Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools • Hacker News Board

Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools

#81

Post by ejstronge » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #68

aesopsfable wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At CES a Ford EV on display had this printed on its window "Doors are locked for your protection". Instead of being honest and saying "it's an early prototype"

Not to get side tracked with galling examples of Corp speak but a grocery store in Seattle has these signs that read,”please allow us to help you at another register” where it used to say “lane closed” or simply “closed”.

I’m not sure why this is bad - they directly inform you of the action you need to take.

You could even imagine a case where the lane was closed to customers but perhaps in use for a training. This sign would avoid confusion, whereas a ‘closed’ sign would invite answers.

Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools

#82

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

Adrienvdb wrote: post #70

rayiner wrote: post #8

> Even lawyers aren't immune to the unpredictability of working for a startup—and the appeal of generating high margins from selling software instead of human services. Companies tend to do the opposite, though, right? Apple could increase its margins by selling iOS and the Ax processor IP. But it makes more “boatloads of money” selling hardware, even at lower margins. Instead of selling IP, Apple uses its superior I…

Conflicts of interest rules make it harder for law firms to scale but it is possible by setting up Chinese walls ( https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/3-100-8763?__lrTS... ) ensuring lawyers from the same law firm can work in parallel. Ultimately, conflicts of interest rules apply to each lawyers individually, not to the law firm.

The US has stricter conflicts rules, and typically impute conflicts to the firm, except inherently personal conflicts (spousal conflicts). Chinese walls require client consent, and some jurisdictions, like Texas, do not give effect to Chinese walls at all.

Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools

#83

Post by sjy » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #73

sjy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? It sounds plausible, but then so does the narrative being pushed by the “new law” firms – that clients want alternative fee structures because they don’t like the open-ended cost of time billing.

It's not really open ended. The client can stop any time they decide the legal fees are no longer worth the benefits. And even traditional law firms do often work on a fixed fee or contingency fee basis for certain types of cases.

You cannot stop any time you like once you start litigating. Capitulation, or paying new lawyers to get up to speed and continue fighting for you, will both result in very large immediate costs. In that situation many people will feel compelled to continue paying their lawyers long after the budget that supported the initial decision to litigate has been spent.

Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools

#84

Post by sjy » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

pkilgore wrote: post #77

sjy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? It sounds plausible, but then so does the narrative being pushed by the “new law” firms – that clients want alternative fee structures because they don’t like the open-ended cost of time billing.

Not OP but former litigator turned programmer here. This gets very complicated because saying "legal work" is a giant generalization for a broad field. But talking about this with my peers (still a slice of the market) we arrived at this: There are three types of legal work (exceptions, yada yada, but mostly): 1. Normal people shit. Parking tickets and most criminal law, etc. Flat fees fine and usually nice so your c…

So, contrary to the OP, you would argue that clients don’t like time billing, but when the stakes are high, the price doesn’t matter. That makes more sense to me than the idea that clients actually like a pricing model that encourages inefficiency.

Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools

#85

Post by nradov » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

sjy wrote: post #83

nradov wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really open ended. The client can stop any time they decide the legal fees are no longer worth the benefits. And even traditional law firms do often work on a fixed fee or contingency fee basis for certain types of cases.

You cannot stop any time you like once you start litigating. Capitulation, or paying new lawyers to get up to speed and continue fighting for you, will both result in very large immediate costs. In that situation many people will feel compelled to continue paying their lawyers long after the budget that supported the initial decision to litigate has been spent.

That's not how it actually works in expensive litigation. The type of litigants who can afford such legal fees at all do understand the sunk cost fallacy and are capable of making fairly objective decisions about whether to continue.