Lawyer thread

the same defense lawyer that got lectured by the federal judge about being sanctioned just replied to my subsequent motion for sanctions by complaining about me sending 8 different requests for documents, taking multiple depositions, and objecting to his request to download my client's entire cell phone - he says it was "abusive."

he also says that it's not a big deal that he and his client verified interrogatories and maintained for over a year that they only had 20 employees, only for us to get personnel files from another case against them where they disclosed 62 employees.

this should go well for him.

 

Bury him

 

As a firm, we just don’t do it.

 

That’s not a bad idea. I’ll just refer it at a lower contingency fee for him.

 

Easy seven figures. Need to work up the lumbar, though.

 

herb.burdette Here are a few verdicts with similar injuries in our verdict reporter:

There was a 2011 trucking case in a relatively conservative county where one of the plaintiffs suffered a very serious commimuted fracture of her femur and ankle. She received a verdict of $298,000 with $252,00 accounting for medicals.

Here's one in our most Plaintiff friendly county from 2012 involving a broken femur: The jury’s verdict was for the plaintiff and he took medicals of $5,400. His pain and suffering was valued at $125,000. The verdict totaled $130,400. A consistent judgment followed

Here's one where the Defendant had minimum policy limits and the plaintiff took it to verdict anwyays- The collision left Hubbard with a severe double fracture of her left femur. Beyond the broken left leg, Hubbard suffered a secondary injury. Because of her altered gait, she overused her right leg. This led to the right leg requiring a knee replacement surgery.. Her medical bills in treating the right leg were $86,365.This case was tried in Yazoo City for three days. The jury considered a specific verdict form. It awarded Hubbard $101,214 in medical damages for her left leg (as pre-filled on the instructions) and $86,365 more for her right leg. The medicals totaled $187,579. Hubbard also took lost wages of $45,600. Her “pain and suffering and other non-economic damages” (as described in the instructions) were $825,000. The verdict totaled $1,058,180. A consistent judgment was entered by the court against White. White has since moved for post-trial relief challenging the verdict.

Here's one with a fx pelvis: Ouzts suffered serious injuries including two shattered heels (one was compound), a broken knee (it was fixed with 13 screws), a tibial plateau fracture, a cracked pelvis, a broken hand and assorted infections that developed within these several injuries. Ouzts has since undergone 11 surgeries and it is believed there will be more to come including bilateral knee replacement surgeries. His incurred medical bills were approximately $338,000.Then to damages, the plaintiff took medicals of $558,000 plus $450,000 for lost wages. The plaintiff’s non-economic damages were $2.5 million – his wife took $500,000 more for her consortium interest. The raw verdict totaled $4,008,000. The court’s judgment reduced the verdict by $2,000,000 (the husband’s award of non-economic damages was $2.5 million) to conform to the statutory cap (of $1,000,000) on noneconomic damages.

Truck Accident in Federal Court in Jackson- Plaintiff suffered an open femur fracture and later underwent a hip replacement surgery. Franklin also broke his arm. He also had significant cuts to both his ankle and hand. His medical bills were $283,000. Then to damages, Franklin took a general award of $3.5 million.

 

u turn cases are great too

You can find drivers manuals from almost all the big carriers that say you’re fired for a u turn.

4:30 am there’s some conspicuity issues there potentially, you may want to get him over to someone sooner rather than later so they can preserve the truck and do an inspection.

 

The firm might not, but the individual lawyers do. I guarantee it.

One of my best referral sources is a guy at a big defense firm that doesn't allow lawyers to take referral fees.

 

Not me.

 

Of course not!

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I’m the co-author of a treatise that generates less than $500 a year in royalties, and I turn that over to the firm as well.

 

I’m involved in a death trucking case. Great venue, but I’ve been a little worried about liability. Could easily blame it on our driver.

We sent spoliation at very beginning. Just found out driver did a factory reset of his phone and “lost” the tablet he had in truck that night.

 

Comp lawyers: doesn't it make you furious when you go through having to get a settlement approved, you've done everything asked of you, the settlement gets approved, and the carrier hasn't even ordered the check? Have one that was approved on 8/13 and they hadn't even ordered the check until I started raising hell today. Was getting blown off basically so I requested a conference with the judge and opposing counsel and all of the sudden I got an update from opposing counsel.

