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U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUSblog will expand offerings, keep ‘unbiased coverage’ after acquisition by Dispatch Media

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 24, 2025, 11:52 am CDT

Dispatch Media Inc. has acquired SCOTUSblog, the website with in-depth and breaking news coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court that was founded by Tom Goldstein and Amy Howe, a husband-and-wife legal team.

The New York Times described Dispatch Media as “a right-of-center political news and commentary startup” founded by two conservative journalists.

Law360 and Above the Law also covered the sale.

Dispatch Media “plans to maintain SCOTUSblog as our users have come to enjoy it and will continue to offer its existing content to all readers at no cost,” according to a SCOTUSblog announcement on the sale. “The site will also continue to remain a source of unbiased coverage of the Supreme Court.”

The announcement said SCOTUSblog “scaled back our coverage in recent years” because of rising costs, but “through our partnership with the Dispatch, we will be able to restore SCOTUSblog’s publishing capabilities, including expanded analysis for all merits cases and oral arguments.”

Dispatch Media will also bring back “beloved features” to SCOTUSblog, such as the Stat Pack, according to the announcement.

Howe continues her work at SCOTUSblog as her husband, a high-stakes poker player, faces a federal indictment accusing him of evading taxes and making false statements to mortgage lenders. Goldstein won’t be part of SCOTUSblog, according to Michael Rothman, the president of the Dispatch, who spoke with the New York Times.

As part of the acquisition, the Dispatch “will invest in Amy, her team and additional staff to ensure that SCOTUSblog remains the go-to authority on the Supreme Court,” said Steve Hayes, the CEO and editor of the Dispatch, in an announcement.

Dispatch Media will also “announce additional talent” in the coming weeks, “including a partnership with Original Jurisdiction founder and legal commentator David Lat,” Hayes said.

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Gone are the days of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. law firm receptionists chained to their desks, limited to answering phones and taking messages.

Modern consumers in search of legal guidance expect more, including 24/7, responsive service and immediate answers to their questions. Office hours have become an obsolete concept, with potential clients often seeking to research firms and retain legal services at their convenience and from the comfort and privacy of their homes.

As technology advances, lawyers have more lead management options available, including virtual receptionist services, online intake forms or generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbots designed to meet consumers where they are and adeptly address their concerns. Firms that rely on these tools, rather than on staff employees alone, are far better positioned to thrive in today’s highly competitive legal marketplace.

The good news is that reception and intake are some of the easiest firm functions to offload. In-house staff can’t answer calls around the clock, but virtual receptionists and chatbots can, offering prospective clients the flexibility and convenience of full-time after-hours coverage. By outsourcing call handling and intake processes, you can increase your firm’s availability to new and existing clients while reducing administrative burdens and costs.

Choosing the right tools for your firm

There’s no shortage of virtual receptionists and intake tools for firms. The right fit will depend on your firm’s priorities, including cost, features and whether you want a legal-specific provider. Some companies focus exclusively on firms; others serve a broader market. However, don’t automatically discount the generalists.

Depending on your firm’s needs, they may very well check many of the boxes at a much more appealing price.

Before choosing a service, it’s essential to understand that outsourcing requires sharing your firm’s data with third parties, which in turn triggers certain ethical duties. These include the obligation to preserve confidentiality by vetting how and when your firm’s information will be accessed, used and stored by the provider.

With that in mind, let’s review some of the more widely used, stand-alone virtual receptionist services and client intake tools for firms. Information about pricing will be provided unless it’s not listed online.

Virtual legal intake and receptionist options

LexReception offers virtual receptionist services tailored for firms. They include handling calls, client intake, appointment scheduling and payment collection. LexReception differentiates itself by focusing on the legal industry, offering 24/7, bilingual availability and integrating with a wide range of legal practice management and payment processing tools.

Smith.ai combines live virtual receptionists with generative AI to manage calls, web chats, texts and Facebook messages while also handling lead qualification and customer relationship management integration. It also offers chatbots powered by generative AI to respond to online, social media and text messages. The standout feature is an “AI-first” receptionist, which streamlines intake workflows, provides multilingual support and transfers to human virtual receptionists when needed for follow-up. Pricing for each offering is available on the website.

