Have a client come in. She was in auto accident about 9 months ago. Was negotiating with insurance company on her own. Per her story, she rejected their offer and came to see me. So, I write a letter of representation to Allstate. Get a letter back from Allstate. They claim there had been a "meeting of the minds" between the adjuster and client. They have already negotiated and paid some of her medical bills directly. They have no settlement agreement/release signed. Of course any oral settlement agreement is not enforceable. Does this happen? I've just never had a situation where a third parties hospital bills have been paid directly by an insurance company without having a formal enforceable settlement.
In Texas some of the insurance companies pay hospitals directly without even consulting us here you can only submit to juries a paid amount or an incurred amount—usually unpaid bills. So they pay a $5,000 on a $35,000 hospital bill and our damages go down by $30k
Bodily injury. Single vehicle accident, she was passenger, but it was a carpool to work, so I can get around guest passenger. Adjuster sent me an email that said “they had a meeting of the minds.” I politely sent back, send me where that meeting of the minds ended in a signed written settlement agreement/release or no deal.
I get why they were rushed though. Accident happened in Tuscaloosa, but both parties live in Greene County, so I can ground it there. Broken orbital bone in Greene County and they were trying to get out for $13k?
New clients are down 50% though. So that’s fun Im thinking about doubling my ad budget next month. Have heard almost everyone else is cutting back
Also, for you defense guys who do PI, your new clients are going to be down 59-80% in the next 6-9 months so plan for that
A buddy of mine who does PL PI work here in town had to take a little paycut (the entire staff did). But based on how shitty people are driving this week (which is saying something since SC is full of shitty drivers), he will have plenty of work soon enough. It's like people forgot how to drive.
I think so too. Some of these insurance companies might start settling more cases pre lit instead of paying defense costs
Yeah, that's exactly what's about to happen. And, a lot of plaintiff's lawyers (and clients) are going to be willing to settle cases at a discount to get some money now. I've had a half dozen cases that were "limits or nothing!" and "we'll just try it then!" in February but are now "do you think you could get just a little bit more?" in May.
Do carriers or defense lawyers put any stock at all in a loss of household services claims? If the injury is significant enough? I know you guys will say you don't if it is a soft tissue injury case. I've seen juries award nothing for them. I like to make them and often do in bigger cases. But I'm not sure if the carrier or defense counsel is giving me any value settlement wise for them. Input from defense lawyers would be much appreciated. Thanks.
It depends, but normally you have to have a serious, permanent injury for it to be considered. I defended a product seller in a products case where the plaintiff lost a testicle. His wife had a loss of consortium claim and played up her fears about procreation in her answers to interrogatories. He ended up knocking her up with twins during litigation, so they dropped it and the value of his case also went down significantly.
I'm surprised that has happened. I haven't had any of my clients who needed the money now. I actually think the unemployed people are fine through the next few months. If you made less than $1k / week you're actually making more on unemployment than you made by working.
I think it's probably more the lawyers, and the fact that jury trials have been pushed beyond September 14 at the earliest has added to it. Plus, not all plaintiffs are unemployed. There are plenty of people with plaintiff's cases who run small businesses or are self-employed in trades.
i will be stunned if i have another trial this year. harris county in houston was a clusterfuck before this and i can't imagine now. we were already sharing the civil courthouse with the criminal judges because their courthouse was still fucked up from harvey. i was #1 on the docket for a trial in march but we couldn't go because the judge didn't have a court reporter. and no who is showing up for jury duty? apparently only 20% who got summons were showing up pre-covid. what will it be now? 2%?
I have vocational experts and economists work up this claim. The claim has to be based on restrictions and limitations. Or it is best if it is. Then an economist places a value on it. Usually things like they can no longer cut the grass, can no longer do some of the stuff around the house they used to be able to do etc. There is an article called The Dollar Value of a Day that many economist rely on for this.
It is usually in litigated cases with major injuries. Nearly ever time I've done this I've also had a lifecare plan and lost wages claims. Usually these cases have settled for $150,000 + , some times they've settled for $500k +. It is hard to tell how much value the carrier placed on one segment of the damages. That's why I'm asking. I've never had a trial where I've asked for it. But I'm sure I will some day.