 

Could maybe get an adverse inference jury instruction here under those facts.

 

I think we will. It’s also a good way to get absolutely slammed in this venue.

 

Well if the jury assumes that whatever evidence was on that tablet would have hurt his position, they'll probably assume he was using it , texting on it, etc around the time of the collision. I've never focused grouped adverse inference instructions, but I'm guessing half the time an adverse inference instruction gets ignored or is a non factor with a jury. Regardless , it is probably helpful for the case.

 

Jury instructions are simultaneously the least important (practically) and most important (for appellate purposes) aspects of a jury trial. It blows my mind how often people absolutely fuck up a great verdict by insisting on an instruction they didn't really need and causing reversible error.

 

I don’t care about the charge. We”ll hammer it in opening, cross, and closing.

Had a slip and fall once where we got the case too late to get a spoliation out prior to the surveillance footage being erased. Turned out corporate came and watched the footage (claimed it showed our client just falling over her own feet) but didn’t save it.

We didn’t get a jury instruction but I spent half the trial talking about how don’t you think if that video showed what they said it did, they would’ve saved it. Talked to several jurors after and said that was biggest factor to them.

 

I say this as nicely as possible, this makes no sense. You absolutely should be taking advantage of referring cases out and absolutely should be keeping those royalties as small as they are. I’d never work for a firm that didn’t let me refer out cases. It’s easy money and quite lucrative when a case like yours falls in your lap.

I’m currently waiting for a 10k check on a case I referred out where I was talking to a neighbor and another heard me talking about doing lawyer stuff. 5 minutes later he was calling a buddy who did that kind of law and I have a referral fee.

 

Well yeah, but how is that relevant?

 

I got you. I think he was trying to say big or small, his firm doesn’t allow him to keep royalties/referral fees.

once again, I wouldn’t work at a place like that.

 

Trying not to over do things here.

I’m an equity partner who signed a partnership agreement that both prohibits personally accepting any fee related to a broad definition of legal services and also prohibits referring out plaintiff’s side cases for a fee because we have offices in some states which require the firm to affiliate as co-counsel to accept the fee.

The fact that I might not get caught isn’t a great justification to breach that agreement.

 

"we have offices in some states which require the firm to affiliate as co-counsel to accept the fee." that might as well be in latin for me. I have no clue what it means. Someone explain that like I'm a 5 year old.

 

I’m not an ethics or professional responsibility expert, but have been told that my firm has the rule because our insurer requires it.

Some states deem any referral fee to be a portion of the plaintiffs recovery. In order to earn any part of a contingent fee award, an attorney in those states must actually appear as co-counsel and work on the case.

Otherwise, the referral fee is not earned for any legal services and the attorney/firm may be required to disgorge it.

 

Neither am I, but this sounds like some bull shit. When I did defense work, I specifically asked if I could refer plaintiffs cases out in our field and was told it was fine. If for whatever reason those cases ended up getting assigned to us by the carrier, we’d just have to decline it.

If this isn’t the case in your state, it’s bull shit that your firm requires it.

Idk man. I’d hope that you were making quite a bit of money at this defense firm to make up for the fact that you have to willingly give up the easiest money lawyers can make as part of your partnership agreement.

 

There’s more nuance to that. It’s not that you actually have to work on the case, it’s that you/the firm need to agree to share some portion of responsibility for the outcome and that alone is enough to entitle you to 25%. Bigger firms shit themselves because if the case gets referred to an attorney who fucks it up, both the handling attorney and the referring firm can be sued for legal malpractice. It seems like the better practice is simply to make sure you refer cases to good lawyers.

 

How do you all handle these referral fees? Do you document the arrangement with the working attorney up front? What happens when someone asks you for a name and you give them a name but have no direct contact with the attorney you identified? Do you email that attorney and say "give me x%"? Are these only for personal injury stuff?

I like easy money. I refer more people to CPAs than attorneys, though.