LawDroid offers AI-powered legal automation tools that handle tasks, such as virtual intake, document drafting and client communication. LawDroid stands out for its early adoption of generative AI to support LawDroid Copilot, a legal assistant. The company’s forward-thinking approach makes it especially relevant for solo and small firms operating virtually. You can find pricing details on the website for various tools.

Ruby provides live virtual receptionists and chat services for small businesses, including firms, with an emphasis on friendly, human-first client interactions. The company consistently receives high marks for customer service quality and has strong brand recognition in solo and small firm markets. It integrates with some legal tech tools, and the website offers pricing information, including bundled options for live web chat and virtual receptionist services.

Back Office Betties delivers virtual receptionist and legal intake services staffed by receptionists trained exclusively in legal terminology and workflows. A number of integrations with legal products are available. The company’s flat-rate pricing stands out and is listed on the website.

Answering Legal is a 24/7 live answering service built specifically for lawyers. It offers features, such as call forwarding, new client intake and bilingual support. What sets it apart is the ability to customize call protocols and live call transfer capabilities that allow qualified leads to be quickly patched through to the firm.

Intaker offers AI-powered website chat tools designed to capture and qualify leads for firms through customizable, conversation-based interfaces. It integrates with many popular customer relationship management systems and legal software platforms. Its visually engaging, video-enabled chat experience, along with its focus on lead conversion, are notable.

The bottom line

Firms that take advantage of virtual receptionists and intake tools are simply more responsive and efficient. By ensuring that calls are promptly answered, leads are captured, and clients receive immediate attention—day or night.

Modern intake tools, whether AI-powered, human-staffed or a mix of both, reduce overhead and free up time for more analytical and nuanced legal work. This benefit can be particularly impactful for solo and small firms, enabling them to better compete with larger practices by offering scalable, professional client service without the cost of full-time staff.

Outsourcing reception and intake is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to improve the client experience and streamline operations. With so many options available, there’s a solution to fit nearly any budget or workflow. Invest in these tools now, and your firm will be better positioned to thrive and grow.

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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York-based attorney, author and journalist, and she is the principal legal insight strategist at MyCase, a company that offers legal practice management software for small firms. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, both published by the American Bar Association. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com and Above the Law, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @nikiblack, or she can be reached at [email protected].

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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Immigration Law

‘It’s Time for You to Leave’: More immigration lawyers get notices to self-deport

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 25, 2025, 9:32 am CDT

Immigration lawyers outside Massachusetts are also receiving notices to self-deport, despite their U.S. citizenship.

Among the lawyers receiving notices are Austin, Texas, lawyer Hubert Montoya and Salt Lake City lawyer Carlos Trujillo, according to Fortune, KTVX and the Utah News Dispatch.

“It’s time for you to leave,” the notices said.

Immigration lawyers in Ohio, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania have also reported receiving the notices, according to the Utah News Dispatch.

Montoya told Fortune that he laughed when he received the notice.

“I just thought it was absurd,” he said.

Trujillo told the Utah News Dispatch that he has advocated for the immigrant community, but he refuses to think that it is the reason for the notice.

“It probably was a mistake, and I love this country so much that I think my first inclination is just to believe that and leave it at that,” he said.

The notices are part of a what appears to be a mass email campaign telling immigrants that the immigration parole allowing them to temporarily live in the United States has been revoked, according to the Utah News Dispatch.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is canceling paroles that allowed people who entered the United States using an online appointment app to remain in the country for two years, according to previous reporting by the Associated Press. The Trump administration has suspended use of the app.

The Department of Homeland Security sent notices to email addresses provided by the immigrants, including, in some cases, email addresses of U.S. citizens they listed as contacts, according to a statement by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Some of the notices may have been sent to lawyers and other unintended recipients, the agency told Fortune.

The notices being sent are not limited to people who used the appointment app, according to a Customs and Border Protection statement cited by the Utah News Dispatch.

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3. Acting US attorney once orchestrated Facebook…

Prosecutors

Acting US attorney once orchestrated Facebook posts criticizing judge presiding in his case, report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 11:12 am CDT

The acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., formerly helped ghostwrite posts criticizing a judge presiding in a civil case in which he was the defendant, according to lawsuit documents cited by ProPublica.

U.S. attorney nominee Edward R. Martin Jr. helped his associate, Priscilla Gray, write the posts that began in 2016 after the Illinois judge “dealt Martin a major setback in the case,” according to the report by ProPublica, noted by Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call. Martin is filling the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia position on an acting basis.

