I have no doubt that the trial is going to be great experience, but getting a grasp on that big of a file in just three weeks--having no prior knowledge of the file, the players involved, the underlying story of the business, etc.--has been all consuming. I should add that our client, one of the 50/50 partners, died during the litigation, so we lost our best witness and can only speak through the documents. It's just a mess.
That said, today is my first full day off in a couple weeks and I'm enjoying it. Going to get back to the grind and organize a big aspect of this trial tomorrow morning.
Well, this case settled. I was pretty darn prepared and opposing counsel was not, and we ended up getting some great settlement terms for my clients.
Since other attorneys are posting about making moves, some more updates from me:
Things are going pretty decent so far. There are a ton of clients and I'm getting a lot of experience in stuff that can provide a good base income (simple wills, guardianships, traffic tickets, etc.). Doing this work is a bit ironic because, at my old job, I hated being a jack of all trades, master of none; but now I find myself enjoying picking up these skills knowing one day they will be beneficial if I have my own firm. Also, I actually have one of the secretaries doing all of these in my Google Docs so I will permanently have these forms.
I love the flexibility and the hours. I worked from home last Thursday and Friday. I show up every once in a while in jeans and a quarterzip. I came in today at 7:00 and will probably leave at 3:00. My boss is never here so the entire facetime requirement is gone. Also, I have a lot of authority over the staff, and that in turn has made my life a lot easier.
The only downside thus far is that every single file that is even a remotely complex piece of civil litigation is a total clusterfuck. My observation is that my boss delegated everything to an attorney with zero experience (fresh out of law school), and then she'd swoop into the file in full blown panic mode. So not only are things indescribably messy and unorganized, there are also a ton of goofy and panicky motions, complete failure to correspond with opposing counsel, discovery hasn't been sent or responded to, etc. She keeps telling me these cases are going to trial, but they are just total clusterfucks.
I bitched about my old firm a lot, but they taught me to practice at the highest possible standard. Memos to the file, well organized, filing everything timely, always following up correspondence within 24 hours, proofread everything a billion times, etc. This has been ingrained in me, and it's how I practice.
So things are overall going well, but my goal is to get all these POS cases off my docket within the year so that all other files will at least have been managed by me.