dont do this

dont do this either

Alright, I see the wisdom of the thread. I won't be including it lol.

I was tempted though! I don't actually care about what he said, but I thought it could possibly help us. But, the point about me coming off as whiny is very valid imo. Especially as a younger attorney, that could look very, very whiny and complaining.

By far the best part about law school is my bar trip. Day 43 abroad, 9th country, no end in sight.

attorneys yell at other attorneys over the phone all the time. it's not professional, and it's certainly not good for your reputation, but plenty do it. only time it's relevant is if they are refusing to cooperate on a required joint filing or discovery or something. or if their conduct is truly egregious, like threatening to burn your house down.

I've had my fair share of screaming matches already, but that makes sense.

Got my first medical malpractice case settling this week, most likely. As of yesterday, we had an agreement in place, but the insurance adjuster had to run it past their supervisor. They thought it would be an agreeable amount though. My take on the case should be 16k, so I'm very excited to get that $$$$.

Get that money.

How long from start to finish?

Interestingly I was told med mal really not worth it here unless case worth at least $150K here. Too expensive to get Drs and insurance fights too much.

Yes sir!


I got the case in June, so 5 months? Fwiw, it's not very complicated, and it's a dental case, so our only records were the GP and the Oral Surgeons (2).

Also, my partner's relative is one of the top oral surgeons in the world, so he was able to give us some insight for free. Our costs on the case were pretty barebones.

16k, to put into perspective, is like 4 months pay for me lol. I know for the BIGlaw guys here, that's nothing special, but for a small GP just out of law school, feels like millions.

As far as the medmal, idk, that could very well be true. My mentor does medmal/PI only, routinely bringing in 1 million+ verdicts every year, but he's been practicing 40+ years. His costs on some of the million dollar cases can easily run 50k, but I've seen as high as 120k. Definitely need a huge war chest to fund them, and the insurance companies know that as well, so they'll just use their resources to bury you.

I think mathematically, at some point, it just doesn't make sense clearly. Like, 100k case with 20k of expenses + you only get 40%, so spend 20 for a chance at 40? Probably not worth the risk.

And don't even get me started on rural counties. Good luck ever convincing John Doe rural voter that a med mal case is valid. So, you have that added risk at trial imo.

Agreed, as someone that takes cases on the side from my regular job, $16K would be awesome. I think my schedule C side income might be in that ballpark this year after expenses.

I missed he was pro se originally but I got out my computer to brag on my wife on a semi-related note so I'm still going to. Since he is I would say nothing. I would also expect pressure from the court to settle this the morning of because in my experience of lawyer vs. non-lawyer in really every court I was ever in, that was mentioned by the court staff.

It would be whiny if it was an attorney but comportment is an ethical rule and I have seen an attorney sanctioned (with like a $25 fine) for being repeatedly profane in emails to another attorney, for whatever that's worth.

Wife story: She (solo-practioner) files for and gets ex parte relief in a child custody case, other side hires a big deal (local) firm and the hot shot attorney sends her an email stating that her document is full of lies. And because he's a dick who can't proofread an immediate 2nd email that was literally "And I'm going to file for sanctions because you lied". He gets on the phone with the court asks for a conference in the morning and a hearing in a few days, and is given it.

They go in for the conference, he schmoozes the judge for 30 mins while talking over my wife, is recommending she drop her client's action, etc. Judge makes no immediate decision (over his prior ex parte one) and says we'll have the hearing. Wife is like, "Oh by the way, I noticed that you represented this same party during a previous case when you worked for the State, do you have a waiver from DHS as required by (some ultra-specific conflict of interest rule of ethics for DHS attornies)?" Judge is like, "What's this?" He hems and haws, is like my client will wave it I'm sure. She mentions that the rule required a waiver from the state, not his current client. She leaves court and by the time she gets back to her office has a Motion to Withdraw submitted by him sitting on her fax. Turns out, he's consistently a dickbag, left the State on bad terms and they were like "No waiver, go **** yourself!"

Lmaooo thats great. The bigshot d-bags are so annoying.

And you're right, it settled exactly like that. We both gave our arguments, obviously pro se's was not relevant to PO's and then Judge just says to me, "counsel, can't you solve this?"

So, we went out in hallway, pro se guy was just ridiculous. Wanted over 10k in damages because our PO's dragged the process out 2 months. Settled on refunding him his $100 deposit, which our CL was fine with. He was pissed, but Judge told him essentially, either you take this 100 deposit or you go hire an attorney to fix these PO's/and I'm giving counsel (myself) leave to file new PO's to his new complaint since we didn't get time to file PO's correctly due to pro se's failure to serve/other procedural issues.

Long story short, it went down as you imagine it would.

so at my new school apparently mid terms are a thing? really annoying to have to deal with that stress over next 3 weeks.

once student life closes, remember to check the lounge for this thread guys (where it is now--SL just redirects). will be just the same as before. ill continue to moderate this thread (although that's rarely necessary, so whatever).

Didn't even know SL was closing lol.

Oh ****, we in the lounge now!

Got a quick question for criminal law guys out there....

