Not to be a jerk but didn't you just make like $250k on the stock market recently (I still need to send you my $20)? Can't you invest a little bit of that into the company to help?
Seeing a few private equity funds delaying deal closings and putting things on hold amid economic uncertainty. Another client already changed projections to push some things into next year due to COVID-19, but that doesn’t really impact the fund formation that we are doing. Will be interesting to see how this ripples through the firm. Referred a buddy today, will be curious to see if he gets an interview (he’s more than qualified) and if we are hiring laterals.
I can but I’m also not running a charity. Not sure if it makes sense to pay someone to answer phones when there aren’t any phones to answer. This sort of relates to what I’ve always told anyone who has asked me for work advice is to work to bring in business and/or make yourself irreplaceable. It’s easy to find a new receptionist I’m going to see how this all plays out
Anyone ever rep a commercial lessee in pre-eviction? I’ve got a potential group of several small business owners whose landlord is trying to enforce some cocknugget 4-month acceleration clause in their leases due to the covid.
is the PI business down that much? I can't tell how much it is down so far. I'm still fielding MVA and comp calls and so are my partners.
Yep it’s slowed significantly also half of our cases are in lit and I’m guessing almost none of those will settle now that basically none of the deadlines matter anymore
Yah that makes sense. Sucks. Prelit soft tissue cases are still moving well at least here. And my litigated cases are still moving as well. We've agreed to do video conference depositions in most of them. I don't have any jury trial set until June. Most of my trials are in the back half of 2020 so hopefully they don't get bumped.
I’ve canceled all of my depos until mid April. We take most of our doc depos as trial depos and didn’t have much desire to figure out how to do those via zoom call with my banker at 10 this morning. Hopefully he isn’t like loljk about the credit increase
So far the great majority of defense lawyers have been great to work with and we’re still exchanging paper discovery. my least favorite defense attorney shockingly has not been. most of my cases are fairly early in discovery so we're just moving the depos into May. I'm not going to attempt to do a Plaintiff's deposition via zoom.
If I can get the doc to allow a videographer in the room and a court reporter then that would be swell. Everyone else would be remote. If that won't fly, are defense lawyers allowing court reporters to be remote and not with the witness? If you have a good connection on zoom wouldn't the video look ok? I'm going to call my court reporting company this morning to discuss this. Hadn't thought through the logistics until you brought it up just now.
Sammy Meatballs I still have that tractor trailer case in Jackson County Florida that I need to file. Still looking for Florida counsel.
Yep. Not good for my wallet, but at least we can keep the staff paid and the doors open. Mine have ground to a halt. The biggest value increaser I have for my soft tissue cases is venue and fear of a jury. If I don't have a potential trial date to be pushing these cases too, I'm getting nothing.
60-70% of my cases are some form of premises liabilty. nobody is paying me a fucking thing without several depos, some motion practice and the threat of a jury trial.
Question over my coffee while I wait for a zoom meeting -- any chance this pandemic results in more people working from home/takes the practice more remote once this is over? Had a talk with my buddy over the weekend who thought this might be the impetus for some companies to do more working-from-home. I can already do about 75% of my job from home, just can't take depos or go to Court (the latter being much less in WA and OR than in the South, based on my limited experience). I'm getting more efficient at working from home; so maybe just trying to justify my own pitch to work remotely.
I think that it will definitely have that effect, which will certainly impact commercial real estate markets. A lot of overhead is paid in rent.
Here is what I came up with after researching video depositions done remotely: The MS Supreme Court is allowing court reporters to swear in the witness without the reporter in the room with the witness. Zoom is going to be your best bet but the free version cuts out after 45 minutes, so you'll need a commercial account. Also you have to pay extra to record the deposition. Also the video feed is never going to be that great-all depending on connection/bandwidth/camera resolution. If you use an actual video conferencing facility that is hard wired you're going to get a better feed than zoom obviously. But the doc isn't going to drive to video conferencing facility. The reporter service I use is waiving their videoconferencing fee during all of this.
So I'm thinking you just proceed with zoom and even if the video kind of sucks the jury will understand that it was done during covid19 . I don't think that's that big of a deal. Better than just delaying depos.
There are tons of companies already using work from home as a business strategy, especially when trying to retain qualified two income families with at least one stay at home parent.
I'm not as productive as usual. Goofing off reading internet and what not. Covid19 is a big distraction.
Could also have the opposite effect and make people realize working from home sucks ass that’s where I am at I get maybe 20% as much accomplished My office building is empty I think I’m just going to go work there alone instead of sitting at home
when all this started happening I told my partners that , yes it is great to have the capacity to work remotely, but everyone is going to grossly underestimate the inefficiency of working remotely. it all sounds great in theory. But I'm a firm believer in having asses in chairs at the office.
Certainly can get most of my work done from home. Would be even more efficient if everyone was prepared to set their employees up with proper home offices (desk, filing cabinets, multiple monitors). Our firm’s lease is up in March 2021. I think the partners hate not being able to have face to face discussions. but I think fridays should be a telecommute day every week unless work requires you to be in the office, go to court/depo
me too. my associate is maybe the most organized person i've ever met and she lives 50 minutes away from the office so i let her work from home 2-3 fridays a month. i hope this is just a 2-3 week thing and not a 2-3 month thing
Court reporter: "We tested recording zoom video and it works great, but it also records the questioner. So, whoever is speaking, that’s who the camera is on and what we all will see on our screen. That is what it is recording, rather than the standard recordation only of the witness." My question: "Would there be a way to take the video and then edit out all the video of the person asking the question but leave in the audio of the question being asked? i.e. just leave the video on the deponent and keep all the audio?" Court reporter: :You have two options: You can come to our office and we can video our screen with the doc on it. That will be the best quality videoconference, as well. Second option, if participating from your office, just put a blank piece of paper in front of your camera on your computer. Then when the camera switches to you, the jury can hear your voice but not see your face. As soon as the doc answers, the camera will go back on him."
mark lanier pays a bunch of money for a set up where there is someone recording him and recording the person being deposed and plays it like that. he has done focus groups and says its a lot better
so you're saying it is fine if it records the questioner. I was wondering that myself. You never see that done but maybe it's not so bad if the video has you on it.
yes. every video depo that his firm plays at trial records both the questioner and the person being deposed and goes back and forth between them. he says he loves it
Slim pickings in Jackson proper. Everyone I know who works out there basically does it from Tallahassee or Pensacola.
Yah that's what I found. Soft tissue case with preexisting injuries but over $100k in meds, clear liability, bad property damage.
for other people who are involved in firm administration/own their own firms: are yall going to take advantage of this SBA loan thing? my understanding is the bill hasn't passed but if you don't lay poeple off you can get 250% of your monthly payroll and if you spend it on payroll/firm admin expenses they'll forgive the loan aka its free money is that right? so i can get a free $80,000.00 if my bimonthly payroll is ~16k?
I did zoom depositions this morning. My client was in her living room, doing it through her cell phone. I'm midway through my questioning of the plaintiff and glance at her screen to see her casually gnawing on a honeybun.
I mean yeah it legit sounds like it’s just free money I called my banker and he was like we don’t know yet since this is all new and the bill hasn’t passed but yeah it sounds like you just pocket the money
Yeah, you just have to produce your monthly payroll over the last 12 months, and then you have to maintain that number of employees/pay until June at which point principal is forgiven, and you only owe the interest.
I'll more than likely exceed 200 billable hours for the month when it ends on Tuesday. That's a first for me, and I cannot fathom how people regularly bill 2300+ year in, year out.