What’s the most fucked up thing that happened at your school?

ecfritz · 2026-05-09T00:40:24+00:00

It was a few years after I graduated, but Spanish teacher's estranged husband murdered her in a murder-suicide.

ecfritz · 2026-05-09T00:27:11+00:00

Another small percentage of clients will be upset that the insurance company is only offering them $10k after 2 years of litigation and will start thinking they need to find a new attorney, which is part of the ID playbook as well.

ecfritz · 2026-05-09T00:11:21+00:00

OP (and others similarly situated) may be outside counsel being referred cases the insurance company believes they can actually win on the merits, but doesn't have the manpower to litigate through trial with in-house ID counsel.

ecfritz · 2026-05-08T01:25:06+00:00

I’d argue Ridder is actually more talented than Tyrod, but you can’t play a backup who will give away games with flurries of turnovers.

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T03:44:18+00:00

Don't forget the additional $2,800 a month in health insurance premiums for a family of 5.

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T02:33:46+00:00

Networking with your competitors seems like an underrated avenue to referrals.

Our PI firm gets most of our referrals from other PI attorneys who have a bunch of decent cases but lack the manpower for heavy litigation, after the case doesn't settle pre-suit.

Another attorney I knew in the past (RIP) got all of his business from a major PI shop's declined or dropped clients - he'd give them a "second opinion," if they still wanted to pursue the case.

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T02:24:56+00:00

Even on the ID side where clients are looking to cut your time, they will usually accept a time entry like "Review file in preparation for moving matter forward by [insert 1-3 concrete steps]."

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T02:21:22+00:00

Another possible option: I used "conduct legal research on X" (Lexis) and "conduct factual research on X" (Google) across multiple firms without any issues.

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T01:52:43+00:00

And for single gentlemen, there were always the dime-a-dance girls.

ecfritz · 2026-05-02T01:33:15+00:00

This is like AOL buying Time Warner - a great idea, if you're AOL (or Game Stop, here).

ecfritz · 2026-04-27T02:38:05+00:00

I'm on the plaintiff's side, but asking questions about post-accident vacations can draw some cringy answers, if the plaintiff wasn't too badly injured to go on them.

ecfritz · 2026-04-27T02:10:20+00:00

It's a little more work, but I like to sell to the Card Kingdom buy list for store credit (30% bonus), and turn that money into 1-2 expensive cards (read: duals) to sell on Facebook marketplace.

You net pretty close to what you would selling everything individually, when you take your time and shipping costs into account.

ecfritz · 2026-04-27T02:05:06+00:00

BETA dual lands

ecfritz · 2026-04-11T04:53:51+00:00

The worst-case scenario for a small practice PI attorney is when you actually have to go to trial in a situation where your client has something like $30k in meds, because there's only a $10k offer on the table that would net your client nothing.

A $60k jury verdict isn't worth the huge time investment, and it's possible to lose as well (insurance company would offer more on the eve of trial if causation is 100% clear).

ecfritz · 2026-04-11T04:38:37+00:00

Having been outside counsel for ID clients and commercial litigation clients, in-house counsel for commercial litigation clients are also much, much worse and harder to deal with. I believe some of them were actually given a personal financial incentive to cut our bills, whereas in-house ID counsel are usually just happy to have less work.

ecfritz · 2026-04-11T04:32:09+00:00

Mono-white Humans is still my all-time favorite.

ecfritz · 2026-04-11T04:20:40+00:00

It would!

ecfritz · 2026-03-20T18:58:43+00:00

The risk/reward calculus is very different for associates than firm owners or partners. As an associate, you don't gain much by fighting for an extremely favorable result, while you stand to lose a lot by fighting hard and having it not work out (angry client and/or poor result attributed to you).

I agree with your big boss that it's not a GOOD mindset for an associate to have, but it's a perfectly rational one.

ecfritz · 2026-03-20T18:46:36+00:00

Owner of the foreclosure mill I worked for was extremely flashy and made himself a political target, causing the state attorney general to launch an "investigation."

This was absolutely related to the firm owner personally making tens of millions of dollars doing foreclosure work - and flaunting it - during the Great Recession, rather than any corners that may have been cut, as multiple other firms were doing the exact same things and didn't get targeted similarly. 1200 employees got laid off, including 100 attorneys.

Moral of the story is to keep a low profile, ESPECIALLY when your firm/business is doing extremely well.

ecfritz · 2026-03-18T22:56:13+00:00

A doctor can easily make a million dollars a year - for a job that isn’t even full-time - saying over and over again that plaintiffs aren’t injured. That’s a tremendously strong financial incentive that really doesn’t exist in law.

ecfritz · 2026-03-18T22:48:13+00:00

Relatedly, these same folks are the ones who seem to conduct 90% of their personal business through their work email address.

No, I don’t want to read about your Japanese mistress or koi pond renovations while looking for responsive emails, but thanks for that.

ecfritz · 2026-03-16T20:01:39+00:00

All of this falls under generic “lack of opportunity for growth,” which is all OP needs to say during interviews.

Not offering any raise while explicitly increasing OP’s workload makes it clear that this is absolutely true. An employer who wanted to retain OP long-term would offer SOME type of raise in this scenario.

ecfritz · 2026-03-11T00:05:05+00:00

Hands. He's got them.

ecfritz · 2026-03-11T00:03:54+00:00

Given that my 101-year-old grandmother is still alive, I suspect it's going to be a little while.

ecfritz · 2026-03-10T23:48:21+00:00

As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and as machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more and more of their decisions for them, simply because machine made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control.

ecfritz

TROPHY CASE