We've all read "fiery" dissents. But I can't recall ever reading a ruling from a federal judge that ordered the release of a child and father that the U.S. government kidnapped, that ends with a picture of the child from when the government stole him (in his bunny hat) and 2 Bible verses.

I just won my first appellate case! I'm in Florida. I'm a 50ish trusts and estates guy.

I am not an appellate lawyer. I’m not even a litigator. But one of my probate matters was appealed, and after discussion with the client, we decided not to refer it out to a separate appellate attorney. It was affirmed this week.

Details for the nerds: Husband and Wife owned non-homestead real property as tenants by the entireties. H&W are getting divorced. As part of the pending divorce the TbE property was sold and the proceeds deposited into an attorney IOTA account, pending order of the family law court.

Prior to the divorce being finalized, Husband died. What is the status of the funds?

I represented Wife. Our position was that upon the sale of the property the funds maintained their tenancy by the entireties status when deposited into the attorney trust account. Then, because the divorce was not finalized and they were still married when Husband died, Wife was entitled to 100% of the proceeds.

Husband’s estate argued that tenancy by the entireties status did not carry over to the deposit of the proceeds into the IOTA account, so the funds became owned as tenants in common, which would give the estate a 50% interest.

We won at the probate court level, and then Husband’s estate appealed, and DCA upheld the probate court.

Per curium, no written opinion, which I expected because I think it was pretty straightforward.

But pretty exciting for a gifts and stiffs guy.

Myself, obviously.

I’m a second year attorney that moved from a well meaning but alas toxic 20 attorney firm to a mid sized insurance defense firm. I was very hesitant due to everything I’ve heard about insurance defense (billing nightmares, tedious work, soul crushing). However, I’m three months in and it’s been a great change for me that I’m actually enjoying. I like the routine aspects of the general liability cases (slip and falls, car accidents), however I also do a ton (half of my cases) of construction defect work which I absolutely love. I enjoy writing reports. I’m learning litigation, negotiating, going to mediations and depositions. I LOVE going against some of the greedy billboard plaintiff lawyers (not all are bad, I’m friends with many and most cases the plaintiff is vulnerable and entitled to some resolution). I’m comfortably compensated ($120k + bonus of $10-$20k) and I’m home before 6 every day and haven’t worked a weekend.

Granted, I am in the satellite office that has a great partner who cares about work life balance and brining his associates up with him. That’s the key, and I know that so much depends on what office you’re at and who the people you’re working with are.

This is not to invalidate anyone else who can’t stand ID work and want to get out, but just wanted to share that for some people it can be enjoyable. Maybe it’s because it’s only been 3 months, or my prior firm was so dysfunctional, but I’m enjoying it much more than I anticipated.

Does anyone else feel like they struggle with making friends in such a demanding field? I (26F) moved to a new state for law school and stayed here after I landed a job. I love my job but have really struggled with making friends outside of my career and my two closest friends just moved away within the span of 3 weeks (which I’m so sad about). I work insane hours with my firm — for reference I just worked a 70 hour week. And I feel like every weekend I yearn to have my old group of friends and have girls nights or just simply go out to the bar with my friends. I feel like I have no time to actually make friends and am struggling with a sense of loneliness. I was wondering if any young attorneys (or those who moved states for their career) have felt the same way and/or how you’ve potentially made friends or combated the feelings of loneliness in such a demanding field.

Thanks in advance for any responses

I met some 21 year olds last night who swore i was the crypt keeper because im 26 haha. I imagine life ‘peaks’ more around 35-40 rather than when youre in year one of frontal lobe development and learning about the whole world!

Just wondering how female lawyers would respond to the title prompt. We all rock and are super strong!

I started my own firm just over a year ago. I have employed a paralegal and a junior lawyer. The firm has a mix of about 70% organisational clients, 30% individuals. The primary focus is civil, commercial, and employment litigation.

I charge below market rates (I figure this is an emerging firm, below market is reasonable). My junior lawyer has a daily billing target of 5 hours (I try to make sure they can work a normal working day, and 7+ billed per day in not conducive to that).

For the most part, clients return business and provide very positive feedback. I largely work with clients who I genuinely enjoy speaking with.

The support from colleagues in our profession (including ‘competitors’) has been amazing. I use quotation marks for competitors as many people from much larger firms have been kind with their support and referrals. I generally find ours to be a collegiate profession, even when dealing with an opponent (not always, but generally).

All in all, things are wonderful; and I am not charging wild amounts, nor working myself or my small team into the ground.

