Job Tips: Friends In Law Places

One of our readers wants your input on making friends in the legal profession. How do lawyers make new friends? Do you rely on your coworkers to become your friends? Are you still friends with your classmates from law school? When was the last time you made a new friend? Any tips on how to go about finding a new friend in the legal profession? Should you avoid being friends with lawyers? What about judges, any tips for them? Do you recommendations change for someone who has lived here a long time versus someone who just moved here?

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Anonymous
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Anonymous
February 13, 2024 9:59 am

These are the places where I have found friends: Church, friends of friends, political organizations, civic organizations, neighbors, clients, other professionals. The more you interact with others, the more friends you’ll make. There’s no secret formula. Just be proactive and put yourself out there.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 10:04 am

I tend to not really hang out with lawyers outside of work. Frankly we spend enough time at work and nine times out of ten the conversation goes to law,,,, which i am usually trying to avoid when i’m not in our offices. I made most of my ‘new friends’ from the gym,, not like a ‘big box’ but the smaller crossfit/raw fitness type situations.
New friends,,, I have made friends with parents of my kids friends at school. The kids are young so it’s not at the point of just dropping them off at places.

Last edited 11 months ago by Anonymous
Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 10:42 am

The only real friend is an old friend.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:01 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
New-made friendships, like new wine,
Age will mellow and refine.
Friendships that have stood the test—
Time and change—are surely best;
Brow may wrinkle, hair grow gray,
Friendship never knows decay.
For ‘mid old friends, tried and true,
Once more we our youth renew.
But old friends, alas! may die,
New friends must their place supply.
Cherish friendship in your breast—
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
– Joseph Parry

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:14 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Seems like the Boydsters have all the friends they need from Bishop Gorman, UNLV undergrad and UNLV Law classmates It is the transplants who are open to make new friends. Boyd UNLV followed its path of becoming the dominant alumni. They have their own groups and often shy away from other organizations. So if you are going to make new friends it will be with the transplants who are not as connected to the community as the in grown “Born and Raised” crowd.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:28 am
Reply to  Anonymous

The law school I attended dominated the metro it’s located in. If you didn’t go to that school, you are probably not going to work in that metro. That’s typical. What’s not typical is Boyd’s very weak, very passive relationship with the Vegas legal labor market. It was super easy to come here, nobody cared that I didn’t go to Boyd. Boyd doesn’t even have a faint control of this market, much less “dominant.” My firm regularly hires new grads, nobody from Boyd career services has ever reached out to us. So we continue to hire from out of state.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:33 am
Reply to  Anonymous

So many judges now are Boyd alum. They have their own placement site and a lot of positions never get advertised/recruited outside the Boyd network.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 12:43 pm

The bench bar meeting mailing list is on the verge of a Reply-Allapololypse. I am hoping this happens.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 12:44 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

*Allpocalypse

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 4:58 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Share the deets!

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 11:55 am
Reply to  Anonymous

The Zoom did not work. Thats all it was.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 12:55 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Oh. Well that’s anticlimactic. Par for the course.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 3:00 pm

I want zero to do with any of the peckers from law school. That includes the alleged professors.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 11:03 am
Reply to  Anonymous

alleged. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 3:16 pm

Make friends with lawyers outside your practice area. Give freely of your advice. Find good attorneys to refer your clients to and they’ll return the favor. Don’t be a dick to opposing counsel. Cuss a lot in the elevators at the RJC. It lets people know you’re cool.

Brandon Kemble, Immediate Past President, CCBA
Guest
Brandon Kemble, Immediate Past President, CCBA
February 13, 2024 4:07 pm

Let’s see. You could go to a mixer with about 500 judges and pillars of the legal community, attend a Golden Knight’s game with other members of the bar, do a bar crawl with lawyers, bankers, and legal service providers, attend a lunch time CLE (for free), volunteer for a Law Day activity, do a 5k on a team comprised of members of the legal community, help feed the homeless, judge a moot court competition at UNLV, attend a holiday mixer, go to a luncheon and hear the lawyers who shaped the legal community tell their stories, join a sub-committee to make all these things happen. All this and more are available to you with the Clark County Bar Association – The Fun Bar!

https://clarkcountybar.org/

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 5:48 pm

Observation: The people that attend the things described are “climbers” reaching for political ambition or their next job, or if an older attorney or judge, believing that they are basking in the sunshine of their imagined greatness.
No thanks.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 7:40 am

Bar Humbug.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 5:04 pm

Not sure how recent this is, but looks like Eglet Adams is now

“Eglet, Adams, Ham, Eglet, Henriod”

Congrats to Mr. Ham and Mr. Henriod on the new partnership!

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 5:31 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Ham and other Eglet have already been partners.

