Gentle Reader,

It is summer, and graduation time for law students. It is also time for my semi-regular rant on law school. My law school experience was decades ago, so it is a fair point that my experience is barely relevant today. So, take this with a bag of salt.

Law school prepares one to practice law about as much as high school algebra prepares us for, well, anything. To our friends, we should know everything about every law, everywhere. In fact, the best attorneys know the area of law where they practice and still don’t know the current right answer to a problem on occasion. Regardless, here is a short list of laws we never covered in law school:

Murphy’s law was optimistic. This is certainly on my mind today, as the ceiling of my office collapsed last week. Literally.  If you think you have enough time to get to court, you don’t. Traffic jams or parking failures will inevitably hold you up. On the days you are early, the judge will start late which is a minor issue, but the days you are late expect court to start early.

Scotsen’s maxim. Never schedule depositions for a Friday. Especially if they are out of town depositions. Back when we could get anywhere in a few hours, this was not the same issue it is today. Remote depositions have made this less onerous but only slightly.

Thomas’ corollary to Scotsen’s Maxim.  If you do let yourself get talked into a deposition on a Friday, the person taking the deposition won’t be an experienced partner, it will be someone taking their first deposition with a twelve page outline. Expect them to ask all the questions on the outline, regardless of the witness’ answers. And if the Friday is before a holiday weekend, the witness will give a dissertation for each answer.

Plaintiff’s truism. Any plaintiff’s lawyer will tell you that the clients with the most devastating injuries will call you the least with issues or seeking status updates on their case. Conversely, the clients with more minor injuries want to “touch base” with you regularly, and will be the slowest to answer discovery questions.

Hobson’s rule of Insurance defense.  Insurance companies that pay the lowest hourly rate will cut bills the most. A defense lawyer friend of mine told me about an insurer preset how long a task should take, regardless of how long it actually took. This left her with the option of hanging up the phone when the billing increment was reached or work for free. Woe is the defense lawyer who performs tasks in the allotted time and loses the case, for their reward will be losing the insurance client. Insurance companies like their own lawyers only slightly less than those against them.

The White Rabbit’s Research Trap. Everything takes longer than you expect, especially legal research. My torts professor told us that his class was little more than a fifteen minute head start on the research we would have to do for any problem we faced, and he may have been generous. Or maybe I didn’t pay enough attention in class. Every research problem will lead lawyers down a dozen other pathways before we finally feel comfortable with our answer. Or get fatigued and give up. I regularly look at the clock and see it is 7 p.m when I am doing research on something I though would take about fifteen minutes and started at 3 p.m. Compare Reddit/Wikipedia rabbit hole.

Hardy’s impermanence platitude. Some lawyers think they will do the same type of work forever- plaintiff lawyers will always represent injury victims, defense lawyers will always represent insurance companies, and divorce lawyers will always represent husbands or wives exclusively. The only constant in practicing law (or maybe life) is change. Lawyers often find themselves working for the other side at some point, and inevitably wish they had been more attentive to the problems that come to that type of client. Remember when you sell your soul to take on a case that you may need a soul later.

©2023 With All Due Respect. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. Comments or criticisms about this column may be sent c/o this publication or directly to him via email at farris@farrislaw.net. Glass ceilings may be tough to crack but plaster ones are not.