The week our outside counsel turned a 40-page depo notice into a $180k fight over a laptop

Richard Wells · 2026-10-18T05:35:04.598451+00:00

Heads up to anyone managing discovery in a smaller company: last month we got hit with a deposition notice that should have taken two days of prep. Instead, our outside counsel in Chicago spent four days arguing over the format of a laptop image and ran the bill to $180 grand in one week. The paralegal on our side flagged the scope creep on day two and got told to stay in her lane. By Friday the judge's clerk called it a routine squabble and told both sides to pick a date. We paid for a fight nobody won, and the other side's lawyer was smirking through the whole call. If your legal team sends weekly accrual reports, read them line by line, because that invoice listed 62 hours of what it called strategy calls. Has anyone actually pushed back on a bill like this and gotten it cut, or is that just something the partners say to keep you calm?

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The week our outside counsel turned a 40-page depo notice into a $180k fight over a laptop | Corporate Litigation - Topic Shares