Lawyer thread

I've only been doing this new firm for 10 months, and yeah, there is a ton more responsibility and stress. But there is also a lot more freedom. I have a partner to cover for me if I go out of town and the world doesn't completely stop if I'm on vacation. It's also nice to make money when she settles a case I never touched and vice versa.

I get some people are happy making their salary plus bonus, but eventually there is going to be burn out or wanting to take a step back. Equity partnership allows for you to work less and less over time as the machine under you gets well oiled.

 

I’ve been at the firm since September 2019? I graduated law school in 2017

 

Correct. It increases your take home quite a lot without changing your billing requirements.

I’d imagine so

 

When you become an equity partner, you typically contribute to the firm’s capital account.

For example, I paid my capital contribution out of my draw over a five year period. As my equity stake rises, I pay more.

If I leave, my capital balance is paid back over a two year period.

We use the capital account to fund the daily firm cash flow issues. It’s an operating account.

 

Equity at my firm is a significant pay raise, as is the transition from associate to nonequity.

Once you make equity, there are a variety of billable hour, marketing, etc. requirements but the only things that really matter are:

1. How much is your book of business?

2. Is the aggregate book net profitable?

3. Do you actually control your book of business?

We look at the dollars you bring in from the clients for whom you have credit. If your clients allow higher rates on associate work, those dollars are more valuable because associates get a salary, but you have made them more profitable.

At the end of the day, will your clients follow you if you leave.

 

This shit is so much simpler on the Plaintiff's side (and in a small firm).

How much money did we make this month after expenses and making sure the operating account is fully funded?

You get half and I get half.

 

Yep, all earned fees go into our operating account. We take modest salaries during the year and then just take draws when we want to.

 

We aren't even doing salaries. Just distributing everything to our PA's.

 

You’re going to end up paying a lot more in payroll taxes doing that

 

I'm just going off what the accountant told us. Distribute it to our individual PA's then the PA pays us a moderate salary and the rest gets distributed.

 

This is works unless different partners make much different amounts of revenue. Also you all have to agree on how much overhead each partner is accountable for. That’s not always easy to do. If one partner makes a ton of revenue and wants to spend a bunch on marketing (or a nicer office or anything really) but another partner makes much lower revenue and also wants marketing but doesn’t want to get hit with the overhead for such marketing because they can’t afford it based on their revenue levels, it creates a pickle. Everyone wants to take advantage of economy of scale but not everyone wants the overhead from it.

 

Oh I get that. We have one area of law we practice so it's not really that hard to differentiate for us.

 

We set a budget, estimate revenue, and set tiers of compensation.

Everyone gets a monthly draw that is set at 60% of annual compensation. For example, 500,000 at 60% is 300,000. Divided by 12 is 25,000 a month.

When we close the books, your January draw is the balance, including any profit or missed budget that year.

 

Today we learned that herb is taking home 800k a year.

 

Those are plaintiffs’ numbers.

 

never knew wishcasting about Ohio going blue was so lucrative

 

Just going with the straight brag. No humble. Respect.

 

What do yall do if someone doesn't cover their own overhead? Do they have to pay the firm back?

 

You don’t get paid until the capital account is good. It’s always good.

 

Do that for a couple years and you get fired or asked to leave

 

really makes you wonder what the hell the rest of us are doing with our lives

 

I think this year could be the year if you ignore the last 50 years and look only at the success of the free soil whigs in the greater Cincinnati metro in the hotly contested 1850 mayoral race



*bill .5 to the Ohio Democratic Party*

 

cleint who has like a 500k case if she makes her doctors appointments but always reschedules called to ask for a $200 advance. tried to tell her like please make your appointments what can i do to help and she just did not fucking get it.

so fun

 

Rule 34(a) says, "Any party may serve on any other party a request . . . to inspect [and] copy . . . any designated documents or electronically stored information . . ."

So why can't I just be like, "Hey defendant, I think I'm just going to come to your office and inspect your servers and emails and copy anything that might be relevant, probative, or that could lead to the discovery of other relevant evidence."

