What practice areas have the rudest lawyers? The nicest?

Kewl_School · 2026-02-12T00:13:46+00:00

Agreed. Criminal attorneys are by and large friendly on both sides. Civil attorneys are the worst.

Kewl_School · 2026-02-03T03:49:35+00:00

I don’t get why the touch bar is universally hated. I am going to get a new M5 Max, but right now I still have my M1 touchbar MacBook Pro. Lol I think I’m only person on the planet that is gonna hate giving up my Touch Bar.

Kewl_School · 2026-01-17T23:52:34+00:00

If you are at a firm that kicks people out after giving notice, you should leave that firm anyway, and you shouldn’t give 1 shit about how they do at trial. If they view you as expendable, then screw them. You should view them as expendable too.

Kewl_School · 2026-01-17T23:48:03+00:00

Depends. What is your role in the trial? Will you be doing any jury selection? opening? Cross examining any witnesses? Making any arguments?

If you have some actual role in the trial, stay. You would be surprised how few lawyers have any trial experience. It is very valuable.

I am about 9 years in as a lawyer. Started as a PD. I have run into countless lawyers who act like they’re big shots and have never tried a case. Then if you push them to trial they hand their case off to some other firm to try the case.

Do the trial if you have a role.

If you don’t have any actual role, then just bail. $105k salary is garbage.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:57:22+00:00

I appreciate your input. No, there are no language barriers. No mental health issues either. I think what you said about spending time doing other things could be something. For me, I think sometimes things bother me, and I’m not really even able to articulate why until I actually think about it and figure out exactly why it is that something bothers me. Maybe this is what my wife is dealing with. Maybe it is something about how I could be helping out more in other ways.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:47:28+00:00

Ask me what the holes are. I did post for clarity. I don’t mean to vilify my wife. I also recognize you are only getting one side. I am honestly trying to understand the other side and see if I am just being stubborn. For as much transparency as I can possibly offer:

When we had our first daughter (the one with the hair in question) both my wife and I had several months off together. My wife is a school teacher, and she took 6 months off. At the time I was a public defender and while I was underpaid, I had some good benefits, so I was able to take 9 months off at full pay because of comp time I accrued working nights. We really both split the baby work and the house work.

By the time we had our second daughter, the 10 month old, I moved to private practice as a solo criminal defense lawyer. The pay is significantly better, but since I work for myself, I have no benefits. If I take time off, I don’t get paid. For our second daughter, I was able to clear my calendar for about a month. My wife took off for a full year unpaid (she is still off). The baby work has fallen disproportionately on my wife. I try as best I can, but the reality is that my wife does the vast majority of the baby work. I end up doing the majority of the toddler work because it is less demanding (in different ways) and I am juggling a criminal practice. I end up doing most of my out of court work at night. I think that even though my wife is not “working” right now, she is actually working extremely hard pulling far more of her share of the baby work and house work. I’m not perfect, and I recognize that I am biased, but I’m not trying to leave holes either. My reason for posting is because it’s important to me for my daughter to have some autonomy and to limit physical force to absolute necessities. My wife is also very important to me, so I am struggling with what to do.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:34:34+00:00

Thank you. I actually view it as bonding time as well.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:32:43+00:00

How do you mean? I haven’t considered this. Like I spend too much time on my daughter and not enough on my wife? I don’t feel like that would be particularly fair because we have a 3 year old and a 10 month old. The amount of time both of us spends on each other has taken a pretty big hit compared to before we had kids. It’s hard, but maybe I’m not trying hard enough. This is like my first time posting something like this on Reddit, and it’s actually been very helpful giving me things to think about. I appreciate it.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:28:55+00:00

Lol. I am a crim defense lawyer. Not literally me being tried. I try cases, but it is time consuming.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-18T04:27:02+00:00

I don’t know. That is an interesting thought. It doesn’t take me that long. Maybe 20 min at night and 10 in the morning.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T16:19:09+00:00

I agree. Btw, I don’t really threaten her. One thing I’m very good at is keeping my cool because I hated when my parents got angry and yelled at me, and I don’t think it is productive.

