I just finished my sixth one since December without a settlement. Nearly all of mine are 5-10 players at the table. It just doesn’t work when you arent in the same room.
Had a 100k settlement with 35k in fees on the 5 yard line for the past 2 weeks. All my OC needed to do was get the insurance company to sign off. Today was her last day with the firm and she ghosted me today after promising to get it wrapped up yesterday. Now I probably have to start all over on Monday. Ugh. I know not that big of an amount, but I’m still growing at this and would have been my biggest settlement since starting.
Just got a text from her. Current firm guilted her into working Monday. Still alive on this thing. it is to me, but I know there are some personal injury attorneys ITT who would laugh at 35k. Staying humble.
Nah man, any attorney who laughs at 35k in fees is a fucking asshole. Good luck getting it across the finish line.
Yeah, unless you’re in a huge Plaintiff’s firm, that’s a really good day at any time. Huge ones are nice, but for most of us, they don’t come along that often. In my third month as partner, we settled two cases in a span of two weeks that netted about $600k in legal fees. I was like, man this is absolutely awesome. 7 years later and boy do I realize how extraordinary that was.
Oh I know. But you know how it can be sometimes. New attorney grabs a file and wants to make a show of playing hardball. I’d much rather deal with the devil I know.
When I was on defense side and came into the same situation, if I took over an old file and said a case was defensible, the lit specialist ate it up. Now I wouldn’t turn down a chance to close a file. But others at my firm would do that.
Does Lexis have most federal disrict court opinions? OC cited 17 district court orders/opinions in a brief. I went looking for them in Case Text yesterday and Case Text didnt have half of them. Had to go into ECF, plug in cause number, pull up the docket, and pay a fee to print them off. Took like 2hrs. I’m not going back to West Law because they price gouge. But if Lexis would save me the hassle described above, I’d go with them. My understanding is Lexis is cheaper than West Law.
As a side note, I’m not sure if the judge gives a shit or if I’m wasting my time, but if you cite 20+ cases in a brief (trial court, not appellate), I’m going to read all of them and do my damndest to turn them around on you or distinguish them, mostly out of competitive nature and spite. And I don’t care if I have to sit at the office all weekend to accomplish that. And in a sad and fucked up way , I kinda enjoy the process. I’d rather be in trial and def don’t want to be a full time brief writer, but when forced to write briefs, I don’t mind the orderly and formulaic process of doing so, other than it infringing on my personal time. /deardiary
That depends. I see a lot of carriers who won't pay for travel time within a certain radius (like 30 miles or less), and seen some carriers who only pay the half-rate for travel. The med mal carriers mostly pay for everything provided you don't abuse it. Like, traveling to New York for the deposition of a co-defendant's expert in a topic that has little to do with your client's defense isn't going to get you paid.
You're over-thinking it. I'm willing to bet that the lawyer who filed the brief is really just relying on three cases or less, but then uses whatever string cite is included in one of the cases being relied on. Once in a great while I have opposing counsel do that and find that the cases they cite to don't actually support the point they're trying to make (or are one-page decisions with no useful facts included), but because it was cited in the case they're relying on it gets thrown in there.
Yes, both Westlaw and Lexis have many district court opinions, although I think it depends on whether the judge requests that they be published. I think Westlaw gets them quicker. The great thing about Westlaw though (Lexis may have something similar by now), is that it allows you to upload the other party's brief into a brief analysis tool that will shepardize each cited case as well as analyze the quotes to see if they say what the other side says they say. It can be incredibly useful.
I messaged the Case Text people and they admitted that none of the opinions I asked about were in their database and they were going to work to get them in
If you ever wanted to know whether you have to provide an expert report for a treating physician under Federal Rule 26 , I am now an expert on this subject. AMA.
Good god. Do you not have page limits? Reading a brief where you distinguish 20 non-binding, district court-level cases in a string cite (presumably, all standing for the same proposition) is going to be tedious as fuck and put the judge to sleep.
35 page limits for briefs. I actually have kept my distinctions pretty limited. After reading their 20 cases , I only felt the need to distinguish like 5 of them. Also I assume that a judge's clerk reads the briefs and gives the judge the high points or summary. But yah some judge's will read the whole thing.
complaining worked last time, so I'm going to try again. She's ghosted me all day today. Hoping for a last minute return of my calls.
It's hard to describe the feeling you get when you've been working all day on the weekends, getting up at like 5AM every day during the week, getting to the office at like 6 or 6:30 when it's still dark. Everything starts to blur together. Especially when you do that for like multiple weekends in a row. It feels like one long continuous work day.
But at least you’re doing it for yourself. I am really looking into the option of just getting the fuck out of here and starting a solo practice. My main hesitation has been the uncertainty of just how much of the client work I currently do will follow me. And it’s kind of hard to gauge that with carriers in a way that doesn’t give up the game for me.
