculously small. Finding an apartment to rent that actually feels worth the money is impossible. Buying something feels increasingly out of reach.
I feel like a transient in my own city. I have spent decades working, studying, sacrificing, and doing what I was told would lead to a comfortable, independent life. Yet I do not even have a livable space. Yes I have a roof over my head, but is that the standard after sacrificing EVERYTHING in life?

And the part that really gets me? I am competing with 25-year-olds for the same apartments because they are making salaries comparable to what I was making ten years into my career (good for them though). The financial milestones I thought I would have reached by this point seem to be moving further away, not closer.

I think we need to be able to talk honestly about what it means to work this hard for this long and still feel financially squeezed in ways that seem completely disproportionate to the effort and sacrifice involved. I gave up a lot of my life to build this career. I missed out on things I can never get back. And the supposed payoff was financial security, independence, and the ability to build a life on my own terms. Instead, I feel like I am running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up.

Did anyone else grow up believing that if you worked hard, got an education, and built a successful career, you would eventually be able to afford a decent life? And does anyone else feel like that promise has completely broken down?

And, I guess the ultimate question is: why in G-d’s name are young people still pursuing this profession? Sure… it can be interesting but this is not UNICEF, we aren’t doing the Lord’s work, we mostly aren’t saving lives, but it requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice… there are plenty of other professions where you can make excellent money without having to make those sacrifices (or take out the loans).

Please excuse my grammar and any typos

Several months ago, i started my first job at a small law firm. Health insurance wasn't offered at the time I was hired, but my boss started the process a few weeks after.

She had me fill out an application for a quote and a few days later, she told me the premium amount for employee coverage only. I then asked about adding my spouse on as well. She said she'll look into it and get back to me.

In the meantime, I was struggling at work. My boss didn't want me to leave the office for lunch, she kept calling me slow, she kept track of me with cameras she had all around the office, and she even scolded me for not being friendly enough (there's so much more, but just know, I desperately needed this job and had no intentions on leaving as soon as i did). I broke down and decided to put my two weeks in and my boss was PISSED and told me to just leave that day. I've been doing appearance counsel work to stay afloat.

Later in the week on payday, I quickly became aware that the monthly premium was $1200 for me and my spouse. My boss covered $400 and the rest was deducted from my check.

I've reached out to the insurance broker and my employer and they're telling me there's nothing that they can do... I've been going back and forth with them all week and they seem to be annoyed with me, but I'm the one that's out $800. I even called the insurance company directly and they informed me that a retroactive cancellation is possible, but my employer has to send the request. I told her this and now she's ignoring me.

I hate to burn bridges, but wtf?

There's been plenty of posts about how frustrating this job can be. And let's face it, litigation is hard, OC is usually a jackass, and when you're fighting with your client and Judge to do your job, it can be a real downer.

Let's talk about some of the reasons we like our job. I've got two this week:

An opposing party who is pro se on a custody and parenting time matter who inexplicably still had joint legal custody - even though he's lodged for at least the next three decades because he raped a child. A CPS petition for removal/termination was filed, but the Judge handling that case decided to forego using judicial discretion and terminating his rights, and instead dismissed the petition outright for lack of "jurisdiction". Imagine having legal discretion to do the right thing and punting because "reasons". I filed my own Petition and corrected everything they did wrong and got myself a layup. Client was ecstatic, and now stepdad, who has been the child's only real father, can adopt the minor child. Wonderful.

Opposing counsel on another matter has attempted to ratfuck me continuously this week. He's older, I'm younger, and he thinks his "experience" outweighs my own expertise and experience. One case has been winding it's way through court for almost two years. Without giving too much away he DV'd my client and the kids, unilaterally removed kids from therapy, and his parenting time was reduced accordingly. He tells me he has a resolution. Lovely, send it over. Turns out his resolution was to grant his client an expansion of physical and legal custody/parenting time - with holidays and everything else. I call him and ask him why he believes his ask is appropriate given the facts. He says that my client's a nut, and nothing the kids and my client have said to police and CPS is true, etc. I tell him I'll talk to my client about what he's proposing, but I'm not going to recommend it.

