In a conversation with Arthur Rothrock on The Litigator's Path, Bochnewich lays out the habits and decisions that shaped a three-decade career trying cases in probate court – from the discovery practices he credits with keeping him out of motion-to-compel fights, to the client intake process he uses to screen for unrealistic expectations before signing an engagement agreement. He also walks through what he learned spending eight years in corporate sales before law school, why he waited 20 years to go solo, how he evaluates marketing spend against organic referrals, and where he thinks AI fits (and doesn't) in a probate litigator's workflow. The common thread: sustained success in trust and estate litigation comes from writing well, knowing your cases cold, and treating every interaction – with the bench, with opposing counsel, with clients – as a long-term investment in reputation.
Why Peter Bochnewich Treats Discovery as the Foundation of Trial Preparation
Most litigators treat discovery as a chore. Bochnewich treats it as the engine of his entire case strategy. He tells younger attorneys to "hypnotize yourself to love discovery," arguing that responding to interrogatories forces you to confront your own case's strengths and weaknesses in a way that nothing else does. In probate litigation, where the judge who handles your regular hearings is also the trier of fact at trial, that preparation compounds. Every written response is effectively pre-trial testimony prep.
Bochnewich says he almost never faces motions to compel – and almost never has to bring them. His approach is straightforward: answer the questions. He will assert necessary objections to preserve them, but he provides substantive responses rather than hiding behind boilerplate. The payoff is practical. When opposing counsel does try an aggressive motion to compel, the separate statement shows a question followed by a complete answer, and most judges move on. On the flip side, he has little patience for parties who respond to standard contention interrogatories with nothing but objections. "You brought the case. You pled it. You verified it," he says. "All I'm doing is asking you to state the facts."
He also warns against outsourcing discovery wholesale to AI tools. The process of answering questions about your own case – digging into the documents, identifying the witnesses, mapping facts to causes of action – is what makes a litigator the most knowledgeable person in the room when it matters. A mentor once told him that a lawyer should be able to outline a trial brief at the beginning of a case. Discovery is how you get there.
How Bochnewich Spent 20 Years in Firms Before Going Solo – and Why He Thinks That Timeline Matters
Bochnewich did not rush into firm ownership. He spent eight years between college and law school working in corporate sales and marketing, including a stint with a medical company serving the ophthalmology community. He graduated from California Western School of Law in San Diego in 1992, clerked for a mentor during his second and third years, then cycled through insurance defense firms where he logged heavy reps on depositions, demurrers, and written discovery.
He eventually spent 15 and a half years at a single firm, moving from associate to non-equity partner to full equity partner in a 20-attorney shop. By the time he left, he had built his own client base within the firm – what he describes as "a practice within a practice." His first move was a 50-50 partnership with an estate planning attorney, splitting the work by discipline: Bochnewich handled litigation, his partner handled planning. Bochnewich Law Offices launched independently around July 1, 2015, a full 23 years after he passed the bar.
He is direct with younger attorneys considering the solo path: don't skip the part where you learn by walking down the hallway and asking a more experienced lawyer a question. Insurance defense, he notes, was especially formative because firms handed young lawyers real tasks – depositions, court appearances, discovery – early and often. That volume of repetition is what eventually makes the work feel instinctive. As one of his former associates once told him, "this stuff is coming out of your pores."
Writing Quality and Courtroom Presence in Trust and Estate Litigation
If Bochnewich could give one piece of advice to any litigator entering probate court, it would be to become a better writer. In contested trust and estate matters, there is no jury. The trier of fact is the probate judge – the same judge who sees you at every status conference and who reads every petition and brief you file. That means your written work product is not just advocacy; it is your reputation, filed and indexed.
Bochnewich keeps a searchable archive of every pleading his office has produced over more than two decades, stored on a local server alongside the firm's cloud-based practice management software (they use Leap). That library functions as a sample bank far deeper than any form book. Matthew Baker applies a similar philosophy in trust and estate litigation at a large firm – using AI-assisted document review to get ahead of the file before manual review even begins. But he is clear that templates are a starting point, not a shortcut. Every filing needs to be "not over-pled, not under-pled, but as precise as possible as to the issues."
In the courtroom, he emphasizes fundamentals that apply across practice areas but carry extra weight when you are appearing before the same judge repeatedly: show up on time, dress professionally even on Zoom, do not speak over the bench, and slow down. A judge Bochnewich respects spent years telling him to speak more slowly. He initially brushed it off as a dig about his East Coast cadence. Eventually he realized the judge was telling him, plainly, "I can't follow you unless you speak slower." Once he adjusted, his arguments landed better. "Take your signals from the bench," he says. "Do what they want you to do."