Gray’s posts on the judge’s Facebook page called the judge a “politician” with the “lowest rating for a judge in Illinois.”

Martin had urged Gray to call the judge’s actions “unfair and rigged over and over,” according to ProPublica. He also urged Gray to privately message the judge, the article reports.

The judge was presiding in a case seeking to oust Martin from association with a grassroots group that he once headed, the Eagle Forum. The plaintiff was Anne Schlafly Cori, an Eagle Forum board member who was the daughter of the group’s founder, Phyllis Schlafly.

The truth about Martin’s involvement in the criticism “emerged as Cori’s lawyers gathered evidence for her lawsuit,” according to ProPublica.

President Donald Trump has nominated Martin, who has no prosecution experience, to remain in the U.S. attorney position. Martin did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gray also declined to comment to the publication.

Andy Schlafly, a former Eagle Forum board member who supported Martin, told ProPublica that Gray “speaks for herself” and had every right to express her outrage. He also said no court has ever sanctioned Martin for his “First Amendment advocacy.”

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Judiciary

Insurance case is ‘but a speck in the recesses of interstellar space,’ high-profile appeals judge writes

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 3:07 pm CDT

In a span of less than a week, a conservative federal appeals judge has written two opinions that are getting attention—for taking a tough stand against the mistaken deportation of an immigrant in one case and for waxing philosophical in another case.

In an April 17 opinion, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III took the Trump administration to task for “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”

Wilkinson wrote the “blistering” opinion for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia, in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Maryland, according to the New York Times.

Abrego Garcia was deported to a prison in El Salvador in Central America because of an “administrative error.” The case is Abrego Garcia v. Noem.

Now, Wilkinson is getting attention once again for an April 23 opinion in an insurance dispute involving a man on a lawn mower struck and killed by an underinsured motorist, according to Above the Law and the Judicial Notice newsletter at Original Jurisdiction.

The 4th Circuit held that the man’s estate was entitled to $150,000 under the plain terms of the man’s underinsured motorist coverage—and nothing more.

Wilkinson engaged in “existential, metaphysical musings” at the end of his opinion, according to Judicial Notice.

Here is what Wilkinson wrote: “What after all does it matter? A single, seemingly ordinary, rather technical insurance case. One among the many hundreds of rulings judges make each year.

“What does it matter? A case but a speck in the recesses of interstellar space and in the four-plus billion years since our solar system’s birth. What does it matter, this case deserted by both space and time?

“To be human is to live in the here and now. This small case extracts courageous meaning from the vast impersonality in which it resides. Its immediacy confounds infinity; its passions light the dark. We have given it our best; the litigants have given it their best. The trial court has done the same. We do not overlook for a moment the tragic passing of the insured but neither can we ignore the contract under South Carolina law that defines the insurer’s obligation.”

The insurance case is Owners Insurance Co. v. Walsh.

Wilkinson, 80, was appointed to the 4th Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan, the New York Times reports in a story about his background. He is the “son of a patrician Virginia banker,” an Army veteran and a law grad of the University of Virginia.

He delayed his legal education after one year to unsuccessfully run for Congress in 1970 as a Republican. After law school, he worked as a law professor and in the U.S. Department of Justice.

On the bench, the New York Times reports, Wilkinson has “a long track record of conservative rulings under his belt, having criticized rulings establishing abortion rights while writing approvingly of a broad conception of presidential power.”

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3. Attrition rate is ‘markedly higher’ for associates…

Careers

Attrition rate is ‘markedly higher’ for associates of color, NALP Foundation says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 29, 2025, 9:19 am CDT

The attrition rate for associates in law firms was 20% in 2024, up from 18% in 2023 but still lower than the historic high of 26% in 2021, according to the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education.

The attrition rate was slightly higher for females than males, at 22% and 20% respectively, and was “markedly higher” for associates of color, at 24% compared to 19% for white associates, according to selected findings from the NALP Foundation’s newest annual Update on Associate Attrition, a detailed report on firms’ associate hiring and departures for 2024.

An April 24 press release summarized the findings.

More associates are leaving in a shorter time frame than in the past, according to the data from 119 reporting firms in the United States and Canada. In 2024, 74% of associates left their firms within four years of their hiring, up from a high of 72% in 2023. That is a departure from the five-year historical pattern for departures.

