Law Firm & Life
June 10, 2025
By Emily Poler
True confession: I was feeling a little stuck about what to write about in this week’s post. At first, I considered the summary judgment motions on fair use in cases against Anthropic and Meta over AI, but I’m kind of over writing about AI at the moment. I also thought about getting into the trademark issues associated with dupes and/or whether the card mahjong players use is copyrightable, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I’ll likely come back to these topics in coming weeks (especially the one about the mahjong card), but none of these were really inspiring me.
I mean, things feel like a lot right now. Even putting aside the stress of a world burning down around us, work has been super busy. Plus, there are a number of changes afoot here at Trachtman & Poler (all good, and more on that to come). Getting some space in which to free my mind from the parade of daily tasks is a key step in my process of thinking about things, reaching conclusions, and then writing them down for this blog. That space has been missing lately.
And then, it happened. I went to a BigLaw event this week, and seeing all those shiny, soon-to-be 3L students working at large firms for the summer got me thinking about the tradeoffs people make for a career in BigLaw. It also made me ponder some of the myths of what it’s like working at a legal behemoth, as well as the misconceptions people have regarding starting your own law firm. So here we go!
For those who don’t know, BigLaw (yes, that’s how people spell it) firms hire people who have just completed their second year of law school for internships. These jobs pay well, and usually come with a lot of wining and dining meant to lure the “lucky” students into signing their lives over to these firms after graduation. This is exactly what I did.
Why? When you’re starting out as an adult (and plenty of other times too), I think some people want stability and predictability, while others are ok with or hungry for open options and unexpected opportunities. Some of this may be innate, but I also think people’s backgrounds and experiences have a lot to do with how they enter the working world. As you might have guessed, I was one of those eager for stability and predictability.
Without getting too deep into my childhood, let’s just say I grew up in a somewhat chaotic family environment. Looking back, I see how that motivated me to choose a well-mapped career path with a well defined beginning, middle and end, where through sheer hard work and grit I could outlast just about everyone else and make it to the top.
Also, money. Somewhere along the line, probably around 10 or 12 years old, it became pretty clear to me that I couldn’t — or shouldn’t — rely on anyone to support me; I definitely didn’t ever want to have to ask someone else for money. So yeah, it’s kind of obvious why I ended up going to a top law school and working in BigLaw, because if you’re any good at it, it’s a straight climb to making a lot of money pretty quickly.
But, things changed. For starters, my young adult life turned out not to be as financially unpredictable as I had imagined. I managed to graduate college and law school with pretty minimal debt, and by my second year as an attorney I was able to buy an apartment in a neighborhood that, at the time, was considered less than desirable. That meant I knew I’d be able to pay my mortgage even if I took a significant pay cut.
So once the miseries of working for BigLaw began to take their toll on me, losing 20 pounds I would rather have kept and sending me into therapy, I started realizing maybe I didn’t have to stick to the painful BigLaw career path. I became less willing to prioritize financial stability over having control of when I got to and left the office, the clients and cases I handled while I was there, who I worked for, and how I interacted with the people I worked with. So eventually, I left and went to a smaller firm. After that, I started my own firm and, recently, joined forces with the wonderful Laura Trachtman.
This background means that I now really love meeting others who also left BigLaw to forge their own paths. What we all have in common is having made a calculus about the need to balance predictability with exerting a degree of control over how and when we work. That calculation is a key element that I think often gets overlooked by people when they’re mired in the day-to-day of their careers: How much predictability (and income) do you want, how much do you actually need, and how much are you willing to exchange in the short term for more control over your daily work and life and, eventually, long-term satisfaction and earning potential?
Thinking about all this the past few days, I’ve also come to understand how people tend to look at those of us who took the risk, left high paying jobs and started our own businesses, as being somewhat brave. And sure, it definitely takes a measure of courage to do so. But it’s not necessarily harder than working for BigLaw, it’s just different. Each has its own set of sacrifices, but while the travails of working for a large firm are pretty well known (as are the $$ rewards), the tradeoffs, worries and stresses of going it alone are less well documented. This is something I’ve tried to address periodically on this blog, while also sharing the ways I’ve overcome the obstacles and made it work for me. It’s been very gratifying to hear from people that my thoughts and insights into starting and growing one’s own business have been appreciated. And hopefully, it’s helped a few people make that leap for themselves. Because one thing is certain: The sacrifices and hardships of going it alone are, ultimately, more than compensated by the freedoms and satisfactions of choosing your own road to success.