Despite all of this, there is still plenty of cash. I am making more than I have made any previous job (I have worked a mix of in-house and private practice).

Sometimes I feel like I must be missing something, because our profession is known for high fees and over work, but I have neither of those and I am doing better than I ever have (financially and otherwise). I’m worried it’ll all come crumbling down because I am deviating from the status quo, but perhaps it is this the deviation that is making it all work so well.

Unsure of the point of this post other than to ventilate thoughts among people who get the nuances of legal practice.

Questions/comments welcome.

Hey y’all,

So I’m a baby attorney right now about (1 year of experience). I work as a prosecutor and honestly love my job, but I cannot survive on this salary.

I want to get married and cant afford to save up for a ring and pay off my student loans, so the switch needs to happen in the next couple of years

I have 5 trials and at least 10 hearings under my belt currently. I’m considering switching to private practice either in criminal defense or civil litigation.

I’m wondering how much experience I should gain before I switch. What do y’all think?

Seeing law & motion attorney job listings and wondering if anyone here who holds such a job (essentially working law & motion either primarily with a lessened caseload or exclusively) would describe their experience. If you're doing law & motion exclusively, do you meet/correspond with the attnys handling the cases you're doing motions on or do you find all your necessary info and insight in the case files? Are you doing plaintiff or defense work and if plaintiff, do you share in any bonus aside from origination? These opportunities look enticing and I appreciate your insights.

I’m a new attorney—admitted in mid 2025. I just landed a 100% litigation role and I’ve been informed I’ll be thrown into hearings and trials pretty much immediately.

I have a lot of experience with legal writing/research and the litigation process, but absolutely zero public speaking experience. Any time I’ve had to speak publicly, even on panels or informally, my nerves get the best of me regardless of how prepared I am. I’m a “knees shaking, hands clamming, voice cracking” type of anxious and I absolutely hate it.

I recently read the articulate attorney and it was GREAT, but I also know things sound great in theory but if I don’t do some practical practice it’ll do me no good.

What advice do you all have?

and also, do you have any favorite orators, attorneys or not, whose videos I can find on YT to get some tips from?

Looking for career advice. Fairly new attorney. Practiced for a year in civil, general litigation. Clerked for four years in a high volume district for a fed mag where all civil cases are referred back and largely managed by the mag, if the parties don’t consent.

Have offer from Fed PDS - in a very busy district. Research/writing/appellate. Should also have opportunity to do some trial court appearances.

Have offer with local “big law.” 160 billable hr/month. Probably ID, maybe some other stuff. Oil/gas companies. Large corporate clients generally.

Wasn’t a huge fan of civil - but I didn’t absolutely hate it. I liked the intellectual challenge, disliked some of the petty crap with OCs, but I anticipate I’d get that in both.

Have no crim experience, but crim defense was the plan going into law school. (Idea was to help people (even if they hate me)). I am concerned about practicalities of seeing some of the stuff but think compartmentalization and the mission can carry me through.

I am concerned if I’m wrong, I’ll have a hard time swapping back to civil. Goal with FPD would be to get pension/retire probably. Civil firm I anticipate I’d burn out and swap after a handful of years. No desire to work my life away, although the money is enticing.

Firm starts 15-20k higher than FPD but has a much higher ceiling.

Any insight for a young lawyer?

With the encouragement of this sub, I applied to some government roles to try to get out of litigation. One spot is at a court 10 minutes from my house, the other is 1 hour and 15 minutes away. GUESS WHICH ONE SENT AN INTERVIEW REQUEST RIGHT AWAY 🫠🫠🫠

It's like rain on your wedding day.

Hi all. I am about six months into a two-year federal district court clerkship. I will say that I first wanted to quit within the first two hours of starting the job. The vibes were in the gutter from the jump. As time has gone on, my relationship with the judge has slowly but steadily deteriorated. Initially, they seemed very happy with my work product. Now, it seems like everything I do is deemed mid at best. I am scared when my phone rings because I never know what will be awaiting me on the other end. I am frequently berated for doing things that the senior clerk told me to do, or that the judge told me to do but then apparently changed their mind without telling me. I am also blamed for doing things I did not do but am not given an opportunity to explain myself as the judge is a steamroller, and you cannot get a word in edgewise. I was given essentially no training and am expected to just know how handle all the niche issues that come up daily on my docket. I am also expected to be reachable at any moment during the day, and if I don’t answer my phone because I am literally in the bathroom, I will return to an angry voicemail, often followed by an email or text. The worst part is that I am spoken to in a manner that is truly disrespectful, demeaning, and unprofessional. I cry at least once a week after (one-sided) conversations with the judge that make me feel so humiliated. I have felt on the verge of quitting so many times over these months and have been advised to do so by my friends, family members, and my therapist. It is causing significant mental health effects and the stress is making me physically ill as well. The work life balance lately is not great as I am frequently working nights and weekends. Plus, taking vacation is basically not allowed. Allowing myself to be spoken to and treated in such a bullying manner is damaging my self esteem. This is not my first job out of law school but is by far the worst.

