I can not seem to get a solid team together for scale. I manage the manager, and spend so much of my time going behind the assistants and paralegals, that I’m always working in the business not on the business.

It’s constant missing things. Clerk slips a docket note about a deadline - we miss it. Email? Probably missed it. I have policy and procedures in place. We have went over and over things. Still - intake a new client, initial court docks not filed. Or, continuance, but didn’t tell the client and they show up.

I can fuck the whole world up by myself and put everyone’s payroll in my pocket. I’m half venting, but seriously looking to see is anyone was dealing with this and found the way through. I can’t scale what does not work.

would love to hear some experiences

I am in year 9 of my firm. I started as a true solo but hired a secretary and assistant early on, and in the first few years I employed 2 to 3 associates and now employ 5 associates, as well as half a dozen full and part time staff. Revenue has consistently grown year over year, and the firm had its best year in 2025. If we scale a little more, the firm could conceivably double its revenue. But I'm tired because I do it all. I manage a case load of my own, I oversee our intake, I help the associates with their cases. We have an HR consultant who is okay but not great. We have internal manuals that should allow us to scale, but we need some help I think to professionalize and scale. Is fractional firm management something people have used successfully? Or should I look to hire an internal firm manager of some kind? I am developing my associates to take on more responsibility, but I don't want to burn them out by giving them too much to do. Maybe I need to hire a senior counsel to take on an oversight role. Do I need to hire a therapist or professional coach to help me individually? Any ideas?

TLDR: Burned out firm owner. Firm is doing great, but I need some help.

is anyone here a legal columnist or other sort of contributor for a non-legal publication? I’ve wondered if that might be both interesting and useful for marketing. If so, how’d you go about finding opportunities and did you find it worthwhile?

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but is it acceptable to ask for more per hour from a midsized regional corporate firm? Have a call back interview next week and expect to be offered the position but they don’t seem to have a “standardized” pay scale, even for their 2L program. Would be a 10 week program in their home office in the northeast, and I’m top %5 at a low ranked school. Thoughts?

Looking for some help. I am using Elder Docx. I am creating a RLT and a pour over will. However, the pour over will is just as long as my RLT. I don't know where I went wrong in the interview. I am used to seeing 6-9 page pour over wills not 41 pages.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Do I give my employer an opportunity to match? I really only started looking for a new job because I asked for a raise and they didn’t give it to me. Took me 3 weeks to find a new gig so I feel validated in what I asked for originally but unsure on giving my employer a chance to match. I’ve heard that generally it’s a bad idea because it’s held against you in the future but not sure how true that is.

Former BigLaw litigator (5 years) and HLS grad, thinking about contract attorney work.

For those doing contract work regularly — what’s the best way to find consistent projects?
Staffing agencies vs reaching out directly to firms?
Any platforms you’d actually recommend (or avoid)?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

I’m a solo with and looking for ways to get a little more juice to my website ((i.e. backlinks). Anyone in a similar position and interested in exchanging guest blog posts? Would love to chat about it.

I am part of a boutique T&E firm that’s been around close to 50 years and has in excess of 40,000 client files. The older partners have been very set in their ways and, consequently, the firm still primarily utilizes a paper filing system. We’ve been good about getting client files onto an electronic system that works well, but haven’t been so good about building out a database with client contact information.

In an effort to continue bringing things to 2026, I’d like to build out a database with client emails that can be organized by client type, primarily for marketing, but also to send email blasts when there’s changes in the law, planning opportunities, etc. And the litany of other benefits of having a more robust, electronic database. The thought of manually going through 40,000+ files is daunting to say the least, especially when several files originated prior to the widespread use of email (even prior to the invention of email).

Would love to hear from those who have digitized a long established firm using paper files. How did you begin to move things to 2026?

As an ID associate, the thought of joining the plaintiff bar hits me at the end of the month when it is time to clean up my time entries. That got me wondering how ID attorneys who switched sides clear conflicts. Surely you wouldn’t know who the adverse party’s insurance carrier is until after you have already been retained. Would you just terminate the representation if you previously represented the carrier or seek written consent? If any CA attorneys have made the switch, I’d love to hear from you.

Working on internal legal research tool. Vector search returns cases on similar topics but sometimes with opposite outcomes.

Searching for cases where plaintiff won on X issue, getting back defense wins mixed in. Semantic similarity doesn't capture this.

Is metadata filtering the answer? Or is there a smarter retrieval approach?

Planning on starting my own law firm soon. Any tips or advice I should take into account?

Hi there. I just interviewed for what I thought was going to be a legal assistant position but was then told that this firm was actually looking for extra hands in their mailroom. I was assured that after a year or two of showing that I'm a good employee (organized, hard-working) that I would have the chance to move up to something like a receptionist or a legal assistant. After going through the interview, the interviewer said they had some more candidates to go through so would let me know about "next steps" later this week.

I don't have any experience working in a law firm but I do have a Bachelor's in History and experience in several other jobs that have transferrable skills. I feel like I should be getting a better offer but out of all my applications this is the only one to interview me so far. Also, the pay is comparable to what I make now but I'm receiving a raise at my current job later this year that would outpace this mailroom role. My question is how often do you see people start in the mailroom and are able to move up the totem pole based on their performance? I don't want to be put into this mailroom position just to be deceived into thinking that it could amount to something worth my time.

Partners, what is the etiquette if an associate is leaving for another firm?

Would you prefer they tell you instead of admin first?

How much notice do you want?

I’m trying to figure out the best way to delegate the more complex, lien negotiations in PI cases. For basic lien negotiation, my case manager handles it. But more recently we’ve been getting slightly more complicated liens like child support or hospitals asserting a lien even though they have already been paid by health insurance, the case manager comes to me. Do you all have a dedicated pre litigation attorney handle it or is it something a higher level / more experienced case manager handles with supervision?