A few years ago, I had a carrier RFP propose to pay different rates according to the task billed. Trial rate was the highest, document review the lowest. I told them no. It was ridiculously unprofitable even with associates doing 100% of the work when we modeled it at 1800 hours and associate salaries.
That's fair, so I guess to put it in terms you'll understand, it's like when you're sitting at a bar and your buddy is trying to convince (not that it takes much) you to go camp and hike and eat mushrooms in the national forest. He's pitching you on the idea. A pitch deck is just like that, but in PDF form and for legal services rather than hiking on mushrooms.
I once made a decent five-figure sum negotiating a friend's insurance claim for rookie card memorabilia that got stolen during his remodel. Took a couple of phone calls and fake bravado emails to get it done. That's show-biz baby. Almost makes up for the other ones that take 4 years and I make $100.
At my first job, the carrier would only pay .1 for anything that wasn’t reviewing documents or trial. My boss would review the documents and have me write the motion or letters to the carrier.
I do work for a carrier that bills in .05 increments and has cut pretty much anything that I've ever submitted at .1. It's so fucking dumb that I end up with a lot of .05's and .2's that probably work out in my benefit, other than all the time I spend recording it.
West coast best coast only 1:30 here Herb. Just signed up my second PI client. Was a passenger in a vehicle with her ex-BF, they got broadsided pretty bad at an intersection. Clear liability. My buddy had a conflict and took the driver with more serious injuries, but referred passenger to me. She has about $25-30K in medicals, going to try and squeeze some from the driver/ex-BF as well. Not a bad start to the weekend.
I’ve made 5 figures on cases I put 30 total minutes of work in. I also have cases (much more often) where I’ve put 20+ hours into where I only got 3.5k. (Todays settlement). Ugh.
Have a truck inspection tomorrow, first one in a while. Piece of sheet metal flew off our flatbed, smashed through following vehicle's window, right into driver's face. Killed him, maybe decapitation. Talk about some final destination shit.
sure seems like you need to tendering the limits as fast as you can. I can't even imagine the nuclear verdict that would happen if someone got well and truly final destinationed
Allegedly we had nothing to do with loading the trailer. And TBF, it's not uncommon for truckers to arrive at a location and never even exit their truck while it's being loaded.
sounds like we might be getting a call from two people who were hit by a drunk driver who have had a shit load of surgeries over the last two weeks. i would very much like it if the actually call us.
"ladies and gentlmen of the jury, remember this single most famous horror movie image of the past 30 years that has been seared into the public memory and made the entire country severely anxious when driving behind trucks? it happened in this case"
Isn't the whole point of final destination that freak things happen? You don't want the jury to think this was a freak "accident." This was a preventable system failure.
there's not really a "point" to the movie so much as it as a bunch of loosely connected vignettes of people dying horribly and the single most famous scene has inspired an entire generation of people to avoid following trucks for fear of it happening.
Maybe, but see 49 CFR § 392.9 and other federal regulations about responsibility for securing the load.
Hey man - I know someone loaded a bomb on my trailer that wasn't tied down but I never got out of my truck!
Depends on who he has. Somebody is getting deep-dicked, but it may not be his client. From the facts he’s given, that could still very much be a no or minimal liability case for the tractor. It’s a terrible case for whoever had the duty to secure the load.
I'm assuming he has the driver/transport company, and I think the driver always has a duty under the DOT regs to make sure the load is secure, no? So it could be driver + someone else, but I don't think the driver is ever going to get out on a no-duty argument.
The regs require drivers to do shit like ensure the minimum number of tie-downs are in place, the load is placed over the axle, the load isn't too tall, etc. There can be failure that couldn't be seen by a proper driver's inspection. It's not a res ipsa situation.
I'm about to have a defendant served for the 3rd time in three days My stupid process server has botched something. I told him to serve the registered agent of defendant in a state court case. He served the secretary of the registered agent after the secretary told the process server that the secretary could accept service for the registered agent. I have a standing rule that when X needs to be served, X and only X will suffice because I don't want to get bogged down in whether X was properly served. Defendant snap removed it after the secretary was served yesterday and claimed in their notice of removal that process was insufficient and then today defendant answered the complaint and said process was insufficient. I don't mind being in federal court and actually maybe prefer it , so I'm not fighting that, I just want good process. In the mean time my paralegal told the process server to serve the actual registered agent and the secretary wouldn't suffice. However, the process server served the actual registered agent with the state court summons and complaint this morning . There is a district court opinion on point which says this is good process but it isn't a 5th circuit opinion and in the opinion it notes there is a circuit split on whether serving with state court process after snap removal is good process. So now I'm going to send the process server back to serve this damn guy with a federal summons and the state court complaint. What a clusterfuck.
amazing how much faster a PD claim will go when one of the truck's / vehicle's has dash cam footage. would make my life a lot easier if that was the norm
Well the 15k dude has turned into a nightmare. Doesn’t understand that it takes a few days for funds to clear in my trust account
This is my first job with a bonus structure that wasn't set in stone. I'm supposed to get 10% of fees past 150k in a year. I was hired in march and explicitly promised my bonus would be calculated from march to march. surprise surprised its months lates and now the accountant is trying to say my bonus is "january to january pro-rated for starting in march" which would slash my bonus by nearly 20k.
You’ll soon hear more of the greatest hits, including: Cash Flow is Low We Miscalculated Your Fee Credits Not Enough to Go Around We’ll Make It Up Next Year
Definitely heard the 1st and 2nd. 3rd and 4th to come. The firm is badly understaffed and operating *at least* 2 lawyers short at the moment so I'm prepared to resign and file a lawsuit and throw the firm into chaos if I'm not paid.
My old boss owes me 200,000 or so but it was an oral contract and I couldn’t really go after it without fucking up the people who helped me get the clients so I just left and had to eat it
When I left my last defense gig, my then “partner” begged me to stay and offered me a six figure raise….which would be paid quarterly…depending on collections…contingent on my time being in by the end of each quarter…and assuming his wife timely processed it.
When I switched over to the plaintiffs side I joined the local justice association’s listserve. I fear this was a massive mistake. The number of shit emails I get daily is overwhelming and the stupidity of half the questions is mind blowing. There is some 70+ year old solo practitioner on there who spends the better part of every day basically asking everyone to do all of his work for him. He’ll post shit like, “ I have a case where my client was driving her car and another car crashed into her. Does anyone have a complaint that covers that scenario so I can copy it?” And shit like that all fucking day long. Like how are you in practice for 50 years doing basic PI and you don’t have a basic fucking complaint template?
Defendant wants a protective order to release surveillance footage from inside the restaurant that captured the slip and fall. I don't see any proprietary information or trade secrets or anything confidential involved in footage of a slip and fall at a chain fast food restaurant. Am I missing something? They claim it has the faces of customers and also the location of the footage doesn't need to be circulated because criminals will then know where their cameras are. I don't see a federal judge granting them a protective order on this.