Content ideas for lawyers, with the opening line written

Write the question three different clients asked you this month, then answer it generally.

Third time this month someone has asked whether a text message counts as an agreement. The more useful question is what it counts as evidence of.

Explain what people should bring to a first consultation and why each item matters.

Bring the paperwork you have been avoiding. It is usually the document nobody wanted to reread that determines how long the whole thing takes.

Answer the cost question honestly — what drives fees up and down in your practice area.

Nobody likes the answer "it depends," so here is what it depends on, in order of how much it moves the number.

Explain when someone genuinely does not need a lawyer for something.

There are matters where hiring us is a waste of your money, and this is one of them. Here is when that stops being true.

Map the timeline from first filing to resolution and name where the waiting actually happens.

The four months between filing and a first hearing contain almost no courtroom time. Here is what they do contain.

Describe what discovery is and why it takes as long as it does.

When someone says their case has been in discovery for a year, this is what has been happening — and why it is rarely anyone's fault.

Explain what actually happens in a deposition, moment by moment.

A deposition is not a trial and it is not a conversation. Here is what the room looks like and who is in it.

Describe what a settlement conference is and why most matters end there.

Most cases end in a room that looks like a conference room, because that is exactly what it is.

Take a single legal term and define it in one short post with no preamble.

Indemnification, in plain English: I agree to cover your losses if a specific thing goes wrong. The negotiation is always about which things.

Explain a term people use incorrectly in everyday conversation.

"Suing for defamation" and "having a defamation claim" are different sentences. The gap between them is where most of these conversations end.

Define a term that sounds alarming but usually is not.

Getting served is a delivery, not a verdict. Here is what the piece of paper actually starts.

Explain a deadline concept without giving anyone a specific deadline.

A statute of limitations is a clock that started before most people knew there was a clock. Which is why the first question we ask is when, not what.

Family law: explain what a parenting plan covers beyond the schedule.

The custody schedule is the part everyone negotiates. The decision-making section is the part they argue about for the next decade.

Personal injury: explain what a medical lien is and why it affects the number a client receives.

The settlement figure and the amount that reaches your bank account are two different numbers. Here is what sits between them.

Immigration: explain what processing times mean and why they move.

A published processing time is an average, not a promise, and it is measured from a date that may not be the one you think.

Estate planning: explain the difference between a will and a trust in terms of what happens after.

A will tells a court what you wanted. A trust often means the court is not involved at all. That distinction is the whole conversation.

Business law: explain what an operating agreement should say about someone leaving.

Most operating agreements are fine until someone wants out and nobody agreed in advance what out costs.

Employment: explain how the definition of "cause" shapes everything else in an agreement.

The clause that causes the most trouble in an employment agreement is rarely the non-compete. It is the definition of cause.

Name the thing people do in the first 48 hours that makes the matter harder.

The most expensive thing people do in the first two days is explain themselves in writing to the other side.

Explain why deleting things is worse than leaving them.

Deleting the messages is almost always worse than whatever was in the messages. That is not a moral point, it is a practical one.

Describe the document people cannot find and wish they had kept.

The single document that changes the shape of these matters is the one everyone signed years ago and nobody kept a copy of.

Explain why a template found online is not the same as a document that fits.

A downloaded template is not wrong. It is just written for a situation that may not be yours, and you find out which at the worst moment.

Correct a legal belief people picked up from television.

Objections do not work the way television suggests, and the ones that matter most are the least dramatic.

Correct a belief about what a contract can and cannot do.

Writing something into a contract does not automatically make it enforceable. Signing it does not either.

Address the assumption that going to court is the normal outcome.

Most matters never see a trial, which is why "we will see them in court" is less of a threat than it sounds.

Address the belief that a verbal agreement means nothing.

A verbal agreement is not automatically worthless. It is automatically harder to prove, which is a different problem.

Write directly to accountants about the fact patterns worth a call.

For the accountants who send us questions in Q1: here are three fact patterns where a call before filing saves a longer one after.

Write to other lawyers about the matters you take and the ones you refer out.

Here is what we take, and just as usefully, here is what we send elsewhere and who we send it to.

Explain to real estate or financial professionals where the legal question tends to surface in their process.

The point in a transaction where a legal question usually appears is later than it should be. Here is where it actually starts.

Share what you learned at a CLE or conference in a way peers can use.

Two things from last week's session that I think will change how we draft these, and one that I do not think will change anything.

Tie a post to a seasonal moment when the question naturally arises.

Every January we get the same call from businesses that added a partner in October and never papered it.

Post around a moment when families are together and estate questions surface.

The conversation nobody wants to have at a family gathering is also the one that is far easier to have now than later.

Announce a hire in terms of what the firm can now take on.

We added a fourth lawyer this month, which means we can finally take the employment matters we have been referring out.

Explain how the firm works — response times, who you will talk to, how billing runs.

Here is how we actually work: who picks up the phone, what happens in the first week, and how the bill is put together.