April 29, 2025
By Emily A. Poler
Over the past few years, I’ve had a bunch of conversations with attorney friends about growing a business, whether it’s building a small firm like mine or increasing a client list (a “book of business”) within a larger firm. Despite the fact that these friends work for organizations that are either “BigLaw” or a lot closer to “BigLaw” than my (now) two-person firm, there is a lot of overlap between what I do and what they do (or want to do) in their workplaces. When we’re talking, I inevitably end up recommending business books that I’ve found helpful. And now, I’m sharing them with you!
First, a caveat: I am generally not a fan of “self-help” books; most, if not all, spend hundreds of pages regurgitating a basic premise that could be easily conveyed in a single chapter. Each of the books below could most definitely be shorter. However, if you can wade through the dreck, you will find valuable nuggets of wisdom in each of these.
- Traction by Gino Wickman – This book introduced the “Entrepreneurial Operating System” and is closely associated with the Entrepreneurs Organization. I have problems with both of those things. As a result, this book sat unread on my shelf for years. But I finally pulled it out, and I was glad I did — it’s a classic for good reason. If you’re running your own business this book has some really indispensable points about figuring out and setting your goals, and how to use them to guide a whole range of business activities. It’s similarly useful if you’re running or developing your own area within a larger organization because defining goals that drive you forward is equally important in that environment.
- Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port – Yes, the title is awful. The book, however, is pretty good, despite being somewhat similar to Traction in its focus on identifying and setting goals. For me, this was the book that finally convinced me to not try a little bit of this area of law and a little bit of that, but instead focus on the types of work I really want to handle and the clients I really want to work with.
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport – As the title suggests, this book is for anyone, not just those trying to develop their businesses. That said, it is particularly useful for anyone in a position of selling their own expertise and experience because, at its heart, Deep Work is about slowing down, putting your phone aside, and not jumping to respond to every email as it flies in. Instead, this book encourages you to focus on thinking about the bigger questions and solving the problems we all face in our work and personal lives — the more important things that require the “deep work” of the book’s title and that ultimately lead to greater business (and personal) growth.
- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman – The book’s title comes from the fact that the average human lifespan is about 4,000 weeks (gulp!). It uses this jumping off point to talk about how “efficiency” and “time saving strategies” are myths and that life, including how you use your time, requires hard choices about what is and isn’t important. The main lesson: Focus on what’s actually important instead of frantically trying to do everything that comes one’s way.
That final point is one I cannot emphasize enough. Focusing on the big things has been invaluable for me the past few years. It’s helped my business grow in ways that made me more satisfied, engaged, and successful, which of course has made every aspect of my life better. For that lesson, and many others, I heartily recommend these books.
April 17, 2025
By Emily Poler
My approach to this blog has been to keep it fairly light by writing about celebrity defamation cases and tech-related copyright infringement with an occasional dip into my experiences growing a business. However, right now, there are way more important and disastrous things going on in the United States. For me, as a lawyer, I am particularly concerned about the rule of law, lawyers’ role in protecting the rule of law, and President Donald Trump’s attacks on the rule of law.
If you’ve been under a rock lately and haven’t heard about this, lucky you! Can I join you?
To bring those of you not following along up to speed and to share my pain, the Trump administration has taken aim at the rule of law in a whole bunch of different ways. Among other things, it is ignoring clear court orders, and trying to punish law firms that represent clients whom Trump doesn’t like or employ lawyers who, at one point, represented clients that Trump doesn’t like. In some cases, Trump has issued executive orders calling for the termination of government contracts with these firms and with companies represented by these firms, while also attempting to bar their attorneys from even entering federal buildings — a big problem if you’re a lawyer representing clients in federal courts.
Three firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block — have fought back and obtained an order blocking Trump’s executive order against them. I have to applaud the work of Williams & Connolly, the firm that has represented Perkins Coie, for some really excellent advocacy. If you’re at all curious about what really stellar legal briefs look like, I’d recommend checking out the materials they’ve submitted on behalf of their law firm client because they’re really well written. As they wrote, “The [executive] [o]rder is an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice. Its plain purpose is to bully those who advocate points of view that the President perceives as adverse to the views of his Administration, whether those views are presented on behalf of paying or pro bono clients.”
The judges hearing these cases have, thus far, uniformly ruled that Trump’s executive orders are blatantly unconstitutional because, among other things, they punish lawyers and/or law firms for their speech which, you know, is in direct violation of the First Amendment. (There are other huge issues as well, but I’m trying not to get too in the weeds here.)