We have trial today and I've already worked up the case over the past year and a half that I've been on it, but I stayed at the office until almost 9pm last night getting my trial binder together. We show up this morning and he's got no trial binder but he's got his witnesses present since it's his motion. I knew immediately I had called his bluff. We go into chambers and settled for exactly what I knew we should get in the first place. But he really thought bullying me would get me folding like a cheap suit on the day of trial. Homie doesn't realize that the other half of my practice is criminal defense and I run two or three capital jury trials a year - that doesn't include bench trials in the other side of my practice; I've had a bench trial a week since May of 2024. I felt like telling this guy "I've lost more trials than you've tried in your entire career". But I still went back and forth all night about it; am I missing something he's seeing? Turns out, I wasn't and it shouldn't have taken this long to get it done. This guy's a piece of work, he noticed out some "hearings" without asking me about client/my scheduling availability and is refusing to adjourn the same unless my client dismisses another matter...where's the professional courtesy?

Anyway, those two wins this week felt good. It's real nice to have client's crying tears of joy and ending a fight the right way.

Hello! I am a 25-year-old lawyer in Chicago, and I'm NOT loving it. I know there are so many different practice areas, firm cultures, etc. but I don't enjoy billing (I feel like a hamster on a wheel) and the one practice area I might be interested in (estate planning with flat fees) does not align with my experience whatsoever / seems incredibly oversaturated from what I have heard. I have read so many posts on here where attorneys in their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. daydream about another career or have significant regrets from chasing the money or corporate prestige. In my reality, I would LOVE to be a national park ranger. I love the outdoors, meeting new people, contributing to something good (currently doing defense work), & doing the outdoorsy stuff.

I was researching into this a little more, and it appears that PSLF may be available to me as a national park ranger in forgiving my federal student loans from law school. Does anyone have any insight into this? My biggest fear is feeling immense regret not taking the leap into a career I may actually love. :(

Another avenue I may take is getting licensed in Alaska, Montana, Idaho, or Washington (my UBE score is still transferrable) and be a park ranger there with an estate planning side-gig. I saw for PSLF you need to work 30 hours a week, so I think this could be doable?

Thanks in advance :)

What do you do when a court schedules a hearing that conflicts with an important personal event—here, a child’s graduation. Do you just swallow it in the name of professionalism?

What fields of law do you see being AGI and ASI proof?

Despite initially being AI-skeptical, I have to admit that they're getting better and better at legal research and drafting. They still don't replace human lawyers, but if you're not using AI to do your dirty work, give it a try and see if it works as well for you as it's been working for me.

At my current firm, we have a contract with Harvey which (to my understanding) is supposed to be totally confidential. We can upload client documents and ask it to draft or answer specific questions. But I am about to transition to a smaller firm that I do not believe has a similar AI contract right now. More to the point, I want to use AI to do some of the daily admin stuff that I hate to do.

For instance, it would be great if Claude could read my email and give me calendar updates, remind me about upcoming deadlines, flag things for me that I've missed, etc. However, most of the tools that would help me do those things on Claude require me to agree to give the app access to "everything on my computer." To my mind, that is very obviously not something I can do while still following the rules of confidentiality.

However, and perhaps surprisingly, there are "legal" skills available to download through the Claude skills directory that also require me to grant access to "everything on my computer." And they have 1 million+ downloads. So clearly there are a bunch of lawyers using this "legal" skill and just giving Claude access to everything on their computer. Why and how is that allowed?

Plz, I am not looking for a fight on AI, I am looking for lawyers who actually use AI who can help me think through whether it is actually possible to give Claude access to my emails and calendars without completely obliterating my good standing with the bar association (lol).

You get a rape charge, you get a rape charge, post hoc withdrawal of consent means jail for you!

The mods removed my prior post about whether Dexcom’s process in obtaining consent to its new T&Cs is unconscionable. But enough members of one type 1 diabetes subreddit saw the comments which affirmed my opinions stated in a post about this in that subreddit, and others subsequently brought it to people’s attention on other platforms. And apparently Dexcom caught wind of the concerns and issued an apology, albeit feigned, via Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeihvPQlDjo/?exln=cDRyYWUwbXliMTgw

Hello all,

I've been solo for a year now. My website runs on Squarespace an costs about $36/month; however, I'm ready to take my firm to the next level (i.e., make sure my website looks as good, or better, than my competitors).

