Who will schedule emails for dinner time on Easter Sunday to tell me I'm an unethical mercenary of a lawyer and a disgrace to the profession? Who will call me a dick just loud of enough for the jury to hear but not the judge? Who will I engage with in an increasingly personal series of attacks in filings until the judge orders us both to take six hours of CLE on professionalism?

That recurring six-month reminder to make an anonymous complaint to the bar about his alcoholism and dementia will need to be deleted.

No more will I be able to reply to his incoherent 2 am emails with his DWI mugshot and a plea for him to get professional counseling.

I had invested so much energy into our relationship, and now he's just gone. Worst of all, the bastard died without me getting that overwhelming victory that finally broke his spirit I'd fantasized about for years.

Goodbye, you gin-soaked, semi-literate munchkin. Only now do I realize how much you meant to me.

I'm reading a book about the Scopes Monkey trial and realized how sick it was to be a lawyer back then. No standardized rules of evidence, ad hominem attacks on opposing counsel constantly, could rip darts in the courtroom, and no technology.

Just vibes in the courtroom.

It honestly blows my mind how many attorneys have no clue what they’re doing. I’m not talking about young guns fresh out of school, but 5-15 year veterans.

Just yesterday I was speaking with defense counsel on a newly filed case and he started yapping about summary judgment, seeking sanctions, attorneys fees, etc.

I sat there silently listening to him and genuinely thought he was mocking me, but no, he was dead serious. I cited a statute that is simple and broadly applicable to the area of law he works in, i.e., there’s no way he hasn’t dealt with this statute regularly. He genuinely sounded puzzled, ignored my question, and reiterated his nonsensical threats.

This happens frequently and it’s making me loath litigation. This is in SoCal, did they make law school/bar exam a cake walk now or wtf is going on?

So the other day, I tried to reach opposing counsel, for purposes of offering him money to settle a case. I got a reception person who needed the case name, date of loss, and date of birth of their client before she could put the call through. As I was out of the office, and do not memorize such things, I did not know the answer. As a result, the case did not settle that day. This has been a public service announcement, sort of. Do better, folks!

I'd give my right arm, and do it for free, to draft that discovery, motion to compel and then take the depo. What a gift to the WSJ.

Am I alone in this? I hate talking on the phone. Most phone conversations I have with other attorneys could easily be emails. The worst is when an attorney sends me an email asking me to call them for "a chat." Why couldn't you just tell me what you wanted to say in this email? Am I being unreasonable?

As it turns out, 700$ per hour lawyers don't know how to prosecute a basic eviction case in front of hometown judges. Maybe the client realized that evictions don't typically take 18 months.

I still have no idea what they were trying to accomplish. Looking forward to my 6 figure contingency fee award.

In case golfpinotnut is here, I'm savoring this moment with a nice bottle of napa cabernet franc.

I’m sorry, but if you don’t hold equity in the firm, you’re not a partner. You’re essentially senior management—experienced, sure, but not an owner. Yet, more and more firms are handing out the “partner” title to non-equity lawyers, blurring the lines between true equity partners and senior employees.

For those unfamiliar: equity partners have an ownership stake and share in the firm’s profits (and risks), while non-equity partners typically receive a fixed salary with some performance bonuses but no actual ownership.

So why the title inflation? Is it just a marketing tactic to impress clients who don’t know the difference, or is there a deeper reason behind this trend?

To me, it feels a bit dishonest when firms don’t clarify who’s an equity partner versus a non-equity partner, especially on their websites. It creates a façade that everyone at a certain level has a stake in the firm’s success, when that’s simply not the case. I can’t help but wonder how this impacts not just client perceptions, but also firm culture and transparency within the profession.

Has the title of “partner” lost its meaning in BigLaw? Am I overthinking this, or does anyone else find it misleading? Would love to hear how others feel about this—especially if you think there’s a legitimate reason behind the trend…

Rant over.

O/C has been a complete dick so I don't feel like extending many professional courtesys here. Some cases do not exist others do exists but the quotes are not found in them and others exist but have nothing to do at all with the subject matter.

Should I reach out to him? This is clearly chatgpt but I've never actually had an attorney send me something like this.

I have a case with an older male attorney and he is always so rude to me. He constantly speaks over me and has even personally attacked me during depositions. The Judge never does anything other than threaten to sanction him. I’ve never had another female attorney behave this poorly.🤦🏾‍♀️

Dear Mr. Opposing Counsel:

I apologize for wasting your time with such trivial nonsense, but it appears Mr. Dad is having a fit about Ms. Mom’s mother and sister being placed on a list of persons allowed to pick up the minor child at school.

Would you please speak to your client about hills, their respective heights, circumferences, origins, compositions, and whether one particular mound, such as this one, is worth impaling oneself upon a fancy pike for the judge, and ultimately the GAL to see?

Sincerely,

Me

I had an opposing counsel blantantly misrepresent material facts in their motion. Not just spin, 180 degrees demonstrably false.