 

Respek. As someone who spends most of their day drafting/revising partnership and LLC agreements, and with clients who rarely if ever read every term, I can respect someone who takes the time to read and understand what they are agreeing to and then sticking to it--especially when it's buried in a 40-90 page partnership agreement.

 

When the person seeking a lawyer calls you, you let them know you have a contact that you can refer them to. Then pick up the phone and call the lawyer and let him or her know to expect a call from client X. Then tell client X you have someone for them and to call and reiterate the person connecting them. You’ll get a referral retainer agreement to sign.

 

Looks like I've been leaving easy money on the table... and also not paying anyone for referrals to me. Is this a PI thing?

 

lol at all these lawyers baffled at how this works. When I refer a case out , I do a few things in addition to what El Tiburon said:
(1) open a matter in Clio for the client and set the SOL
(2) check in from time to time with referring counsel without being obnoxious
(3) have an email agreement on the fee split saved in the file
(4) depending on the nature of the case , sometimes I'm closer to the client and keep track of medical appointments and coordinating care
As others have said , you have to assume responsibility for the case to get paid a fee. Some firms require a written agreement between referring counsel and the firm handling the case. We don't require that.

 

My paid in equity stake in the firm in my capital account is worth a lot more than any referral fee.

 

I'm still confused. The wreck is in OH. You are a lawyer in OH correct? Why can't you refer the case to a PI firm or civil litigation firm , stay in touch with your friend/client, make a general entry of appearance in the case, make sure his medical is getting taken care of maybe ask him how things are going, keep an eye on the case, and then get a referral fee?

 

I’m going to try to get the referral firm to drop their contingency percentage to reflect a fee that I won’t take so my buddy can collect more anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Im not taking a portion of his recovery because he was concerned enough to call me for advice the day he got out of the hospital.

 

You get paid out of the lawyer's fee. He's going to pay 40% regardless if you refer it or if he hired someone himself.

 

I don't really question that. I've considered waiving my fee on cases for close friends /family etc

 

This is also true. I think Herb is saying he's going to get the referral firm to lower their % . But they're still going to take a fee. And Herb should get a % of the fee. Oh well. Doesn't sound like he's going to listen to us. This whole situation is a bit baffling and what he's saying doesn't really add up and/or he's confused the hell out of me.

 

All I know is I'd crush that case.

 

lol at thinking it's akin to learning latin for a multi-state law firm to have bright line rules to avoid running afoul of an ethics law in a state in which they operate

 

I think you're confusing the situation. I totally understand the multi state firm having bright line rules to not run afoul of ethics rules. I just don't understand why he can't refer the case to a firm that is properly suited to handle it, make a general entry of appearance, stay in touch with the client and monitor the case, and get paid a fee, or why a firm would prohibit doing such.

 

... because doing so would violate the ethics rule of another state in which the firm operates and some ethics rules impute the actions of one partner--regardless of jurisdiction--to the entire firm

 

how does doing that violate the ethics rules of any state? If you make an entry of appearance and thus assume responsibility for the case, and work on the case by keeping contact with the client and monitoring pleadings etc, then you can ethically take a fee.

 

If you are that high up in this firm, you could easily shop yourself to other firms that do allow you to refer out cases and still be an equity partner. You know your life situation better than us, but unless you are pulling down over a million a year, working at a place that forces you to turn down massive referral fees would be an absolute deal breaker for me.

 

Regardless of whether or not everyone here would do anything differently in this instance than herb.burdette, it appears quite clear to me that he is sufficiently satisfied with his compensation that he's not losing sleep over foregoing a six figure referral fee to himself or to his firm (which ostensibly would be a credit to his billing and collection numbers). So, maybe think about that before suggesting he needs to leave his firm.

And I say this 1) understanding why he would refuse to take a fee personally if this violates his partnership agreement, but 2) not understanding why, if he/his firm took an active role in the litigation, that would somehow run the firm afoul of ethics rules in other states in which they practice. Sounds to me more like a brightline blanket policy that may knowingly forego windfall opportunities in order to steer clear of any headaches or issues, but not necessarily a pure ethics concern.

 

Oh I thought about it. It still makes no sense unless his compensation has him in 7+ figure territory annually.

 

Ok, think about what you just said.