Editorial Standards at Docket Basics

Docket Basics covers the business side of running a small law practice. The editors work to the rules below, and we have written them down so readers can hold the site to them.

Starting from a task

A page begins with something a firm does every week: taking on a client, sending an invoice, reconciling an account, entering a deadline. We stay away from the substance of cases and do not offer views on how to argue a matter.

Authority, in order

1. Rules of professional conduct, court rules and bar guidance come first. Where the ABA Model Rules give the clearest picture, we say they are a model and not the law of your state.
2. For software, we read the vendor’s own documentation and describe what a tool does. We claim to have run a product only when the page says so.
3. Wherever a reader can check a statement against a primary source, we link to it. Our links go to the source itself, never to a third party’s summary of it.

How we choose topics

Ideas come from the routine of a small firm and from suggestions sent to the contact address. A topic gets written up if a solo lawyer or a two-partner firm would face it without a back office to hand it to. A subject that only a large firm’s staff would handle usually waits.

What a summary leaves out

A short account of a conduct rule drops exceptions, comments and local variations, and that gap is where mistakes happen. Pages that summarize a rule say so, name the rule, and tell you to read the text your own jurisdiction adopted. Treat any summary here as a map of where to look.

One answer or fifty

When an answer changes by state, the page says so and sends you to your own bar. We do not choose one state’s rule and present it as general. Exact dollar thresholds and filing fees stay out too, since they shift with the year and the jurisdiction.

Describing software

Tools are covered by what they do for a firm’s records, billing and deadlines. We read the vendor’s documentation and any published terms, and we say which parts of a tool we could not verify. A page that compares kinds of software compares how the kinds work. It does not name a winner, because firms differ in size, practice area and state.

Worked numbers

Figures in examples and calculators are placeholders that show how the arithmetic runs. Replace them with your own, and have your accountant look at the result before you set prices or a budget.

What the site is, and is not

Pages are written by The Docket Basics editors and carry no personal byline. The site is not a law firm, and nothing on it is legal advice. It cannot account for your facts, your state or your practice area, and the rules that bind you come from your state bar and your courts.

Money and relationships

Should a page involve a commercial relationship with a product or company it names, the disclosure appears beside the mention and not in a footer. A page without one has nothing to disclose.

Correcting the record

If a page is wrong:

1. Email write@docketbasics.com.
2. Say which statement is wrong and why.
3. We correct the page. When the change matters, its date moves.

We also review pages when the rules they describe change, and the updated date shows when that last happened.

What we ask you not to send

Please do not email anything about a specific client or matter. We cannot give legal advice, and we do not want confidential information.