Have opposing counsel that won't agree in a federal case that the treating physician is unavailable for trial. I.e. she won't agree that I don't' have to drag him to trial. I was trying to get an agreement that we'd just take his deposition. Now I'm going to have to file a motion on it. I can't imagine a magistrate will demand that the physician come live to trial. This doctor is a super busy surgeon and he's going to be pissed if that is the case. I'm fine with them subpoena'ing him and paying his monstrous bill to come live if they don't like how the depo goes. But I just want to put his depo into evidence. It's a bench trial.
Settled my 5th case since I started on January first. I love plaintiffs side. Today’s opposing counsel asked if he could pretend we didn’t settle until tomorrow so she could grab another .2 for one more settlement phone call. Don’t miss those days at all.
4 attorneys. The managing partner and 3 associates. Managing partner closed 3 today. I’ll get there though.
toughest part as a plaintiff attorney if you want to make good money is actually bringing the cases in.
Him and another guy up in Boston (I think) whose name is escaping me that was also heavily involved in the CTE stuff. That other guy was retained against my client on a stroke case and he got his teeth kicked in at depo because he had no idea what he was talking about.
Wait you guys have docs that won’t take LOPs ???? lmfao we line up in FL to take paper even after PIP is exhausted.
Plaintiff’s side sounds fun and something I think about fairly often. Don’t think I’ll be able to sell my time in .1 or .25 increments for the next few decades.
it’s the fucking worst. I’m surprised BamaNug hasn't gone to the plaintiff side. That seems to me to offer a lot more opportunities to control your own output.
One case is a 61 year old who falls, has multiple back surgeries and ultimately ends up dying. his report is that the person who fell suffered no injury and actually died from “end stage osteoporosis”
Got two sources in the works already. One is confirmed, meeting with the 2nd today. Today’s would provide quite a bit of business and fast track me to going solo within a year or so.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the plaintiff will tell you that Dr. Smith failed to identify a clearly visible spiculated mass on Ms. Johnson’s mammogram and that as a result she died from metastatic breast cancer three years later. But I’m here to tell you, don’t listen to such fantastical departures from the truth. The undeniable fact is Ms. Johnson unfortunately passed away from a particularly virulent form of metastatic gout.”
He also writes those reports that are exceedingly long with a bunch of nonsense that has nothing to do with the case. He has examples of like 15 different things he says are analogous. None of them are. It looks like he’s playing mad libs.
Why in-house is the move. Although I do loosely track my time for litigation so the company can recoup attorney's fees. Also a good negotiation point for settlements.
You can control your own output, but you aren't going to be doing a whole lot of traveling (or anything else requiring funds) if you're not pushing those cases hard.
Just had to continue a mediation to give the adjuster more time to consider my "exorbitant" demand. Spoiler Good book says you don't have because you don't ask.
As good as it sounds to not bill, the problem for me is that there aren't many in-house jobs in any practice area where I have experience that pay comparably enough to make up for not getting to really litigate. COVID has taught me that I really hate the parts of this occupation that don't involve getting out of the office.
I have never understood why more large corporations do not staff an in-house litigation team. You would think the cost savings would be astronomical and the business knowledge of litigating with an in house firm would be an asset.
All options are on the table. Testing the waters on some PI guys that love the hustle and pushing the cases, and then I can sit behind a computer (from anywhere) and do the briefing/motion practice/grunt work. Wouldn't bother me whatsoever. You simple adopted the darkness ... I was born in it, molded by it. Over 95% of my legal career has been behind a computer screen. Shit sucksssss.
America is an industry of middle-men. How could litigation function without low level adjusters, senior adjusters, TPAs, in-house lawyers/general counsel, clients, and the like all reviewing a lawyer's efforts? The horror.
Plus the idea of being forced to sit at a desk from 8-5 sounds awful. The freedom of being able to dip out on Friday, take a long lunch, etc. when possible is not something I could easily walk away from.
I think it's tough to thread the needle of conflict avoidance in a lot of those situations. If you're working for the company, it's kind of hard sometimes to impartially counsel or deliver bad news, especially when it's about a superior. I can also see there being some grey areas with privilege.