Depressingly, several firms, including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Paul Weiss, have chosen not to fight back against Trump’s executive orders and have, in fact, caved to Trump’s demands. Indeed, these firms have, among other things, agreed to donate their attorneys’ legal services to Trump’s pet causes. In the case of Skadden, which appears to have signed on without Trump even threatening them, this agreement requires Skadden to provide $100 million in pro bono services to the Trump administration and supposedly is in effect both while Trump is in office and beyond (at least this is what Trump says, so who knows how literally true it is). If you want to see something horrible, go to their website to see how they now proudly proclaim their role as Trump’s legal attack dogs.
Let me just start by saying, even though of course it should go WITHOUT saying, that none of this should be happening, especially in the United States where we have a Constitution that is clearly written to prevent such dictatorial actions. Moreover, while I’m furious and disgusted at the firms that caved to Trump, this should not be read as blaming the victim; they’re obviously terrified of having their businesses crippled. I think we all know where the real blame lies.
With that said, what are these firms thinking? How can they agree to these types of “deals” that are blatantly against the law, instead of standing up and fighting for the very laws that their attorneys promised to uphold? Moreover, how exactly does the leadership of these firms think they’re going to make money if laws don’t matter anymore? What would even be the point of having lawyers?
Does this sound extreme? Ok, maybe. Nonetheless, as has been VERY evident these past few weeks, constraints on unpredictable behavior and government corruption are important for a flourishing economy, because it is only in a healthy economy that businesses and individuals are able to do the kind of deals for which they hire attorneys like those at Skadden Arps and Paul Weiss. If everything goes to hell, there won’t be any work for them anyway.
March 19, 2025
As you may be aware from LinkedIn or something more one-on-one (a text, a phone call, gossip over a latte), effective March 1, 2025, the separate firms of Trachtman & Trachtman and Poler Legal have merged to form Trachtman and Poler. Together, we (Laura Trachtman and Emily Poler) will continue to represent clients in a range of commercial disputes, with an emphasis on partnership and intellectual property disputes and employment-related matters. There are a number of reasons we decided to boldly enter this new era, but mostly because working together will be better for us and, more important, better for our clients.
We’ve been setting up this merger for awhile and, as you may imagine, a lot of thought and energy has gone into it. Each of us has already learned a few things in the process, and we anticipate finding out even more as we move forward. So this seems like a propitious time to share a little bit about the good and the bad (luckily, not much ugly here) of how it went down.
Emily: For me, the hardest thing has been juggling creating a new firm while also handling all of my day-to-day legal work. When I started Poler Legal in 2017 there was so much I didn’t know about operating a firm, but since I didn’t have many clients there was plenty of time to get organized and learn as I went along. Now, I have a whole slate of clients, each with their own requirements and deadlines. So trying to put together a new firm while also handling active cases felt like trying to build an airplane while flying it at the same time. I realize this is a champagne problem; I’m also quite thankful the plane didn’t crash!
I’ve also been unpleasantly surprised by how hard it is to make the various tech platforms we individually use to work together. Setting up or reconfiguring accounts is so much harder than it should be. Syncing Clio, which tracked time for each of us separately prior to the merger, was far from a seamless process. And don’t get me started on Google, which is really a PITA as far as setting up a new email account so that it becomes the primary one. Champagne problems one again, but still.
On the other hand, having someone to partner with is GREAT. The best thing is that I now have someone who can serve as a gut check. As a litigator, my job is to take a position on behalf of my clients; it’s opposing counsel’s job to tell me my stance is wrong, unsupported, or just plain stupid. It can sometimes be hard to tell if they have a legitimate point or not. Now, Laura can provide an objective perspective and point out when I’m right and when (once in a rare while, I hope) I need to rethink my position.
Most of all, I am thrilled that after years of shouldering the burden alone for everything related to running a law firm (which, never forget, is also a business), I now have someone with whom to share the responsibility. It’s a fantastic feeling and an enormous relief.
Laura: The hardest aspect of this merger has been the 180-degree shift from how I worked before with my law partner and mentor — my Dad — who had taught me to take any case that came down the pike and learn to do it well. Such a reactive approach could be frustrating, as I sometimes found myself practicing in areas I didn’t particularly enjoy. When I started discussing partnering with Emily, and we outlined our plans for where we want this firm to go, it quickly became clear I needed to reshape my thinking and take a much more proactive approach to the type of work I want to focus on. While this means putting in more effort at the beginning, I think it’s going to result in a practice that makes me a lot happier with the work that I do — which will make me happier, full stop.