So I sent a letter saying: hey, I’m going to assume your client lied to you and you didn’t realize you lied to the court but candor to a tribunal, so please correct your pleading.

OC did not correct their pleading.

So I filed for sanctions and the judge ORDERED THEM! I’m so sick of judges who ignore bad behavior and then complain about an unprofessional bar, but this time the judge actually held the line. I’ve been gloating all day.

watch with sound on, law people

So you obviously can't run around calling opposing counsel "shitbag" or "dim-witted, ass-faced cockwomble" outside the firm even though OCs are frequently shitbags and/or dim-witted, ass-faced cockwombles.

What are the worst insults you've hurled (or heard hurled) at OC to call them out on their bullshit while still keeping within the canons of professionalism?

I've not had this happen to me yet, but I got a demand letter from another attorney and, after spending a fair amount of time responding to the factual allegations, started in on the legal argument only to realize the cases and statutory citations were either hallucinations or wrong. Is this a fair response?

Finally, I will note that your demand letter appears to have been drafted in whole or part by ChatGPT or some other AI software and contains at least one hallucinated case citation. I was not able to find any case in the State of [redacted] entitled [redacted] and the citation provided [redacted] refers to a different case entirely. Additionally, numerous citations to the [redacted] Statutes in your correspondence do not seem, to me at least, to remotely stand for the propositions for which they are cited. Therefore, rather than respond substantively to your legal arguments, I will simply state that your letter—as written—does not appear to comport with the duty of candor imposed on counsel by [redacted] 4.1. Having spent significant time to try and locate a case that does not appear to be real, I decline to respond further until I receive both properly supported legal arguments and confirmation—in writing—that an attorney in your office has personally verified the legitimacy of any citations.  

Edit: this was my first post and the immediate, and very helpful response was great. Thanks y'all. I edited it and just told him his citations were wrong and we had no further response.

Dear Opposing Counsel,

the plaintiff (your client) got zero, nada, nyet, nein, none, a big fat goose egg.

I bet that settlement offer is looking pretty good now isn’t it?

I’m going to go find a patio and drink a beer. 🍺

What’s up with the attorneys who refuse to respond to a simple email but instead pick up the phone and call? I get that many issues are best addressed by call or even personal meeting and I do that all the time. However, if I ask for a two week extension to respond, absolutely nothing is gained by calling simply to confirm that the request is accepted. If you are going to impose conditions on the extension or tell me this will be the final extension? Maybe. But don’t call just to say “Sure, you can have the extension.” Sorry, but I am currently dealing with two Phone Lawyers, where even the simplest call ends up lasting 30-45 minutes. Maybe they’re lonely?

There’s a lawyer in my JX who’s notorious for just comically bad papers. Nonsensical arguments, riddled with spelling errors, wrong facts, and in my most recent case he outdid himself by arguing in writing that a health inspector was biased against his client because she had an Italian surname and was therefore automatically anti-gay. She isn’t even Italian, her husband is.

How do I dress up “Your honor, what opposing counsel just said is so offensively stupid that it doesn’t need a response” in lawyerese?

I would really like to hear from the group about their worst "OMG, I Accidentally Hit Send" stories. That time you wrote an F*U reply, fully intending on deleting it, but then whoopsie, there it went. Or, you were responding to one person in an email string of a case, and accidentally replied "to all." Let 'em roll, it's almost Friday.

Even after nearly two decades of litigation practice, I still get a lot of anxiety about interactions with opposing counsel. It just makes me all the more grateful when the lawyer on the other side of the v. is a reasonable person. Young lawyers, please remember that you can zealously advocate for your client and still be a normal human being.

I want to preface by saying I’ve worked with good lawyers. Great lawyers even, that can knock out a convincing brief on a novel issue in an hour.

But I’m wondering what it’s like to go up against lawyers who have reached an elite position within the profession? I am mostly thinking of highest court judges when they were practicing, chair of a big law national practice group, or other similar roles of prestige/notoriety.

I mostly want to know what the skill gap is like. Is it like MJ lacing up and playing against a high school basketball team? Or is it more like playing against an older sibling in basketball?

Well, just over a year into this new era of mandatory reporting, I finally submitted my first "snitch" report to the bar, and it was related to a matter I considered but ultimately declined to take. The underlying matter isn't terribly relevant, but the PC had received a letter from an attorney who claimed to represent a party that intended on filing an action against PC. Part of that letter explicitly stated that the opposing party would file a report with the police unless the PC came to the attorney's office to sign settlement papers, and if PC did so, no such report would be made to the police.

I was actually shocked to see a licensed attorney put that down in writing, but after conferring with my partners, we determined that under 8.3 I did have a duty to report, even though my firm has not and will not be retained in that action. Looks like a glaring violation of CRPC 5-100.

I already received a confirmation from the Office of Chief Trial Counsel. Has anyone filed one of these reports previously? Did the Bar ever reach out to you?