The survey also found an increase in hiring and departures at the surveyed firms. In 2024, 6,092 associates were hired by reporting firms, up from 5,236 in 2023. The number who left—4,125 associates—was also higher than in 2023, when 3,875 associates left firms.

Fifty-five percent of new associates were hired at the entry level, rather than laterally. The difference is even more pronounced in the largest firms of more than 1,000 lawyers, where 61% of associate hires were at the entry level.

Fiona Trevelyan Hornblower, the president and CEO of the NALP Foundation, sees some trends in the findings.

“This new data shows shifts in the talent market are emerging, with the rise in entry level recruiting, as well as earlier departures by associates,” Hornblower said in the press release.

More larger than smaller firms responded to the survey. Only 17% of responding firms had 100 or fewer lawyers. Thirty-seven percent of the firms had more than 500 attorneys.

Law.com covered the results.

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3. Suit is ‘almost a word-for-word carbon copy’…

Ethics

Suit is ‘almost a word-for-word carbon copy’ of prior complaint filed by different lawyers, federal judge says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 15, 2025, 8:53 am CDT

Updated: A federal judge in Puerto Rico has said she is considering sanctions for a San Juan, Puerto Rico, lawyer who filed a lawsuit that is “almost a word-for-word carbon copy” of a suit filed by different lawyers representing different plaintiffs.

In an April 9 order, U.S. District Judge Aida M. Delgado-Colon of the District of Puerto Rico found that the conduct by lawyer David Efron “runs afoul not only of attorney Efron’s duty of competence to his client but also his duty of candor to the court.”

Law 360 has the story.

Efron told the ABA Journal that there was no plagiarism because the plaintiffs in both cases are cooperating.

Efron is representing San Juan in a December 2023 suit alleging that activities by several oil-industry defendants caused damages because of their impact on climate change. Delgado-Colon said Efron’s suit and some of his other case filings are similar to documents in a prior suit filed by about 40 other municipalities.

“Just a review of the first couple of paragraphs of the complaint is enough to warrant suspicion,” Delgado-Colon wrote.

The opening language, footnotes and citations are identical to the corresponding paragraphs in the municipalities’ case, with a few exceptions, Delgado-Colon said. They include “sprinkling some adverbs such as ‘incredibly’ at the beginning of a paragraph,” referring to the correct plaintiff and “breaking a paragraph in two.”

As pointed out by the defendants, Efron’s suit was so “rife with examples of plagiarism” that it refers to documents that were never filed, it sometimes refers to the singular plaintiff as “municipalities,” and it repeats typos in the other suit, Delgado-Colon said in her order. Efron also refers to “this class action,” even though San Juan denied bringing such a case, the judge said.

“Attorney Efron lifted not only the entire theory of San Juan’s case from the municipalities’ case but went so far [as] to use virtually the very same words and ideas, usurping the thought processes and legal theories a client hires an attorney to develop and perform,” Delgado-Colon said.

Delgado-Colon said Efron was also late in filing case documents and ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned $7,000 for “untimely filings and lack of diligence in the management of case deadlines.” Efron had said he was in a federal jury trial at the time.

As for the alleged plagiarism, the judge said a monetary sanction on its own would be “insufficient to address the seriousness of the circumstance,” and she would be issuing a separate order to address that issue.

“This opinion and order should serve as a cautionary tale for all members of the bar,” Delgado-Colon wrote.

Efron told the Journal in an email that the judge had “rushed to judgment” without getting the full story.

“There was no plagiarism,” Efron says. The plaintiffs in both cases “are collaborating for the same cause in the interest of controlling climate change. The judge without even conferring with counsel rushed to judgment without knowing that counsel in both cases are collaborating.”

Efron also says the order “is not final and has been referred for further proceedings after we are given an opportunity to respond and show cause.”

Updated April 15 at 11:23 a.m. to add lawyer David Efron’s comments.

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3. This law firm is ranked No. 1 after posting…

Law Firms

This law firm is ranked No. 1 after posting $8.8B in gross revenue; which other firms are ‘category leaders’?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 16, 2025, 9:52 am CDT

Kirkland & Ellis is once again ranked No. 1 for gross revenue in 2024, according to the American Lawyer’s Am Law 100.