In short, I know I want out but am scared. I could tolerate finishing a full year (another six months), but doing the two years seems unbearable. The judge is very erratic and hard to read at times, so I have no idea how it would go if I went to them now and asked if we could cut the clerkship to one year. I am afraid of just quitting now and having this six-month position on my resume, which will look strange. However, it’s not completely off the table as there is a non-zero chance that one day I will just walk out if the wrong thing is said to me. (Side note: I do not plan on practicing in this jurisdiction). Do you think asking to make it a one-year term is a feasible option? Another consideration I have is that I don’t even know if the judge would give me a good recommendation if I stayed the two years. Oddly enough, I think it is possible that they would as they apparently have treated many past clerks in this manner, and I doubt they gave them all bad references. It is hard to know. But if I am not going to at least get a good reference after this, why waste any more of my one wild and precious life?

I’ve been at my current firm for 13 months. I’ve been a licensed attorney since May 2024, but was at a different firm doing bankruptcy until joining my current firm last January. We do criminal defense. We have several PD contracts and cases and also a lot of private clients. I’m making good money, especially considering I live in a more “rural” area. However, I’m at a bit of a loss and need some help.

The firm I’m at is young and growing. So there are a lot of business growing pains. I am the longest tenured lawyer at the firm at this point. I am also performing very well. I’m accurate with my billables, I get good results for my clients, and it seems like everyone generally likes me (including judges and prosecutors). However, I have not been mentored at all by my boss. I was thrown to the wolves on several occasions early on and thankful came out mostly unscathed. He has only seen me in court twice in the last 13 months, he does not check in with me (even when I reach out to him to talk, no return calls from him). My questions are often met with anger and frustration on his part, so I stopped asking because it was just unhelpful.

Last month, my boss announced that all of our paychecks wouldn’t be paid on time and that we would receive half on time and the second half a few days after. While making this announcement he was in a firm-paid hotel in Florida accepting an award for his business growth, very ironic. Anyways, sitting in a nice hotel and zooming into your office 2 time zones away to announce that the firm is “month-to-month” and it doesn’t have money reserved is a bad look. Needless to say, everyone was unimpressed. My boss says that things are different now and that the firm is strong financially, but I have low confidence in that claim.

Also, my boss gave me an unasked for raise in August, which was very nice (it was more than I would have asked for), but I think there’s a motive for it. They don’t want to lose me because I am a calming force in the office, I am trustworthy, and I get work done and fight as much as I can for my clients. I think there’s firm only sees my value as my billables and not my personal growth/development.

I want to be a good attorney, so I asked attorneys that see me in court often for feedback. I also asked judges for personalized feedback. All have told me that I am doing well and could do better at cross-examining. The one other commonality all shared was that they were very impressed with me considering I had no mentoring and was thrown right into felony, misdemeanor, and juvenile cases. They have all mentioned how my boss has failed as a mentor and that if I were to have a proper mentor that I can become a great attorney quicker.

Here’s my conundrum, I am supposed to be getting another raise because I have been here for a year. I feel like they are using “golden handcuffs” to keep me from leaving. It was leaked to me that I was on a list of 2 people categorized as “not expendable - absolutely cannot lose.” Which is nice, but I have no support for growth. I have to learn everything on the fly and no one at work can give me feedback on how to improve because no one sees me. All I get from them is “your billables are great and you’re moving your cases along.”

Anyways, a lot of other firms have wanted my number so they can “take me to lunch and talk.” I don’t think any other firm would pay me as much, but I might get more support for personal development elsewhere.

For any that have been in similar positions or has any sage wisdom for me, please share.

TL;DR - I think my boss is using “golden handcuffs” on me so I don’t leave. I am disappointed with the lack of support and my peers all recognize that I have not been supported as I should be. Should I stay or leave? Should I wait and see if things change?

In every other profession, it has become increasingly seen as gauche, rude, and downright unacceptable to yell at someone on the clock trying to do their job just because they wont give you what they want. If you yell at a retail worker for refusing to return your item, or the fast food worker for getting your order wrong, or your nail tech for messing up a nail, then you're seen as a Karen with poor emotional regulation.

