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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19407 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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not through any fault of the court but because the attorney responsible isn't motivated to list them for trial until the ducks are all in a row

I mean, I'd just point out that this answers your initial thought:

I don't know that LLMs really could add much since any lawyer would be able to give you a ballpark on likelihood of success and the award range.

Any lawyer can give you the ballpark, but the LLM now makes it 'viable' to file and prosecute a suit as long as it is expected to be barely EV positive.

The cost of getting 'all ducks in a row' should go down substantially.

By getting all your ducks in a row I'm not referring to anything that an LLM can accomplish. I'm referring to things like making sure you have witnesses lined up for deposition and things of that nature, since you don't want to wait until the start of discovery before looking for them. This is mostly and issue in wrongful death cases, where you can't just depose the plaintiff to get the evidence and often need to track down third parties. Whether or not you can get a case off the trial list after discovery closes depends on the custom of the attorneys in the area in which you're practicing. There's one firm I deal with a lot that has a habit of listing cases they don't do anything with and having them removed (some trial terms my caseload is disproportionately made up of these perennials that never seem to go off, including one from 2013 with a crazy plaintiff who refuses to settle anything and whose attorney keeps listing it and removing it to keep the guy happy, or so I assume); I never oppose these motions, because I (and my clients) prefer to maintain a good working relationship with the firm over forcing the issue to get a single case dismissed. Other practice areas aren't so cordial and laid back, and plaintiff's attorneys aren't going to list cases unless they're sure they'll actually go off.

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