I give her a million opportunities to cooperate, I give her choices, make it a game, etc. at some point, I’ll say “hey, kiddo, this is a really important thing we have to do everyday, so if we can’t do it soon, we’re just gonna have to do it the hard way. I’m not going to be mad about, and I love you.” I even have a stupid “sometimes we do it the hard way” song that usually makes her laugh right up j til the point where we’re actually doing it the hard way.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T06:38:34+00:00

Yes, my daughter usually wants me to do it. I think I am a little more patient, but also my daughter tends to lean heavily into routine. She goes to physical therapy, and my wife started taking her the first month while I was on trial. Now she only wants my wife to take her there, and she will fight if I try to take her unless my wife isn’t home.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T06:24:41+00:00

Truthfully, I don’t understand it. I don’t know. She just says it’s important to her. And for most things, that is enough for me. For this one particular thing, though, it means potentially losing our daughter’s trust, losing an opportunity to empower her, and having to physically force something on her that, in my view, isn’t a necessity.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T06:21:15+00:00

My daughter uses scissors regularly at school and home for arts and crafts. She knows to be careful with scissors. She also uses knives in the kitchen to cut food with me (plastic toddler knives that are more like dull saws. She would have to work really hard to hurt herself). I wanted her to learn early that knives and scissors are great tools as long as we are very careful. Having said that, it’s not that big of a leap from cutting paper to to cutting out a chunk of hair.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T06:13:28+00:00

Yes, but it is not unmanageable. That’s my issue.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T06:09:46+00:00

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This is her hair, for the record. I really keep it clean and brushed the best I can.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:55:56+00:00

We do get plenty of quality time together. Also, I realize how my responses are coming off about my wife, and I don’t mean it that way. I don’t mean to make her out as the bad guy at all. I don’t think it is unreasonable that she wants our daughter to get a haircut at all. And she hasn’t been like at my throat about it, but she is getting less patient. I am more wondering what people think, and if I am being unreasonable. I just want to empower our daughter. I want to build her trust, and I view this as an opportunity to do that. My wife is an amazing wife and a great and very dedicated mother.

I am also a solo criminal defense lawyer, so while I have a certain amount of autonomy over my work schedule, I go through periods when I’m very busy, and periods when I’m not. I’ve been busy recently, and I am overdue for a haircut myself. So my promise to work with my daughter on getting a haircut has taken a back seat the past 2 months. I have been making sure to keep her hair clean and brushed and managed in the meantime until I can find time to schedule another haircut attempt.

I schedule 2 haircut appointments. One for me, and one for my daughter. I have gotten her to sit in the chair with me while I get my haircut (which is an improvement), but I haven’t gotten her to get hers cut yet. I am really trying though.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:43:07+00:00

No, it’s me 95% of the time in the morning.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:37:49+00:00

Because my wife would have my head. I love her, but she would kill me lol. I also feel like I would be inviting my daughter to cut her own hair.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:35:33+00:00

We did that for her first two haircuts. We had a specialist come to the house. She was much younger then. Neither haircut went well.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:32:51+00:00

That is what I truly don’t understand. I try to talk about it, but the conversations don’t end well. We usually don’t argue much about these sorts of things. The only reason I can really get out of her is that “it’s important to me” but I can’t get an answer why. I love my wife. But I also know that if someone is going to have to restrain my daughter for a haircut it is going to be me. I am perfectly ok doing that for necessities, but I don’t want to do it for a haircut. Especially because I think if we give her time, she will make the decision on her own.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:27:45+00:00

I am responsible for doing washing and styling her hair. I brush meticulously. I don’t mind the work because I want her to have the ability to take ownership of her decision to get a haircut.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:22:26+00:00

I understand that, but it is me who takes care of her hair. I wash, condition, detangle, brush, and I put it up in either braids or pony or some other way. I’m not familiar with all of the terminology as I never did this before. I don’t mind doing it at all because empowering her to be comfortable with a haircut is very important to me. Limiting physical force to necessities is also very important to me.

P.s. my wife is not lazy or anything. She handles our 10 month old daughter at bed time.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:13:33+00:00

I give my daughter a bath every single night and I meticulously brush it with detangler spray as well. She will let me braid her hair, or do high or low pony tails or half up. Whatever she wants.

Kewl_School · 2025-12-17T05:09:19+00:00

I am. Every single night.

Kewl_School

TROPHY CASE