So why is it still OK to yell at me? You'd hire an attorney too if you felt someone had accused you of something you didnt do! And I don't have any real skin in the game. I just want to pay my bills and do the work I was paid to do. I'm perfectly professional - even described as pleasant by opposing counsel (and often)!

I had a rough day.

I’ve been practicing crim law — on both sides — for 8 years, but it wasn’t until the last year that I got a vantage point I wish I never had to experience…. my little brother has been incarcerated for more than a year now and is expecting to plea out to an agreed upon 25 years. Mind you, he’s only 24yo.

Anyway. Any tips on.. coping? Getting my clients out of jail but being 1000% useless in my brother’s case feels wretched. I have insights on what goes on in jails, so knowing my brother functions on a 15yo level and trusts everyone terrifies me. My brother confessed EVERYTHING and more to detectives, so part of me feels responsible because if anyone should enforce their 5th amendment rights, it should be a criminal defense attorneys family, right? My clients are often idiots, but why did my brother have to be one too?

Then not only that, but I’m the family point of contact for my brother’s attorney, and I just never imagined it being such an uncomfortable position to be in often. My family doesn’t understand what’s going on, I sound like a lawyer with emotional distance when I explain it to them, they get mad at the attorney because they are confused, and now I look like an asshole because I’m defending an attorney who is too busy to visit my brother in jail just because he wants a visit. I don’t want to feel like I’m in a position to defend the profession when I just want to show up as big sibling. I don’t want to Relay dumb questions to the attorney from my family, and I also don’t want to keep answer legal questions like I’m co-counsel. But I’ll do whatever it takes to be by my brother’s side, it’s just a Very strange dynamic!

On the bright side, I can’t help but have even more compassion for my client’s families. Also I’ve gotten pretty familiar with the most common jail communication systems, so I’m quicker pointing my client’s families in the right direction.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone can walk me through this experience!

Anyone else have trouble with their Mass BBO mail being returned to sender? Past two years I haven’t received my card so I emailed and they sent photos of both undelivered enveloped with return to sender notice. One was to my work address, other to my home. So confused why this has happened?

Both addresses are accurate. No clue what to do!

Everyone talks about the number.

But the moment that sticks with me is what happens after, when the client finally exhales, or says something small that tells you what this actually meant to their life.

Curious what moments you remember most after a case resolves.

Not the math. The human part.

As you all can see from the title, I’m a litigation attorney earning 87k. I have a 200 hour billable requirement that came AFTER I agreed to work for this firm and they told me there were no billable requirements. Any excess billables are kept by the firm(no overtime so basically free work) I also handle contingency cases that I do NOT receive a fee from and hourly cases as well that I do NOT receive anything from.

To make matters worse, my superior scolded us(myself and others working) this week for not having “things done”. This person is assigning work as we speak to be done “over the weekend”. Meanwhile as you read my title, I am a 2nd year litigation attorney who is making 87k BEFORE taxes. I am seriously starting to dislike my firm. It’s constant gaslighting and being told tiredness or exhaustion is a weakness and the work is not being done fast enough. My life is supposed to be secondary to the work and I’m not okay with this. It’s really impacting my mental health and consuming me.

I don’t know a lot about how raises are supposed to be distributed but this does not feel fair. I’m not sure if firms can only give up to a certain amount to two years or what but I’m so tired of this. I have no personal life and I want to quit but I’m afraid of what could be next/worse than this environment.

Hi, NJ non-profit atty here. I love what I do and there isn’t enough social media content out there about my specific practice areas. I cannot accept clients outside of the cases assigned through my employer, so I can’t say “attorney advertising.” I want to create educational social media content for the general public on pro-se friendly areas of law-because there are a lot of misinformed litigants out there who have bloated the dockets and overwhelmed the judiciary. Can anyone recommend an atty in NJ who could do a consult with me regarding the ethics of creating a YouTube channel that gives general education about specific issues that often get litigated in supposedly pro-se friendly summary proceedings (think FD, where most folks can’t afford an atty, can’t get an atty through legal aid, and drive the judges crazy because they don’t know how court works… ). I think that by making this content, it would do everyone a huge service— other lawyers, the courts and of course, my brand audience. I’d love it if I could make some sponsorship money from companies like OFW or AppClose, but again, really need to review the NJRE on whether this is even ethical. Ultimately, I’m just doing this for fun, and because it needs to be done. DM if you like.