I’m also trying to be more proactive in developing content for this blog and LinkedIn. Again, this isn’t something I did previously — my suggestion to my Dad to write a legal blog was not met with approval — but I certainly enjoy it, so I look forward to it.
In the end though, the best thing about this merger is having someone to encourage (but not pressure) me to put in the work that will help our firm succeed. Moving from a reactive to proactive business model makes obvious sense, and I am grateful that Emily has so much knowledge and experience of it, and is generous with her time and energy to help bring me up to speed.
The other best thing is that being a solo practitioner can be isolating and stressful, so it’s such a liberating feeling knowing that the success of the firm is not all on me. It’s also pretty great having someone I trust who I can actually talk to about all the big and little issues that arise everyday in this legal game.
It’s a new era for both of us and we are both very excited for everything that is to come.
January 21, 2025
As you know, I’m interested in business development and am always looking to learn more. In search of new ideas and inspiration, I Googled “lawyer blog on business development.” Yikes!
On the bright side, one of the first things that came up was this worthy blog, which I routinely read. But after that it was pretty much a wasteland of cliched blather: Develop a network; have a personal brand (can we please retire this phrase?); maintain good relationships with clients; and, inevitably, be a thought leader! (another phrase I am so over).
Pretty empty stuff, right? If anything, I think the fact that so many people serve up the same trite advice proves that none of them actually possess a personal brand or provide thought leadership (is there an emoji for irony?). More importantly, none of these bloggers ever tell you much about how to do these things they suggest. Obviously, these people are trying to sell their services and don’t want to give away valuable advice. But why would I be confident they actually have any?
What’s more, such vague banalities make the reality of business development seem more mysterious and daunting than it actually is. So let’s see if we can simplify things with some real lessons from my own experience that I feel define the building blocks of business development.
I’ve learned that the origin point is to give serious thought to a few questions: Who are you? What exactly do you want to do? How do you want to communicate that? Who do you want to work and network with? That foundational work needs to happen before you hire a marketing, PR or social media person — or to at least take place from the get-go with any hires. I say this as someone who spent good money on a marketing consultant with bad results, partly because we hadn’t answered these questions at the start.
Perhaps the most important of those questions is, what exactly do you want to do? When I started my firm I worked on a very broad range of cases and matters, basically taking whatever came my way. Guess what? I ended up working on things I had absolutely no interest in. (I am 100% fine if I never, ever handle another ERISA matter). So why did I do it? Well duh, the idea of turning down a client for my brand-new practice was terrifying. But when I eventually started saying no, my work (and my life) became much more satisfying. I avoided cases that didn’t interest me and didn’t waste energy dealing with people I didn’t want to work with. That freed me to take on interesting cases and work with people I was happy to represent. Plus, it left me time to further refine my skills and deepen my knowledge of the substantive legal areas that I wanted my practice to focus on.
Another problem with taking on work you don’t want: Such cases lead to meeting people, like co-counsel and opposing counsel, who work in those areas. They get to like you (that’s nice!). They think of you when something comes up they could refer to you (also nice!). But then you end up with more cases you don’t want (not nice). So it becomes something of a vicious career circle.
Once you know what type of work you want to take on, the next step is determining what clients you’re open to working with. Me, I have a strict “no assholes” policy. Litigation can be a very difficult, frustrating and draining experience, and if I get even a hint that a potential client is going to vent their anger with the process on me or my team, they will need to find another firm. Likewise, if a potential client comes to me after having been fired by another attorney, I’m not taking them on — no matter how much they’re willing to pay. It’s just not worth the possible stress. Ultimately, picking who I work with and what I work on makes it easier for me to do good work, which means the clients are happier, I’m happier, and the chances that more of the work I want will come my way increases exponentially.
I have a similar attitude when it comes to my network of peers and contacts in the legal community. I associate with people I like, who I respect, and who share my general ethos. That way, when I refer potential clients to someone I trust, I know that client will be treated well. And when I get referrals from peers I know well, I have some assurance the potential client and I are right for each other.
Speaking of networks, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that having a network is a lot more than a pile of business cards from people I met at some conference and then never spoke to again. How, exactly, is that a network? To me, a network is an array of professional contacts I enjoy regularly staying in touch with (and I’m not talking about through Instagram or TikTok). Having real relationships with people helps you all grow your businesses, your knowledge and, most importantly, your joy in what you do.
And in the end, enjoying what you do is the single most important litmus test for business development, because if you’re happy in your work, you’re developing your business right.