How Bochnewich Evaluates Marketing, Referrals, and Client Intake for a Litigation Practice
For most of his career, Bochnewich's business has come from lawyer-to-lawyer referrals – colleagues who have seen his work in court or read his briefs and send clients his way. As recently as a few months before the interview, a colleague asked him to come aboard a case specifically because of how he carries himself in the courtroom. He considers referral business the source of his best matters.
Still, he maintains a website, runs social media on Facebook and Instagram, and has experimented with Google Local Service Ads and pay-per-click campaigns. His verdict on paid ads: the jury is still out, but they should never be a substitute for a site that ranks organically on its own. "You don't want to rely totally on local service ads," he says, "because then you're paying for something that might be a band-aid over a website that's not that good." He has taught himself enough about SEO, backlinks, and keyword strategy to have informed conversations with vendors, and he monitors his website dashboard to track traffic and inquiries.
On the intake side, Bochnewich offers free consultations and honors that promise for every inquiry, even the ones he knows will not become clients. His biggest red flag: a prospective client who has burned through two or three prior attorneys and is eager to complain about all of them. Another warning sign is a client who treats the attorney as an order-taker rather than an advisor. He spends significant time in the pre-engagement phase – reviewing the matter, managing expectations, and assessing fit – before sending an engagement agreement. That agreement itself is detailed: defined scope of work, state bar-required disclosures, conflict waivers where applicable, and an explicit note that no guarantees can be made. He also includes a provision discouraging substantive case discussions by text message, both for security reasons and because the format does not lend itself to the kind of careful communication litigation requires.
Where Bochnewich Sees AI Fitting Into a Probate Litigator's Workflow
Bochnewich is not a skeptic. He watches long-form tech podcasts, discussed AI on his own show with guest Guy Kosoff, and says his firm is evaluating AI-assisted features within their practice management platform. He uses ChatGPT to generate deposition outlines – "put in the keywords and say, give me a deposition outline for undue influence," he explains – but treats the output as a rough starting framework that requires verification, not a finished product. When it comes to formal motions, Bochnewich maintains the same discipline: every filing is reviewed against the specific judge's local rules and formatted to the precise specifications probate courts expect.
His forecast for the next five to ten years centers on document handling and trial preparation. If AI can reliably sort discovery documents, flag relevant exhibits, and assemble trial binders according to local rules – Bochnewich cites Riverside County's Local Rule 3401 as an example – he believes the time savings for litigators and paralegals will be enormous. But he draws a firm line: AI is a finding tool, not a replacement for reading cases, checking citations, and applying judgment to facts. "It's only going to be as good as what you put into it," he says. "Garbage in, garbage out." This is exactly the kind of document assembly and formatting workflow that platforms like Legion are designed to accelerate for litigators who want speed without sacrificing control over the final product.
He does not believe AI will replace trial lawyers. The empathy, the ability to read a courtroom, and the judgment calls that shape case strategy all require a human presence. But he is equally clear that attorneys who refuse to engage with the technology risk falling behind – the same way some practitioners struggled when the profession moved from physical law libraries to Westlaw.
What Litigators Can Take Away
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Bochnewich answers discovery substantively even when he could hide behind objections, and credits that habit with keeping him out of motion-to-compel practice on both sides for most of his 32-year career – a direct time and cost savings for his clients.
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Before signing an engagement agreement, he spends extended time interviewing the prospective client, and his top disqualifier is a client who has cycled through multiple prior attorneys and blames each one – a pattern he treats as a near-certain predictor of future dissatisfaction.
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He waited over 20 years after passing the bar to launch his own firm, building a full book of business as an equity partner first, and advises younger attorneys to resist the pressure to go solo before they have logged enough reps – particularly on depositions and court appearances – to operate on instinct.
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Bochnewich manages his own SEO knowledge rather than delegating it entirely to vendors, monitors his website analytics dashboard directly, and treats paid advertising as a supplement to organic search presence rather than a substitute for it.
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He uses AI tools like ChatGPT to generate first-draft deposition outlines and research starting points but treats every output as unverified – applying the same cite-checking discipline he would to a brief borrowed from a colleague's sample file.
Listen to the Full Episode
Hear the full conversation between Peter Bochnewich and Arthur Rothrock on The Litigator's Path – including Bochnewich's extended thoughts on courtroom civility, what retired judges say about unprepared associates, and how he plans to eventually transition firm leadership to the next generation. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Learn more about Legion at legion.law.