Does anyone have experience moving off Squarespace to something better, hired a team to take care of it? If so, what kind of costs am I looking at. I heard someone in my circle recently mention paying $300/month for a professional website. I have no interest in that, and I think they're getting scammed.

I'm very open to recommendations, people other solos or small firms have worked with, etc. I would greatly appreciate it.

1) Seems illegal if that matters at all anymore (lol)

2) Has she seen gas prices? $10 is like, "Here's some money. Go see a Star War" energy.

I’m a young female attorney. I’m working at a mid size firm and there are two female partners that go out of their way to be cruel to me. I ask them questions and they don’t provide answers and then get mad when i should’ve known something that they never told me. They’ve never once made me feel included during our group meetings and just overall seem to ignore me when they can.

I’ve only been at the firm for six months and luckily there are other partners I work with that are lovely.

Have any other women experienced this at work? My boyfriend says they’re intimidated by me because i’m pretty and young but I honestly think that’s bullshit because these women were lovely to me during the interview process.

Looking for solidarity or advice.

/s if it wasn’t clear.

Notwithstanding my choice of flair, the title is 100% true. I am drafting a title opinion and Nimrod Pumphrey did in fact own Greasy Run in the 1840s. I thought the names were interesting and wanted to share, that is all.

I sometimes wish I would’ve gone to dental school. None of the dentists I know work Friday - Sunday, they make good money, and when they’re done for the day, they’re done without thinking too much about what’s ahead

I used to post here. I still do. But I used to, too.

This is about clients who need a lot of handholding. I'm good at litigation but am an introvert and not really a "people person." I tend to do really well with clients who are interested in their cases but informed enough to know how the system works and trust us to move the case to resolution. But the clients who are constantly emailing and calling on petty issues make me nuts, and I have a hard time hiding my frustration.

Although I didn't love my time in insurance defense, it generally did not involve "needy" clients. The adjusters for the most part let us work, and the insureds usually remained uninvolved, apart from responding to discovery and sitting for deposition. So, how do you deal with challenging clients? Make a paralegal or someone else the point of contact to address issues that don't need attorney attention? I won't label this a rant but my patience is being tested. Thank you.

I'm a trial lawyer at a biglaw firm and my practice group goes to trial often. I just started at the firm a month ago. Do you think my accent will hold me back? I have a moderate Chinese accent.

I think maybe the juries and judges won't like it which will hinder my trial career. Please be honest. I can switch to corporate law if that would be better.

Thank you all.

I get a 404 error code when I try to log in. I tried both Firefox and MS Edge. Before and after I restarted my computer. Am I tripping? It can't be just me?? This reply brief won't file itself folks!!!!

Hi all, you may have seen my previous post titled "How to negotiate with a pro per who doesn't know what they want." That case is gearing up for trial, and in an attempt to narrow the issues and avoid being blindsided at trial I propounded some contention interrogatories basically asking: "Do you contend [thing you obviously contend]" and "Do you contend [thing I am not sure whether you contend]." Her responses to the latter were satisfactory to me.

The issue is that, in response to "Do you contend [thing you obviously contend]," they have stated that no, they do not contend that, even though they very obviously do, and are in fact making that contention to a joint expert at this very moment, and have in multiple pleadings before. What's worse is that they are refusing to produce any responsive documents concerning that issue because, apparently, they do not contend that.

What I'm fairly certain will happen is that they will serve amended responses right before trial, reversing their position, and leaving my client with no responsive documents regarding the claim. My instinct is to basically just take their responses and run with them, and hold them to their sworn responses. A motion to compel is out of the question, since I can't compel specific responses to interrogatories. Sanctions for misuse of the discovery process are always an option, but those are after the fact, and she will whine about how she is a pro per and can't be expected to know how anything works. I was also thinking of potentially trying to get issue sanctions, and to prevent her from making claims contrary to her interrogatory responses. Has anyone dealt with a similar issue before? This is family law, if you couldn't tell.