- Quickdraw McLaw
- 26 Comments
- 248 Views
Go check out this article from The State about how the South Carolina solicitor’s office is retraining lawyers after prosecutor errors resulted in a dismissal. While this didn’t happen in Nevada, it easily could have. There is no shortage of commenters who love to talk about law schools are a waste of time and money and produce graduates that do not know the first thing about the practice of law. But what do you think? Are the skills that a good lawyer needs able to be easily taught in law school? Give the specific needs of certain practice areas, can and should schools focus just on the general areas like legal writing? What do you find to be the most important skill set to have in your practice? Are you a natural or did you learn it? If you could tell new law students the most important skill to develop, what would you recommend?
I want to thank Elizabeth Gonzalez for screwing up our client's case and giving them a good appeal. It is all on the record now.
Cool story bro.
Betsey is the best, not.
The most important skill is identifying and researching issues. You can't write well if you can't think and research well. I don't think our law school is doing a good job teaching issue identification and research skills. Not sure about other schools but the emphasis on legal writing is misplaced–if you can't think and research writing tricks won't help.
We know absolutely about your case or why you lost. We only know you are really pissed.
You of course have a right to vent on this blog, but what tends to be really helpful for others is if attorneys with some level of meaningful experience before a judge observe something that we might benefit from–e.g. Judge X tends not to read the briefs and is not well prepared, Judge Y favors certain attorneys, Judge Z can be prone to a vile temperament, Judge W strictly enforces deadlines, Judge P does not tend to enforce deadliness, or even to be aware of the deadlines.
That all said I can certainly relate to the intense frustration when after so much attorney time and expenditure of resources a judge seems to really blow the call. So, if that is truly the case, I wish you the very best with the appeal.
8:52 is in response to 8:22.
Here is a skill set that I struggle with that I would like to get feedback on. I am bad at juggling multiple tasks and multiple cases. It feels like I am always behind on getting stuff done, frustrating both clients and opposing counsel. It is not for a lack of effort on my part. It is particularly hard because of all the different directions I am pulled in a day. Any suggestions? (Especially from people who have struggled with this and overcome it).
You have got to order and laminate your time. One of the big things that helped me: set a dedicated time to respond to client calls, say from 3:30 to 4:30 each day. All clients calling you are informed of this by your staff or your VM system, and are directed to leave a good call back number for during that time period and their specific question. This way you will not be constantly interrupted by client calls during the day.
And: Adderall.
I worked in ID for a while where people were juggling dozens of cases. The best thing I saw was a progress chart for each case on a single page. After finishing some task I would highlight where on the progress chart that case is and what needs to happen next with the due date. This kept every case on a single sheet of paper with all deadlines in one place.
9:13 AM,
OP here. I don't work in ID, but a lot of my work would be expedited and made more efficient by a checklist. I've actually thought about doing this. I can't decide HOW to do the checklist. Is it something electronic that I and everyone else on my team can access? That seems problematic because anyone can change it at any time. OTOH, a printed checklist seems inconvenient physically, but more likely to be accurate. What about this idea? A binder with all of my checklistable cases, in numerical case order. After each task, the person who does it signs off and dates it. I review it at least once a week to make sure things are getting done and not languishing.
9:10 and 9:13 offer excellent suggestions.
I think a mistake many attorneys make is what projects they will work on during days where they have no court hearings, depositions, or emergency pending deadlines. Some attorneys don't really have too many such days, and are constantly in court and dealing with a pending deadline where they need to get a detailed opposition in within two days, or whatever.
But for many attorneys there are days which are less intense, although they are always at risk of falling far behind if they don't work hard and long each and every day. For those less intense days, where there is no court hearing or immediate deadline on something that must be completed and filed, many attorneys just go to work with no game plan as to which files they will work on, and then the work day just then seems to develop and proceed somewhat arbitrarily–i.e. I'll work this file for a bit, then that one, return a few calls, etc.