Why isn't this done more?

 

skipped right over the word request

 

Yes, it will catch a shit load of objections, but the rule allows it. And the panic that it will cause might even get the case settled all on its own.

 

Panic ? More like Defense lawyers jerking off to the billables it will create.

 

A contingency fee attorney making this post is certainly something.

 

Florida now has a 90 day time limit on bad faith. Today is day 90 on an obvious limits case

they sent me an email at 5:03 saying they intend to tender and are overnighting a check.


Calling our bad faith guy tomorrow to see if I get to tell them to pound sand for a late tender

 

the actual defendant to panic, who is 100% obstructing.

 

Question for my Lawyer friends here-

I’ve been with my company for 13 years (small recruiting firm ~25 people) and I made Partner in 2019, started at 3%. I bought in 8% more in April 2021, so 11% total. I’ve also got a 10% stake in our 17k sq foot commercial property that we bought in 2021.

I’m considering existing the Partnership to go off on my own for a multitude of reasons.

I have a plethora of questions, but I guess my first question is would it make financial sense? How does one go about leaving that kind of situation?

 

not really my ball of wax but I think you're mashing together portions of the rule not intended to be read together, particularly by skipping the "to produce" part. Yes you get to request production but that's not a right of free access to the opposing party's systems.

 

Appreciate it

 

“Produce and permit to inspect” — I think they have to be two different things because ahy would I need permission to inspect what is produced?

But if I don’t have that ability, discovery is always going to be limited by the honesty of the other party to actually produce shit. There has to be some mechanism to test it when there’s a dishonest party. Which is exactly what I’m dealing with.

 

(b)(2) ...The responding party may state that it will produce copies of documents or of electronically stored information instead of permitting inspection.

The mechanism is a preservation order and get a judge to enforce your discovery request and/or require the other party to pony up its objections.

 

Alabama doesn’t have that limitation in (b)(2)

 

To me, this reads as a presumption against self-help to your opposing party's systems:

The amendment also recognizes that the requesting party may, under appropriate circumstances, be allowed to test or sample the material sought.

However, the court should address confidentiality and privacy issues in determining whether to allow such testing or sampling and the conditions or restrictions under which such testing or sampling is to proceed if allowed.

 

yeah I’m envisioning a special master sitting behind my ESI guy going through everything. Complete pain in the ass, lengthy, expensive, etc.

but if I can get to the systems then I can catch the defendant spoliating evidence and stuff — which they’ve already done some of that. And I want them to think there’s a chance they’ll be totally fucked. Because that increases the chances of settlement.

 

It’s going to depend upon whether you bought into a partnership or an LLC, and then what your partnership agreement or operating agreement says.

If you don’t have a partnership agreement or operating agreement, Ohio has a set of statutes that apply as a default, but again that depends upon what type of form your company operates.

 

there’s a case out of the nd of ill that’s really helpful - dr distributors vs 21st century smoking or something along those lines

there’s also a negligent security case out of the nd of ga that’s helpful hint hint

 

Have a family member whose wife filed for divorce without an attorney. I know one should always hire one but wondering if he should try to amicably resolve before doing so. I don’t know the time limits in Florida for this sort of thing.

 

You already know the answer to this question

 

Problem of course is that he’s going to expect me to help.

 

I always tell people who ask me for legal advice outside my field, "would you ask a dermatologist to give you advice on a heart condition you have?"

It's always amicable until someone decides it is not. You can have an amicable divorce while being represented by an attorney.

 

Do they have any assets? How long were they married?

if they weren’t married long enough for alimony to be available and they don’t have any assets, they can probably do it themselves just fine


If they have kids, were married more than 2 years, or have significant assets, they need a lawyer

 

He’s going to need a lawyer.

 

If it's truly an uncontested divorce, the legal fee will be small, and isn't worth trying to do pro se to avoid.

 

just got a quote from some dumbass pain doctor for his depo

he wants 2k to reserve the time and then 2k an hour and if we need to reschedule he wants another 2k

wtf