As soon as a client becomes difficult at my current firm, we show them the door. I guess I'm a lot more patient, and I don't care to deal with difficult clients, but my boss will just disengage immediately. Last week, a client's wife (she is a nurse) called to complain about our interrogatorry answers. We weren't laying it on thick enough when talking about his suffering, and she was upset that we disclosed he was disabled prior to the incident (literally drawing SS disability). We already had limits offered to us on the case (100k), and we were looking for additional coverage, but nothing else existed. My boss told them best of luck and filed a lein. There was maybe 1 other incident with her, but yeah, good riddance apparently. Surprised the hell out of me.
that's hilarious and also a horrible business practice. I would love to do that. But then I'd have 0 clients.
2:16:35 to 2:24:40 Good thing about zoom is video proof guys like that practice law. 2:24:07 to get a good view of the stripper poll in his apartment On one hand it's nice not dealing with people like that at my new job anymore but on the other its a lot less entertaining
there is a correlation between how injured a person actually is and how much they complain. negligent security clients don’t ever complain.
It's from Wayne County (Detroit). They are still virtual for most court hearing so they broadcast the courtroom on YouTube to satisfy public hearing requirements. The 8 minute segment I mentioned in the post is an attorney asking to adjourn a preliminary exam and has about 5 different reasons including his apartment is leaking and he's moving. The Judge calls that a weak excuse so he runs into apartment to show the judge the leak and in the process you can see a stripper pole in the middle of the apartmemt
Like most of yall I'm sure, I've treated every zoom hearing as a serious deal and have been prepared. I haven't done a single one from my phone. Every time it has been from my computer in my office. I can't imagine treating a hearing , zoom or not, that lightly, ceiling leaking or not. None of this suprises me though, as my expectations for people in general diminish by the day.
I've attended 2-3 trial readiness conferences from my phone while driving. I've also mastered the suit on top of sweatpants.
Defense lawyer has pissed me off so much that I’m considering sending him 300 written discovery requests
He'll answer 30 rogs and rfps or whatever the max under the rule is and object to the rest. won't really cause him that much more work.
Just called a client to tell him the max offer from the carrier and go over his options. He told me I didn't fight hard enough for him and he wished he had gotten another lawyer but just go ahead and take it. Just another day in paradise.
Have a situation where the same plaintiff counsel is suing my doc in two separate claims in front of separate judges. Both are elective surgery cases with complications. He’s now filed motions to amend in both cases to allege a “pattern of fraud” and the pattern he cites in each case is that he has alleged my client committed fraud in the other case. At least one of these judges might just be dumb enough to buy it.
this is what i'm dealing with: we settled a case at mediation in May 2020. the insurance company was declared insolvent a few days later so we never got paid. case was transferred to a new attorney who filed an automatic stay in June 2020 due to the insolvency. i contact him and he says well since you have a mediated settlement agreement this shouldn't take that long. we just need you to fill out some documents stating there is no other insurance etc etc. so we do that in a few days. over the next 10 months there are infinite excuses and more documents to fill out and a lot of emails saying we will have an offer to you soon. on 4/21 he says we will have an offer to you in a week. we follow up with him a few times and he doesn't answer. i'd talked to the adjuster a few times, lawyer was fine with it, so i emailed him yesterday and said we were promised an offer the week of 4/21, haven't heard anything, is there someone else i can talk to. lawyer, who ignored my emails for weeks, replies in minutes and says i cant contact adjuster any more, that this isn't walmart and i can't speak to a supervisor, and that i'm bullying his adjuster. i just replied all and said is there anything i said that is innaccurate. he CCed his adjuster on the email saying don't contact him, and i replied all to that email, and he now accuses me of all this shit. i'm about to send him all of that discovery and make him actually work on this case now. dude is a shareholder in a law firm but it looks like he doesn't do any litigation as there is no mention of him on the plaintiff's lawyers listserv. haven't been this pissed off in awhile.
Basically. Then he has as part of the informed consent claims in each that my client failed to obtain proper consent because he didn’t tell them he was doing unnecessary surgery. It’s fucking frustrating how these judges allow shit like that to stand.
Every single piece of case law in the state of Florida agrees with you. But some of these judges are just dumb. The real issue is that plaintiff is fucking dying to get his hands on the practice’s financial information and inner workings. He knows his claims are shit, he just wants the discovery. I have a theory as to why, but won’t post it here.
Had a trial scheduled for Tuesday. We are one of two defendants in a multi-car accident. Had been prepping for it for days. Was in the throes of drafting responses to multiple MILs just minutes ago. Email rolls in as I am typing my argument. Plaintiff accepted our statutory offer from last week, which is great because we declined to throw in an additional 5k to sweeten a global settlement offer. Nice to have that pressure off heading into this weekend, which I would have spent preparing for trial. Even better, I have 2 fully vaxxed friends coming in a week from tomorrow, which would have been towards the end of trial.
I have to track time at my new firm. We do plaintiff's work only, all contingent. I've always tracked / updated case management, but doing this 6 minute increment shit is frustrating when I have down time. I'm here 10 hours a day on average, but it's hard to capture all of that time. I'm not a "go-getter," unless it's one of my cases (bonus involved), so it's hard for me to care about seeking out work to do. My time sheet this week is going to stress me the fuck out. /end rant
Potential trial involved 5 vehicles stopping in traffic on the interstate. Our client was #5 (very back). Plaintiff was a passenger in #4 (a van), which definitely hit the car in front of it without braking, which then pushed the front 3 cars into one another. Our client hit #4 after the initial collision. Other defendant was a university as its employee was driving #4. That employee was a woman who was dismissed from the case. We just informed a witness that the trial was off. This guy was a former Plaintiff and in car #2. He replied back to the email: "Thanks for the heads up. I was totally ready to testify for Mr. XXX. It was the chick in the van who caused the whole thing." Would have loved for him to say "it was the chick in the van" at trial.
I’ve gotten a defense verdict in a similar case. My guy was following at a safe distance, at the same speed as the plaintiff, and couldn’t tell that the plaintiff had stopped until it was too late. Lots of other helpful facts for us, though.
isn't that just a basic rear-ender? or you got a defense verdict where your guy caused a 5 car wreck?
Plaintiff (and a former plaintiff) admitted that the initial impact was from the #4 car rear ending the car in front of it with no brakes. That car received the only citation. Our client was 5 car lengths behind at the time of the accident and was blocked in his lane. Plaintiff’s broken arm was her only injury. Occurred during the initial contact where she was flung forward. Very positive facts for us
also, not sure if this is happening everywhere or just here, but allstate is basically taking a second look at all their lit cases and in some of them offering a lot more $$
I don’t think you are grasping the facts and sequence of accidents, which is understandable without a graphic or diagram.
we had one where prior offer was $1,100 and we were set for trial next month and settled it for 37.5k told my staff to basically send me a lit of all the allstate lit cases we have state farm is now enemy #1
Interesting about Allstate. I have a good commercial case with them that I intend to try. Perhaps I should reach out.
i have refused to mediate with allstate over the past 18 months because it was pointless. have 6 mediations scheduled between now and august with them. fingers crossed
I did a settlement conference with a very large commercial transportation company today. Just me and the other lawyers. Apparently this is a normal activity for them. We filed the case two months ago and I think it may end up settling for about 90% of its value. Not bad.
also had no idea. i mightve killed myself if i had what i thought to be a big commercial case and then found out the policy was written by allstate.
They do "business" policies with 1m in coverage now. Not a traditional 18 wheeler or company vehicle in my case, though.