Yep. I thought about holding out for about $25k more on the case I settled in early March for $225,000. So thankful I took it. They thought they had a trial in 3 weeks which would have gotten cancelled. Case was worth that and some, but was going to require fear of a jury to get it done. I now probably wouldn’t get a chance to try that case until spring of 2021.
much to my dismay, I have 15 or so small to medium sized auto cases that my entire plan was just to file an offer of settlement the first day I’m able to and if they don’t pay it then go try it. it’s a little harder now that those cases are probably 2+ years from trial as a result of this. so who the fuck knows, I may retire again. This job without trials is boring as shit.
King County (Seattle) is attempting to continue a trial by video conference on Monday. From the bar email:
I think believe this is the case in most office settings across many industries and why I think when this whole thing is over, There is going to be a lot more people being required to go back to working in the office than lots of people seem to think
I know most of you are far removed from the LSAT, but honest to god I think the section that pisses me off most is Reading Comp. On my first few practice tests I was scoring very highly on RC. I wrote it off as something that I was inherently good at and wouldn't benefit from studying further. I then came to realize that I was not nearly as consistently good as I thought I was. Every so often, RC sections came up in which I scored very poorly. Then they seemed to pop up more and more frequently. No strategy I employed ever consistently allowed me enough time to adequately digest the difficult passages, and the times that I was able to allow myself adequate time, the passages would be so fucking esoteric that I couldn't effectively answer the questions even with 11 minutes dedicated to the most difficult passage. We'll see how I did, but it didn't go all that great I think. I think I did up to my expectations on LR. LG and RC are going to be a crapshoot. 2 of the 4 games and 2 of the 4 passages I think I had a solid grasp on. The other 2 for each section were a lot of educated guesses. It will depend on how many of those educated guesses I hit on.
I had such trouble with the RC because all the articles were so fucking boring I couldn't retain any information. It's what I always scored the poorest on in my practice tests. If you're going to take it again, it's an average-to-above-average amount of effort to master the logic games. Can make up for other deficiencies.
I'm sure that a huge determinant for RC is how much of an interest you have in the subject matter. I did a section a couple weeks ago that had a passage on fucking bodybuilding. I got 7/7, but my guess is that a lot of people who had no interest in the subject matter got several wrong. Logic Games fucking sucks because all these classes and prep books would lead you to believe that every game can be neatly defined into a certain category (multiple correspondence, grouping, etc) and as long as you master the category you will be able to adapt on the fly, but I just don't think that's the case. There's always the possibility for slight variables that you're unprepared for. Happened with me today twice.
Just chill out until your results. And be prepared to take it one more time if needed. You’ll always focus on the negative coming out of a test
Reading this is refreshing my memory on how much the LSAT sucked. Can't decide if the LSAT or the secured transactions portion of the bar exam is the WOAT topic covered during the LSAT/law school/bar exam process.
This 100%. I had a bad day with logic games after generally acing the section in practice. Afterwards, I was convinced I failed and almost cancelled my score. In the end, I did fine, got into my target law school, and now have the privilege of selling my life 6 minutes at a time. Just sit tight and try to relax. Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
I was amazingly lazy and unprepared for the LSAT. Took 2 10 year old practice exams and that was it. Wasn't aware of one of the new sections on the test because they were newly instituted between my super old sample tests and the actual LSAT and I didn't do any other research. I was such an idiot.
Yup. And if anything, keep your expectations level. I think I dropped mine after taking the actual test. Then, when I got my results back, I was blown away about being in the top 7 percentile. I never took it again, but wish I had to see if I could have gotten into the top 15ish schools or gotten a free ride to more top 40 schools. Feel confident that all things average out and you are just stressed because there are no answers in the back of the book and you are missing that gratification of knowing whether you got it wrong/right.
The only thing I remember about the LSAT was that I had a wicked case of the beer shits that morning. Just before exiting my care I ripped a particularly ripe, dense and moist fart that I nearly gagged on myself. Get out of the car, go do the test and leave my locked vehicle in the hot Miami sun for several hours baking the fart I left inside. When I got back to the car after the test, it smelled like I was storing a dead body in the trunk.
A huge drawback related to working from home, for me, is the lack of work being thrown my way like they were prior to the office closure. We have 4 partners (5 if you include a new one). It seems like one is pretty checked out amid coronavirus. A couple of the others are good and getting work my way when I send them a reminder. But getting a little frustrated that I am about to send my 3rd email since we left the office asking for a refresh on my workload. As a young attorney and newest associate in the office, I understand that assigning work takes a certain amount of effort. And I know it is easier to walk by my office and be reminded of that work you wanted to delegate, but I wish my partners were doing a better job of doing that through email. Nothing like the feeling you get it in your stomach asking for more work, fearing the pandemic has limited the availability of work.