What is your case load like? Unless those extra hours are translating to a massive income increase, I'd put some of that shit on the backburner. Fuck working weekends. I don't care to put in 3 or 4 hours on a Saturday here and there, but I'd have a breakdown if I didn't get some time to unwind every weekend. I think my sweet spot is around 50-55 hours per week. If I get over that, I'm miserable.
It has been a combination of (1) A massive federal case with massive briefing scheduling and tons of briefs. Also have been tons of depositions. I've done all the briefing. I've probably drafted over 100 pages of briefs in the last few weeks (2) I usually have between 90-100 PI and comp cases many of which are in litigation (3) I've had to do a ton of admin work because I'm a partner. I recently researched, interviewed, and retained a new digital marketing firm. That was a massive project with billions of zoom calls. Also researched, interviewed, and retained a new answering service. Also developed updated and improved intake protocols for reception/intake coordinators. Etc etc.
Mediation today that Defendant asked for. 18 wheeler incident - my client got pinned against his own trailer after their guy forgot to set the brake on his truck. All of it is on surveillance. My guy stayed in the hospital for 3 days, fractured hip, clavicle etc. He's treating for his lumbar spine now. They offered 1/5th of the policy today and said they need more time to evaluate. Why the fuck did you ask to mediate then??
Not that I agree with this strategy, and I get why it pisses you off, but they probably wanted an early mediation to feel out your friction point.
Had a 26 party (17 Plaintiffs, 9 Defendants) mediation scheduled in early March. About a week out, main defense lawyer calls me to tell me that was some miscommunication and his adjuster didn't hold the day, we have to reschedule. Our mediator is booked until May, but after circling around with all of my clients, we get a new date and make sure it's cleared with that specific adjuster. Just get an email claiming adjuster is going to be out of state and is now wanting to reschedule again. I'm normally pretty easy going, but I'm about to blow.
lol if it's 26 parties being held up because of one person then that person should have the courtesy to figure it out
I tend to agree. I get along very well with this particular Defense lawyer. I actually am helping him Defend cases in this venue currently, so I can't completely go nuts, but I'm getting very annoyed.
Had a comp trial earlier in the month. Just got back the order. The most clear cut fraud case I've seen. Judge ruled it's not fraud. Basis was the Costanza defense. Judge said while the claimant gave an inaccurate medical history that was material to his case to the adjuster in a record statement, at his deposition and to three separate doctors he truly believed his own lies and goes on to say essentially it can't be a lie if you really believe it. I'm so pissed.
I am in the middle of a mediation between my company and the HOA of a distressed property we own. We are on Zoom. The mediator comes over to our break out room and goes something like "This is the reason why people hate HOAs and their attorneys, thank you for succinctly outlining the particulars of the case and I hope to have this wrapped up shortly" and then clicked over. Mediator is cool in my book.
Always nice when the mediator comes over ranting about opposing counsel and their client. "see I told you."
Just before that he told the other room that "rules exist for a reason. These restrictive covenants could not be any clearer and I hope to have this wrapped up shortly."
Seeing posts about workers comp by you all makes me happy how easy the litigation is in Kentucky. We do administrative hearings and 95% of the time, our hearings are basically condensed versions of the claimant's deposition. Very rarely will exhibits be introduced or any other witnesses other than claimant. 99% of cases don't have any other depositions or testimony other than claimants during lit, and those rare outliers are usually just 15 minute IME doctor depositions to clarify written reports. Such a fucking easy/laid back practice, and settlement values are set by statute, so settling/negotiating is easy. I could do this shit for the rest of my life and be happy. So glad I'm not doing med mal anymore.
Florida is varies wildly. Some are claimant's depo and a couple of doctor depos. Others are 8 hour trials with 8 depositions, live testimony from the claimant, spouse, maybe a few of our fact witnesses, vocational experts, etc.
I would appreciate him even more. Gotta hustle for that mediation fee. He made sure to confirm I had his zelle payment instructions before we disconnected. Basically we took a QC deed from the estate of the prior owner for 10k (house is worth 600k) with a 700k mtg in default but not in active foreclosure. They flipped their lid that we weren't an approved purchaser. Their requested remedy was to deed them the home for $0. We all had a good chuckle in our breakout room.
A lot of decisions about which firms get placed on approved panel counsel lists are driven by how broad you are geographically and how deep is your bench. You don’t see many solo firms doing insurer side work for those reasons.
I have a complicated mediation tomorrow where all sides shared their mediation position statements (with the option of sending another one privately). The other side's had verifiable falsehoods. The mediator called me this morning to ask about some facts because it's a confusing fact pattern, and we hopped on a Zoom call so I could show him some documents. He obviously can't force anyone to do anything, but I feel like it's good to go into a mediation where the mediator says, "It seems like their story just isn't true."