But a more effective approach, to help avoid even further behind, is when tomorrow is going to be one of those less intense days(no court, no depos., no serious immediate deadlines for filings) map out in advance the best approach–e.g. form 8:30 to 10:00 will work on the Walker file, from 10:00 to 12:00 will complete research on the Johnson case so we have all the case cites ready when we start preparing thee motion or brief next week–that type of thing.
But this is only effective if undue interruptions can be avoided or at least significantly reduced. therefore, as 9:10 suggests, if you put 3:30 to 5:00 aide to returning calls, have your staff inform the clients who called in, if your staff was not able to sufficiently address matters with them, that you will call back, or email back, between 3:30 and 5:00.
Now that won't work with my client. If they call at 9:12 they expect me to call back by 9:18. But it may work with your clients. You presumably have much better clients, and much better client control, than I ever did.
I work in ID.
What has helped me are lists. I have a case list that has all my cases and includes the deadlines and dates of my last status letter. The list also includes the judge name and medical specials.
I have another to do list where I have all the shit I have to do. At the top of my to do list is a priority list for the week where I list all the shit I need to get done in that particular week.
9:13 here. I had my own personal word doc on my desktop. Only I had access to it since it was more for my own organization. I'd just type in details or dates on each update and move the yellow highlighting over a space. It doesn't work all that great with guiding discovery since the type of discovery necessary will change with every case, but it was great with keeping track of status reports, CMO/discovery deadlines, and settlement filings.
If you have paralegals/secretaries doing some of the more routine stuff then I don't see an issue with giving them access. Just depends on your setup.
It's absolutely a good idea to retrain your lawyers. Law school teaches broad strokes in a broad array of legal fields. Crim law, research and writing, biz orgs, family, insurance, constitutional law, real estate, contracts, and even niche areas.
Plus, people fall into jobs they didn't anticipate in areas of law they didn't focus on in law school. But even if you planned on being a prosecutor, refreshers on core principles are never a bad idea.
As far as whether law school is a waste of time, I don't think it is. At least not the first two years. The third year might be unnecessary.
In case you missed this: https://kevin.lexblog.com/2019/10/07/amazon-enters-legal-services-market-for-businesses-world-wide/
"Though the law firms are not named, Amazon has apparently chosen and vetted participating IP law firms for experience, expertise, and customer service, and “all have agreed to competitive, pre-negotiated rates for the standard services involved in obtaining a trademark registration.”
Earlier in the article:
"Lest you think companies selling on Amazon won’t use the network law firms to file trademark applications, the companies who do so will receive preferential treatment from Amazon’s stores."
Vetting my ass. Only "vetting" is whether the firm would agree to lower its rates in exchange for being promoted by Amazon.
Also, Amazon is not really getting into the legal services market, at least not itself, as the title seems to suggest. It's just broadened its "affiliate program" or whatever it's called to include IP law firms.
"I recently visited Latin America. It made me wish that I had studied Latin while in school so I could have communicated better with those people down there in Latin America."–a Boyd Graduate.
Here's this ructabunde again.
Advena fui in terra aliena
In addition to 9:41, here is another quote from the same Boyd graduate, from the same discussion. After the graduate discussed how his last vacation was to Latin America, he discussed how his next vacation would be to the British Isles:
"My next vacation will be to England. I learned that the Queen is 93. It's simply amazing that at that age she can keep drafting and passing a bunch of new laws all the time."–a Boyd graduate.
President Trump today nominated Senior Judge Jennifer Togliatti to be United States District Judge for the District of Nevada.
Is this a joke?
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/trump-nominates-nevada-judge-for-federal-bench-1871985/
Not a joke. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-judicial-nominees-7/
Kind of an odd choice but everyone knows right, this could have been 1000 times worse. This even borders on sensible.
Not an odd choice in the slightest. More federal connections than Navarro when appointed.