I find friends through swinger clubs and my drug dealer.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:49 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Erica is a partner but still not part of firm name.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:22 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Tracy comes 3rd, not fourth. (Eglet Adams Eglet Ham Henriod). The change is only about a month old.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:31 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Art Ham has been there for year so is finally getting recognition.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:35 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

It is nice to see Erica getting some credit. She survived several purges.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:46 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Who is Joel Henriod? There are a few new faces on their website so there was another purge.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:53 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Dennis Prince was their real trial attorney but he’s better on his own.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:57 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

He was at Lewis Roca.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 9:24 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Joel was Dan Polsenberg’s protoge for years. He’s an appellate specialist.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:36 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Years

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:51 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

No no no . Tracy always comes first.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 6:47 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Art has been a partner but not a part of firm name.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 7:01 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

For you young lawyers this firm has a long list of former partners. The Taylor Swift of law firms:

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 7:06 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

We should have a contest to see how many formers partners you can name. I recall Wall, Christiansen, Prince and maybe Cottle?

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 7:09 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Sylvestri?

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 7:27 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Mainor

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 7:34 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Weren’t they once part of Richard Harris?

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 9:50 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

It started as Mainor Harris. Randy split over some issues with Rick and it became Mainor Eglet Cottle. Randy died and Cottle left. Silvestri was ever part of this Eglet firm. I don’t even think they were partners when Eglet did defense work way back in the day.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:32 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Eglet was with Prince for awhile and they broke up. In 2015 or 2016 they went back together but then split up again.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 13, 2024 11:33 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Eglet and Harris then had a very messy split.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 9:25 am
Reply to  Anonymous

*Mainor Harris

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 12:23 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

“Pyatt & Eglet” became “Pyatt Eglet & Sylvestri” around 1996-97ish. Prince was an associate with that firm. Another associate jumped off the Hoover Dam – I think the guy’s name was Mike something. Sad.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:33 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Michael Keahey? He went to Duke. So tragic.

ShihTzuAtLaw
Member
February 15, 2024 8:03 am
Reply to  Anonymous

I was a friend of Mike. So smart and funny in his own way. A truly great person. I remember the day I learned he passed away. Still like a knife to the heart to me to this day. His death happened when I was a fairly young lawyer, and it taught me about what can happen to even an elite, seemingly well adjusted attorney.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 12:20 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Richard Harris and Eglet engaged in some very public litigation over the breakup of Mainor & Harris. Also, Brad Mainor’s departure was a bit dicey.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 12:24 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

And they don’t typically end well for anyone but Eglet. He really is the king of the universe. Gotta admire the guy.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 1:00 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Dennis Prince is doing just fine. Of course, it helps that he is a solid trial attorney.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 2:45 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Hi Dennis 👋

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:13 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Not Dennis. Just giving the man the respect he has earned.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 15, 2024 9:38 am
Reply to  Anonymous

He’s not doing fine, he can’t even afford socks.

GQesq
Member
February 14, 2024 1:55 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

What an active thread! 😅

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 2:15 pm
Reply to  GQesq

I was kind of hoping that it would devolve into a discussion of the Boyd Grads Friendship Universal Network (BGFUN©) but, alas, I have thus far, been disappointed.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:16 pm
Reply to  GQesq

Just talk about Eglet and you will get comments. The clan will just say everyone is jealous but a lot of people got burned along the way.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 10:32 am

For meeting attorneys I’ve found that volunteering at moot court competitions makes it easy to meet new folks. I get to meet a variety of practitioners that I otherwise wouldn’t encounter in my daily practice. Attending CLE conferences for my practice area has been good too. For friends, it’s usually just colleagues (and friends of colleagues they call out to go eat or drink with us) and parents of my kids’ friends.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:02 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

This blog started out about making friends and then turned to the Eglet clan. How ironic. It never ends well (but ultimately ends better) and many of those former partners considered them friends. They found out what ruthless really means.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:03 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Bravo for Dennis Prince. They put him through the meat grinder.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 14, 2024 3:19 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Oh wait. Did you hear about the associate they fired by text on his honeymoon?

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 15, 2024 8:41 am
Reply to  Anonymous

I like Dennis personally. On the one hand, I understand him going back a second time due to the money and involvement in really big cases. On the other hand, Dennis was not shy to talk about what it was like practicing with Bob the first time when they were Eglet Price, ID lawyers.

Reminds me of that scene in “The Departed.”
Billy Costigan: [in Costello’s bar] Frank, how many of these guys have been with you long enough to be disgruntled, huh? Think about it. You don’t pay much, you know. It’s almost a fuckin’ feudal enterprise. The question is, and this is the only question, who thinks that they can do what you do better than you?
Frank Costello: The only one that can do what I do is me. Lot of people had to die for me to be me. You wanna be me?
Billy Costigan: I probably could be you, yeah. Yeah, I know that much. But I don’t wanna be you, Frank. I don’t wanna be you
Frank Costello: Heavy lies the crown… sort of thing.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 15, 2024 11:34 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Perfect

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
February 17, 2024 5:28 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

This scene is on YouTube I just watched it.