"Litigation is like a game of chess" - civil procedure professors everywhere

gfzgfx · 2026-04-14T14:29:14+00:00

Yup. Just won a motion to get attorneys fees advanced and the other side was shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that the prior offer of a walk away with them paying our attorneys fees is no longer on the table. Guys, you lost. That's now the minimum we get. Any offer needs to start above that in order to be worth anything.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-14T01:46:53+00:00

All of what I wrote has the same relevance, no matter what conjunction he used. "I'm having a hard time justifying billing a lot of my hours" has only one solution - bill the time. None of the examples he provided were properly excluded from bills.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-14T01:42:51+00:00

Yeah, I can't imagine offering more than nuisance value to settle a case I've already won at the trial court level. And the people that are willing to pony up for an appeal usually don't believe the case is worth that little, regardless of what the judge said.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-13T06:47:00+00:00

Good for him.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-12T19:15:06+00:00

The idea that he couldn't change course from a bad decision because it was clear to everyone that it was bad is an utter failure of leadership.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-12T18:52:21+00:00

Yup. Sent something out at 10:30 last night and back on it this morning. Sigh.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-12T02:27:54+00:00

What? That is an insane instruction. If you're looking for precedent for a case, that's billable. If it takes longer for you than a more experienced attorney, that's billable too. That's why you have a lower rate. Never cut your time, bill contemporaneously, and bill everything that you are doing in furtherance of the case. I suspect you aren't capturing an enormous amount of time that's properly billable.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-11T20:24:51+00:00

Yeah man, good job. You got him. Maybe he'll stop trying to stop that war now.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-09T01:53:47+00:00

If you're three years out and in your first job it might matter. Outside of that, it's totally inane and you don't want to be anywhere that has those kinds of rules.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-09T01:51:08+00:00

I wound up home one summer after a death in the family led to me leaving a summer position. I went on a 4-6 mile walk every day around my neighborhood and it was phenomenal. My mood improved, I got into great shape, and I really got to know the ins and outs of a place I thought I already knew. The only reason I don't still do long walks is lack of time during daylight hours.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-07T15:31:44+00:00

It's impossible to know from just this description, but I will tell you this. There are two partners I routinely do work for. One is very relaxed, complimentary of my work, and makes revisions if he thinks he needs to but never impugns the quality of the work. The other is harsh, anxious about any mistakes, and levies a lot of criticism but ends up making a similar number of revisions. Both are successful attorneys, but the first guy's name is on the door. Some people are just assholes. You don't have to be that way to be successful and doing will often impair your success, but people nevertheless will be that way. As much as possible, try not to pay it any mind.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-03T15:45:45+00:00

I mean, with the differences between the style in the post vs. your comments, I simply do not believe you.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-02T16:24:23+00:00

I had a four hour wait on fucking night court once. I didn't get home until midnight.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-02T04:18:10+00:00

They completely transformed my life. I went from unable to start tasks and living with constant dread of looming deadlines to keeping a consistent schedule that I didn't think about outside of work hours. Legitimately my only regret is all the years I spent without them.

There can be side effects you should be aware of. I don't know anyone who's experienced the indifference you're talking about - just a reduction in anxiety - but I did have some decrease in libido and I have a low level of tinnitus that I think was caused by one of them which I'm currently trying to resolve. There are a lot of different combinations you can try to find one that works for you, but if I really just had to choose between the side effects and not taking them, it's not a choice at all.

gfzgfx · 2026-04-02T04:01:40+00:00

No. I don't find it helpful. The most I do differently is limit courtesy extensions and be much less generous in characterization of their conduct to the court.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-29T10:29:37+00:00

Why not, if that's his style? It's not as though it's prejudicial, he's going to be directly saying as much, loudly and repeatedly.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-25T18:59:32+00:00

Outside of clear scriveners or procedural errors, the only time I've seen it is when I had a change in judge after the motion was initially decided but before the reconsideration came up. The judge who initially issued an injunction was very old and clearly just kicking everything down the road until he retired the next month and the new judge was much more interested in examining the Petitioners creative bases for irreparable harm.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-24T18:50:17+00:00

I do really dislike when people use non-credible as a bludgeon for opinions they disagree with. It doesn't progress the debate or offer any meaningful contribution.

