Who has it worse: the plaintiff lawyer whose clients always wants more than their case is worth and are never happy no matter how much you get them OR the insurance defense lawyer whose client does _________________________. I'm not really sure what insurance defense lawyers clients (insurance companies) do that would be similar to what I'm saying about plaintiff lawyers clients do. Possible answers : constantly audits their bills, is also never happy with the result no matter how much you save them?
Insurance companies aren’t insurance defense lawyers’ clients; the insureds are. Often, the company keeps you from being able to get the client his/her desired result (whether that’s settling when they want a trial or not settling when they don’t). Also, a lot of your clients don’t want to cooperate with you. You can’t just “fire” them on our side because that might result in them losing coverage, which would be a bad result for them. They often don’t trust you, because they didn’t choose you. Then, when you manage to keep everything balanced until you get a result, and you justify every six minutes of your time, you get some third party auditor sending your bill back with cuts for “excessive time” or “paralegal work” for shit that you had to do and now won’t get paid for doing. There’s a reason a lot of defense lawyers go to the plaintiffs’ side and not vice versa.
Back when I was doing more insurance-based defense work than I do now (yay big law and sophisticated corporate clientele) my biggest problem was them never being happy, no matter how much I saved them. It was the very definition of “thank-less” job. My corporate clients are much more appreciative of the work that is done and the results I get. I never had a huge issues with my bill being cut excessively.
Insurance carriers are only happy if you close the file quickly without paying the plaintiff anything. And, as for billing, the problem is with the third party auditing (which is relatively new, or at least recently gaining in popularity). If an entry says certain triggering words, the entry is flagged/not paid. You can appeal it and get it paid, but then you’re spending .2 to get .1 back. It doesn’t really affect the bottom line on receivables, it’s just frustrating to have to justify your work all the time to non lawyers.
I could go on for days about this strategy. I love Keith to death, he taught me everything I know. I wholeheartedly hate this strategy.
The verdict is in: being a plaintiff or insurance defense lawyer sucks and your clients are never happy.
Being a plaintiff lawyer would be tight if you employed enough people that you could avoid bitching clients on a day to day basis Being a shareholder in an insurance defense firm means you still have to bill every 6 minutes
Oh don’t get me wrong, I was audited and had time cut with regularity when I was at my old shop, which did about 60% of its business from one carrier. I guess I got really good with my narratives that I avoided major cuts and would maybe have a couple of throw away .1s knowing they would ultimately get cut. Still had something like 95+% collection rate
My favorite clients are high net worth individuals and their closely held businesses. Not a fan of large corporate clients. While their legal/tax department may be appreciative, a lot of times (at least for associates) it gets lost in the chain of command or the result is simply expected. The owner or CEO of a closely held business is appreciative every time. Really my favorite clients are CPAs with whom I share a client. Can cut out the bullshit and simply reach a conclusion and often times they do not require anything more formal than an expensive email. Those are the best. Random thoughts for $1000.
Yes my clients have $75k and $85k in medical bills Another lawyer reps two and one had broken leg They’ve offered me 7500 About to teach Allstate a lesson
Shit I talked with the Allstate adjuster earlier this week and he was like let’s see how the deposition goes I think they’re going to want to go to trial on it
allstate just filed a no evidence MSJ against us with a one sentence affidavit from their client saying 'i was not the driver who hit * Gallant Knight 's * client. my client has a picture of allstate's client's drivers license. there wasn't a policy report. they didn't ask for a copy of the driver's license in discovery--only property damage pictures talk me out of filing a response to the MSJ along with a motion for sanctions and attorneys fees.
I'd send them a copy of the photograph and a letter explaining that and encouraging them to withdraw their MSJ. If they refuse, then you can attach that as an exhibit for your motion for sanctions/fees.
Tread lightly any time you are filing a motion for sanctions, i’d do more discovery in anticipation of filing your response to the msj. You want to setup the fact that it’s not just the defendant, but they did it with the assistance of allstate’s Counsel or else you can fuck around and mess up coverage. Take the person’s depo, then send written discovery. I like requests for admissions plus contention interrogatories for any of them that are denied.
I don't think that just believing one's client is, in and of itself, sanctionable. That would put a lot of plaintiff's lawyers out of business.
the defense lawyer is a notorious piece of shit. we got discovery back about 6 weeks ago with every response being will supplement. and he filed the MSJ about 3 weeks after the statute ran.
does texas have a statewide e-filing system? find occurrences of him doing shit like this before, attach those as exhibits to any motion for sanctions. If you're going to file a motion for sanctions, you have to go fully nuclear.
I think you've got a pretty easy "more discovery" response on your hands then. Do like Sammy said and push the shit out of discovery. Try it and shove that affidavit up the defendant's ass.
I have had two clients lose their homes this week because of insurance company shenanigans. One is because the insurance company just can't seem to "figure out" why my guy's weekly benefits aren't getting to the right address we gave them seven times. The other is an adjuster who admitted he had no reason to not pay weekly benefits, hired an attorney, they admitted there was no reason not to pay them, and my client has gone six months without any income. Ridiculous.
Not really. I can ask for 15% late payment penalties and assessed attorney fees. But that doesn’t amount to much for the insurer even if they pay me what would be considered really high assessed fees amounts like $5k to maaaaybe $10k. Other than that, Georgia’s ALJ’s are just all sorry for your luck.
Have your client complete an affidavit attesting to identifying the driver and then authenticating the picture. Argue it was him. Fact issue - done. Easiest MSJ response ever.
Anyone ever fight speeding tickets? Im helping my brother with one and I'm having way too much fun finding loopholes that are technically correct by super unlikely to work.
Starting up trial again Monday on a med mal case. It’s the first in a stretch of 6 special set trials (5 med mal and one nursing home case) I have between now and late October. None have any chance of settlement
they could argue under 193.6 that you had obligation to produce the DL. assuming they sent over disclosure request. I wouldn’t waste my time with motions or a response. just an email with the DL, and “supplement” your disclosure responses.
i know these feels. i have a comp client that calls 10 times a day and sends 10 emails a day because he moved to Texas and is living in a hotel because he's broke and his TTD didn't make it to his new hotel address in TX even though we told opposing counsel he was moving and gave them new address. So we had to ask for them to reissue a check and overnight it. He's been in full melt down mode and driving my paralegal crazy.
Got my first Jones Act case today. Going to work it up with this guy in Louisiana that's a badass at Jones Act cases and learn the ropes. Dude was on a drill ship 40 miles off the coast of Venice Louisiana and because of the way the cargo was loaded (negligence) he was pinned against something during some bad weather with high wind. Multiple herniated discs. I might try to get more and more into maritime law.
Had a Vietnamese guy show up at my former firm’s office and tell my boss and me that he runs all the Vietnamese Jones act cases in Texas and they cost $30,000 cash each