Kirkland & Ellis had $8.8 billion in gross revenue, “almost jumping straight into $9 billion territory,” Law.com reports in a story that is one of several reports on the findings.

Other “category leaders” are Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which had the highest revenue per lawyer, at $4.47 million, and Kirkland & Ellis, which had the highest profits per equity partner, at $9.25 million.

Law firms “crushed it” based on financial performance in 2024, the article reports. The nation’s 100 top-grossing firms increased revenue by 13.3% last year, increased lawyer head count by 7.7%, and increased revenue per lawyer by 5.2%.

While revenue increased an average of 13.3% for the top 100 firms, only 20 firms gained that amount or more, according to firm consultants Bruce MacEwan and Janet Stanton, who spoke with Law.com. The other 80 were below that level. MacEwan is the president of Adam Smith Esq., and Stanton is a partner in the organization.

The top five firms for gross revenue are:

1. Kirkland & Ellis, $8.8 billion, up about 22% from 2023

2. Latham & Watkins, $7 billion, up about 23% from 2023

3. DLA Piper, $4.2 billion, up nearly 11% from 2023

4. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, $3.6 billion, up about 12% from 2023

5. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, $3.5 billion, up nearly 16% from 2023

The top firms for revenue per lawyer are:

1. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, $4.47 million

2. Susman Godfrey, $2.38 million

3. Sullivan & Cromwell, $2.33 million

4. Ropes & Gray, $2.33 million

5. Kirkland & Ellis, $2.29 million

The top firms for profits per equity partner are:

1. Kirkland & Ellis, $9.25 million

2. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, $9.03 million

3. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, $8.64 million

4. Davis Polk & Wardwell, $7.8 million

5. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, $7.66 million

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3. Resignations multiply at BigLaw firms that…

Careers

Resignations multiply at BigLaw firms that made deals with Trump

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 16, 2025, 12:04 pm CDT

Associate Rachel Cohen may have been the first lawyer to resign from a law firm because she disagreed with its response to President Donald Trump’s punitive executive orders, but she isn’t the last.

Cohen is one of at least nine lawyers who have left six out of nine firms that reached deals with Trump, according to reporting on resignations by Law.com, the New York Times, Reuters (here and here) and Above the Law.

Cohen was a finance associate in the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She left the firm after it refused her call to support Perkins Coie in its lawsuit challenging an executive order that, among other things, barred its lawyers from government buildings and imperiled its representation of government contractors.

Then when Skadden reached an agreement with Trump to avoid becoming a target, two more associates left.

These nine firms have reached agreements to avoid executive orders similar to the one against Perkins Coie: Skadden; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

The deals call for firms to provide pro bono legal services to projects supported by the firms and Trump. The amounts pledged range from $40 million to $125 million.

According to the articles, lawyers who left are:

  • Rachel Cohen, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Law.com)

  • Brenna Trout Frey, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Above the Law, Law.com)

  • Thomas Sipp, who left Skadden (ABAJournal.com, Above the Law, the New York Times, Law.com)

  • Sam Wong, who left Latham (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Siunik Moradian, who left Simpson Thacher (Law.com, Bloomberg Law, Above the Law, Reuters)

  • Jacqui Pittman, who left Kirkland (Law.com)

  • Joseph Baio, who left Willkie (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Andrew Silberstein, who left Willkie (Law.com, Reuters)

  • Steven Banks, who left Paul Weiss, where he was the pro bono practice leader. He said he has wanted to leave since the November election to wage a fight for “the things that I have believed in”. He did not specifically mention the firm’s deal with Trump. (Law.com, the New York Times)

The executive orders issued against firms typically seek the suspension of security clearances for their lawyers; restrict access to government buildings by their employees; ban government hiring of firm employees; require government contractors to disclose whether they do business with the firms; and call for termination of government contracts for which firms were hired to provide services, including clients’ government contracts.

In a message to employees, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp said the firm reached an agreement with Trump to avoid an “existential crisis” that could have destroyed the firm. Even if it mounted a successful legal challenge, Karp said, its clients would still perceive the firm as “persona non grata with the administration.”

Four firms have sued over executive orders issued against them. They are Perkins Coie, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey. All have obtained temporary restraining orders blocking parts of the executive orders.

Perkins Coie lost the vice chair of its government contracts practice after the firm sued. That lawyer, Alexander Canizares, is departing to become co-leader of the government contracts practice at Vinson & Elkins. Canizares told Reuters that he began talking to Vinson & Elkins “quite a while ago.”