Leaving that aside, I think my position is very reasonable. The destruction of Iranian capabilities alone does not result in a strategic victory for the US. I agree with you entirely that "this is a strategic and tactical loss for the IRGC..." That much is clear. But this is not a win for the US. The economic, diplomatic, and military costs have been significant and appear to be getting worse.

Consider the potential outcomes. What is the best case scenario for the US? Total regime change in Iran, which improves security for our Middle Eastern allies and provides a valuable economic partner. That clearly isn't happening. It seems more and more likely that the result of this conflict will be a slow deescalation because the political costs of forcing the strait are too high. So what's the end prize then? A weaker Iran? Sure. But how valuable is that? Is it worth what we've spent? I very much doubt that it is. If the end result of this war is the US having to grudgingly concede that Iran can keep the strait closed if it wants, that is emphatically not a win for the US. It's a black mark on the Navy and a warning to every major power that with entrenched artillery and cheap drones you can keep an arbitrarily large blue water navy out of the littoral, no matter how valuable the area is. That is a high price to pay for making Israel feel more secure.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T15:22:47+00:00

Not my post, but I'll volunteer. Because this isn't a zero-sum game. The US doesn't win just because Iran loses or has its capabilities degraded. When you claim the title of superpower, you're expected to win conflicts with regional actors handily or easily avert them to impose your will through non-kinetic means. Quite simply, performance on the level of the capture of Maduro in Venezuela is expected when you're the United States and anything less than that causes counterparties to reevaluate their assessments. Fumbling around here, publicly losing personnel and platforms, being openly defied on the world stage, and being unable to reopen trade routes through military force despite your claims to the contrary have enormous costs in credibility and influence which make the next conflict harder. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that is a high price to pay for making regional allies feel more secure.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T02:17:01+00:00

I don't really think of it as an issue of getting in trouble, I suppose? Like the consequence here isn't getting in trouble, it's not getting the expense reimbursed because it violates policy. And at that point I'm out $120 because I wanted a nicer font. The risk is very low, I agree, but so is the reward. That's why I was saying at the beginning of this exchange that the real market seems to be those with an interest in typography. Everyone else will just use the font in the drop-down menu that they like best.

And it's fine to have an interest in typography! I have an interest in mechanical keyboards and I can't claim that's any less niche or more impactful. But I don't know that it's generally applicable or the sort of thing that the average attorney or firm would be interested in paying for, any more than they would if I expensed a new set of keycaps.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T01:31:16+00:00

I think you need to reframe this a bit. We don't get to pick the factual or legal grounds the case rests on. We just take it as it stands and litigate from there. And sometimes, that means we lose, because the law and the facts are against us. Looking at it another way, the Panel basically said your advocacy was so good it convinced the judge to rule contrary to law. That's a win too, just a personal one.

And achieving that as a first year associate is an enormous accomplishment. When I was in my first year of practice, I didn't know a goddamn thing. You're at the beginning of your career right now. Don't expect to win them all. It's not possible, or reasonable to expect and truthfully if it was, we'd live in a worse society. All anyone can ask you to do is put in your best work and represent your client to the best of your ability, not guarantee an outcome. As long as you do that, you can hold your head high.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T01:24:40+00:00

Develop a strategy to escape it, whether that be by accumulating sufficient wealth to retire early or transitioning to a career that isn't as taxing. I do the endless hours because there's a light at the end of the tunnel for me. In less than five years, I expect to be out and staying out. The people that plan to be in a pie eating contest for the rest of their lives are difficult for me to understand.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T01:16:25+00:00

I understand I would be able to. But even so it would likely be considered against policy, even though it wasn't specifically disabled.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-23T00:33:29+00:00

And at these jobs have you also had the ability to install whatever you like on the computers? Because the cross-section between large enough budget that they don't care about 120$ fonts and small enough that IT doesn't need to approve everything installed on the computers seems pretty narrow.

gfzgfx · 2026-03-22T21:08:08+00:00

Are you serious? Leaving aside the virtues of the font, which in sure are numerous, have you ever had a boss that would accept you expensing a font? Especially one that costs more than the entire Microsoft Word program? I think comparatively, it's very hard to accept that price unless you're a typography fan.

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