Got a CL who was cited for driving an overweight truck. Sign says 10 ton weight limit. Officer stops CL, who's about 2000 miles away from home on a shipment, for being on this back road, points to sign about 10 tons, cites him for being overweight, and then leaves.

Officer never weighed the truck to see if it was actually over 10 tons. Never even bothered to open up the back of the truck, which was empty at the time, so it wasn't over 10 tons. Also, prior to the stop, CL had just dropped off his load, which weighed a total of .75 tons (furniture) and his truck weighs about 6 tons. So, even if he had his load at time of stop, it was not 10 tons.

Anyways, so we have the case. I went to the police officer's barracks yesterday and spoke with the citing officer. He agrees that it wasn't over 10 tons. My CL barely speaks english, so PO says that, "I couldn't understand him, figured he was just over and cited him." We agree that the charges should be dropped at the summary hearing.

Q: I didn't get this in writing from the officer. Should I have? I mean, he seemed like a trustworthy guy, and he agreed with me that we would just drop the charges...but, he could always change his mind, and go back on his word. That being said, I have all the materials prepped if he does change his mind, so we could prove our case, but obviously would just be easier to drop it like we agreed upon.

Maybe I'm being overly cautious here, but I don't do much criminal work yet, so I'm just trying to be very careful.


Edit: Just wanted to say I'm aware I post alot of scenarios in here, but as long as people are cool with it, I'll keep posting. Not trying to annoy anyone, but as a young attorney, it's really helpful to get everyone's opinion. Obviously, things like this aren't taught in LS, and the stakes aren't earth-shattering or anything, but just nice to have experienced voices giving their thoughts.

Personally, I enjoy reading about the scenarios you encounter in daily practice. I have little to add, since I'm a 3L, but I am interested.




Just had my 3rd round interview at a DA's office, and was told by my interviewer that he would be recommending me for a 4th round interview ASAP (granted, this likely means 4-6 weeks). This final round is with the actual DA, and generally results in an offer on the spot.

Does anybody have experience with these interviews? It's in a democrat stronghold, and the DA just won election by a relatively large margin (though it was predicted to be much closer). My views seem to align with his, so it shouldn't be too difficult, but it seems silly not to prepare for the final leg of a multi-year journey.

I'd imagine that as long as you don't show up in a MAGA hat you're good to go. Just be yourself.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That is actually very popular in my area. May have to adopt a MAGA hat to fit in lol.


For example, local Judge just made everyone in court room say the pledge of allegiance before a trial. Like, jury sitting there, defendant at table, and Judge walked in, and said, "Everyone in the court room will stand, face the flag, and say the pledge with me," which has led to local PD members getting very upset over the forced speech and threatening not to say it.

But yeah, that's the current climate of the area I practice most in.

Wow. Petty tyrant

4 Interviews kinda brutal. But making it to the interview with the DA means you're essentially a lock. Out of my small sample 3L friends from last year and this year who made it to a DA interview in NYC, 1 out of 11 did not get the job most got offer on the spot, some got the offer in like a week.

I like the scenarios. They’re stories of a completely foreign legal land for me.

It would be nice to have a written statement, but most police officers would not give you that. If you live in a single consent jurisdiction, you could have taped your conversation. I used to use a p.i., former p.o., who could get p.o.'s to give him all sorts of statements that they would never give an attorney. Using a p.i. raises a cost issue, but if your client's license is at issue, it could be worth it.

I have a number of other questions. Assuming the p.o. isn't dumb, he must have thought he had some grounds for issuing the citation (unless it was issued to cover a pretextual stop concurrent with a drug search or intending to do one that didn't occur); his mention of your client not speaking English and not being able to communicate raises a question in my mind regarding your jurisdictions overload statute: Does it require the driver to produce a manifest upon request and make failure to do so and act creating a presumption of overload? I see the possibility of the officer saying something like: "I asked for a manifest and he failed to produce one, based on that and our statute I cited him; I don't have to take the truck to a weigh station when he fails to produce a manifest."

If that's not the case, and your statute requires a weighing, then you should be prepared to understand when and how to object to any testimony regarding the weight of the truck and load and the grounds for your objections. If you can keep out any testimony regarding weight and don't have a presumption problem, it is quite likely that you can make and win a motion for a d.v. at the end of the state's case.

Can you talk to the prosecutors ahead of time? Educating them as to the problems with their case is always taking a risk (violates the "never educate a chump" rule), but sometimes it works.

I’ve enjoyed the first 300 or so posts...the progressions, defeats...young men feeling their way. I’ve read these from the angle of a client who spent north of a 100k trying to beat the state way back in the day. I’ll date myself by saying that execrable Ken Starr denied me cert. My story interesting as it is to me (“There is a history in all men’s lives”) I think this piece will entertain you more.
Thanks again for the interesting thread
http://www.gndzerosrv.com/Web%20Pages/wolf_by_ears.htm

pretty sure AGame passed NY bar when he was worried that he failed, at least according to the New York Law Journal.

He was 100% going to pass.

All 20 or so of my recent-grad friends passed NY. Quite reassuring, as I just paid for Themis in anticipating of the February '18 exam (Pro Bono Scholar).