42 North Counsel

The quality of your legal work is not measured by the quantity of ink you spill. Let’s please all try to remember this lawyers.

@biglawbro It’s the only way

@42NorthCounsel clients love when you do this

footnotes in transaction docs are the main event for the client billable hrs made the docs so long and confusing that we use footnotes for the opposite of their original purpose

@SMB_Attorney Do you think state bars will put pressure on and try to look through the MSO structure?

Utahs ‘allow non-lawyers to own law firms’ experiment is coming to an end. The MSO will make it *somewhat* moot regardless. Interestingly, we’re doing more and more law firm M&A. Something to watch…

@mmsmithlegal Definitely important, otherwise you’re likely to stop a few steps short of the best answer, which is usually beyond an easy grasp.

What makes a good attorney? Personally, I think they should be naturally curious.

@willchen500 What are the inputs that decide who wins the race? Raw intellect, infrastructure, focus, the breadth of talent in this discreet labor force?

It’s amazing how fast the Chinese models have progressed in the past few months, they really look like they are at the frontier now. Reminds me of what happened to the car industry. Will the west ban the “import” and use of foreign open weight models?

@mmsmithlegal Sir this is a Wendy’s

I religiously answer my cell phone. An OC called me: "We sent a Demand Ltr and heard nothing back." They didn't lead with their firm or client's name. Me: "Sir, I have no clue what you're talking about."

@mchlhess This is basically just a SAFE

Clause 4 is something you’ll only see in SF

@sethtjf @willchen500 Our 900 year old common law would like to have a word

@42NorthCounsel @willchen500 I was but human behavior is changing

Still happening in legal AI by the way

@sethtjf @willchen500 I thought the computers you were talking about were humans

@42NorthCounsel @willchen500 I disagree

@willchen500 I’d like to apologize to every one who chimed in on this thread for the narrative violation.

Someone help buddy here out of the rock he’s under

@sethtjf @willchen500 Yeah unfortunately those computers aren’t changing anytime soon.

@42NorthCounsel @willchen500 Law is the original code and it runs on shitty computers

@litigationai @willchen500 The fact that we’re all so focused on whether AI can help us .. fix formatting .. is kind of making my point.

I'm a litigator, not just a doc review guy, and I use AI every single day, so I think can chime in on this... There was a comment on formatting... fun fact: as we are all aware, a lot of lawyers have to use formatted pleading paper and I could never get that to continue working. I'd tell Cowork to use my pleading paper template, but all the line numbers, etc. that are required were stripped out. Every. Single. Time. Well, I decided to move over to Code and see if I could make it work, and it did. All my side lines, line numbers, etc. were all there. I haven't used Cowork since. And this doesn't even take into account any of the things I've done for more complex workflows. So, in at least some respects, law is code. And we're just cracking the surface.

@willchen500 I love the tech and I’m super bullish, I just think the discourse is totally warped bc people are excited (rightfully so) and it’s mostly driven by people who don’t use it day-to-day on real matters. We need to be more real about where it’s at today, that’s the only way forward🤙

@42NorthCounsel I practiced bud. Yup being a lawyer means you don’t have to be open to opinions that challenge your worldview - just stay ignorant 👍

@ANGC_burner The people’s major

The Open is the best major and it’s not particularly close

When the partner hits you with the “do you have some availability for a quick project”email at 4:37 pm on Friday July 3.

@Lawyer4Deals Previous owner had a little too much time and nail polish on his or her hands

What in the ZIRP even is this?

@prestonattebery Each word competing to be the center of attention is a great way to describe it. It is incredibly distracting and puts a massive burden on the reader as a cost to it being perceived as clever.

A tell-tale sign of Claude-slop: The ideas are too densely packed. Verbose yet concise. Each word competing to be the center of attention. Impossible to read once you notice.

@abraham_jmb And my caveat, is everything I said above is based on where AI is today. Not necc where it will be in two years.

@abraham_jmb Agree, this is thoughtful and reasonable. When you’re inside the work and being honest, you start seeing just how far (or not) the claim that AI can do it all can go. That it improves work product more than efficiency is counterintuitive, but I think spot on.

i dont want to see the ant api bill from my harvey usage. i ride opus 4.8 in harvey like nobody’s business as i’m getting assigned increasingly more legitimate junior tasks despite being a summer, since some of my work product is actually usable because of my opus riding.