Above the Law has published a “BigLaw Spine Index” that lists how firms have responded to the Trump administration.

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Fourteen years ago, I wrote an article for a business journal that summarized a dinner conversation I had with my 4-year-old daughter. She asked me to explain “What is a re-sezz-ee-un?” By the end of our conversation, her greatest concern shining through her little green eyes was whether Santa Claus himself would be experiencing any effects of that “re-sez-ee-un.”

Much has changed since that conversation. That particular recession eventually ended, only later to be replaced by what some economists called a second one. The Cubs finally won a World Series. We sent an unmanned spacecraft to Pluto. An unprecedented world pandemic wreaked its havoc, and Donald Trump became our president, not once but twice.

My daughter has seen quite a journey as well. She became a singer, musician, artist, model, cheerleader and even an actress, playing the lead Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” at the Apollo Theater. She is a self-taught competitive gymnast and part of a team that made the national finals in Orlando, Florida. Perhaps most important, my little green-eyed girl grew up and graduated from high school, and she is now a college freshman trying to find her place in this crazy world.

Now we sit together, sometimes late into the evening, and we talk. She has never had any interest in becoming a lawyer, but she has always shown an interest in why I do it. Recently, she asked me a question that I haven’t heard in a while. She asked the difference between being a lawyer today and when I started many years ago.

“The difference is I don’t consider myself just a trial lawyer anymore,” I told her. “Clients once hired me to try their cases. They don’t want that today. Now they hire me to help their business avoid trials.” She looked up at the ceiling, raised her eyebrows and nodded, as if she understood me perfectly.

“Does that apply to all lawyers or just you?” Of course she would follow my answer with an even more difficult question. I had to think about that one.

The truth is that the legal industry has changed along with the rest of our world. First came cellphones. Then came the internet. Then came cellphones with internet and all the knowledge of the world instantly at our fingertips. With that came the expectation for instant satisfaction and an acute lack of patience. People want problems solved instantly, with relatively little discussion. When business owners experience unforeseen and unbudgeted issues, they want them resolved quickly. From Caterpillar to the corner restaurant, the last thing companies want is to devote their resources toward litigation. When businesses hire a lawyer, their historic desire for Perry Mason now takes a back seat to the need for Harvey Specter. Businesses no longer want to retain the best trial lawyer; they want the lawyer who can quickly fix the problem without the need for such elaborate time and expense.

This reality has resulted in a generational swing in which lawyers, just like those in other industries, are forced to adapt to be competitive. Don’t get me wrong: A trial lawyer still needs the skill and experience to try a good case; otherwise, the bluff will get challenged every time. Nevertheless, possessing excellent trial skills just isn’t the sole (or even primary) skill anymore that businesses are seeking. The real talent is solving the situation by avoiding the trial.

I believe this is true no matter what kind of trial lawyer you are. Ask an experienced personal injury lawyer how many cases insurance companies settle today compared with 10 years ago. Ask a criminal defense attorney how many accused are going to trial versus entering into a plea bargain.

Ask any business owner what he or she thinks about litigation. Don’t just ask ones who have been sued and lost; also ask those who have sued and won but didn’t consider it a victory because of the amount of legal fees they paid. I have tried hundreds of cases in my 30-year career. I have heard every criticism of our legal industry that exists, and many of them I agree with. Perhaps the worst of all is the notion that the cost of victory can be just as devastating as the agony of defeat. On the other hand, I have never received criticism from a client after we managed to avoid a trial.

I still have plenty of time left to practice law on this journey I began 30 years ago. Fortunately, my kids keep me “young at heart” and provide me with the tools to reinvent my career when needed. One thing is certain: More change lies ahead. Interest rates, government regulations and debtors’ ability to repay their loans were once easy problems to forecast, analyze and solve—but not anymore. Fortunately, I know I can always count on my daughter’s inquisitive green eyes to help me through the journey.

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Joseph VanFleet is an experienced trial lawyer, focusing his practice on small businesses and community banks in addition to Fortune 100 publicly traded entities and large-scale lenders he has always represented. He has represented clients throughout the country and in numerous complex and multidistrict cases, and he has obtained victories in well over 100 trials, appeals and alternative disputes.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.