I was adverse to a bank that was headquartered in Cleveland a couple of times (Ohio Savings). They don’t exist anymore because they were bought. Each time, they had an Ohio licensed attorney in house who appeared as counsel. He was good, knew the area of law completely, and was tough to settle. He basically worked in house as his own law firm with younger associates. Always thought that was really effective.
At least from my experience, it's because very few disputes reach litigation. In my 3 years at my current manufacturing company we have had 1 lawsuit. At my old company (also manufacturing) we had a few on-going lawsuits at most times but our parent company had a litigation counsel so between that individual (and his small team) and outside counsel, a litigation counsel specifically for our business unit was unnecessary.
I do any and every CLE on privilege for in-house counsel. There seems to be a fair amount of gray area and it seems to change over time and be slightly different from state to state.
I’m sure most states are like Florida and have some variation of the dangerous instrumentality/negligent entrustment laws basically holding vehicle owners liable for any accidents that occur when some non-owner is driving and causes an injury. At least in Florida when it comes to cars, the “owner” is whoever’s name is on the title. So for example if the husband is the only one whose name is on the title, then the wife cannot be named as a party. But I’m having a slightly different issue here. In this case the husband client was driving a golf cart — so there is no title or registration— when the plaintiff was injured while helping the husband get the cart unstuck. They now sued the wife, too, under the dangerous instrumentality doctrine. But does that apply in this situation when there’s no title? Just wondering if anyone has had this come up before.
Hello distinguished legal minds of TMB I am in the process of purchasing and selling a home and will be in the need of legal services at closing. Through work I get basic legal services covered through MetLife Legal. My realtor is recommending a lawyer that is not covered in my plan, and the attorneys I sent to her she is not familiar with. I would like to save the $ because everything else involved in this process is a gigantic money pit. I figure this is very standard that any hack attorney can handle but is there anything I should look out for when selecting representation?
Is the cause of action statutory or common law? If statutory, then I'd argue it doesn't apply because it doesn't meet the plain language. See if there's any case law on that issue related to boats. For example, I know Alabama doesn't require title for boats (although I think you're supposed to have a bill of sale and registration). Depends on the attorneys that MetLife covers. Do any of them do residential closings or are they just general attorneys? Closings are pretty straightforward for people that regularly do that kind of work. A lot of it is just title work and making sure all the forms are in order and signed. Closing attorneys also normally don't represent the buyer or the seller either; they're there to protect the lender and make sure all paperwork is in order. Realtors, buyers, and sellers can have input into who they choose as the closing attorney, and banks pretty much always go along with that, but it's really a bank call. I'd call your lender and go through the names and see what they say. If the bank is cool with it and the attorney regularly does that kind of work, then I'd go with whatever saved me money. Also don't put too much stock into your realtor. Realtors will recommend a closing attorney because that closing attorney buys him/her lunch often, gives nice bottles of wine for the holidays, etc.
This. Handling a residential closing is not rocket science. I don't enjoy them, but I did several in the early years of my practice.
I did it for a few months right out of school with a guy that did nothing but residential closings. He had a bullpen of staff in the back that did all the work and he just reviewed it. The job was basically being super personable with the sellers and buyers, getting the documents signed by everyone as quickly as possible, and then going to different real estate agencies and schmoozing it up between closings. I often regret not sticking with that.
My law school roommate started out like that after getting tired of doing comp work, and now he’s killing it. He does a lot of commercial real estate and then added a bunch of lawyers in other practice fields to his firm.
Some dude called from a MVA google ad today and asked how he could get his car auction license Glad I paid $150 for that.
They charge per minutes they spend on the phone. So depends on how often your staff isn't answering calls , how much your call volume is etc. We were spending like $200-300 a month but you get what you pay for. Our answering service sucked, butchered the name of the firm, got the most basic of information, and sometimes wouldn't even pick up i.e. just left people on hold until they hung up.
Anyone had to report another lawyer to the bar before? A guy I went to law school with has apparently had a mental breakdown. He's posting videos on facebook like 30 times a day with bizarre ramblings and he's clearly had a mental break. I'm not sure he's fit to represent someone right now but does not seem to be a threat to himself or anyone else yet. His fiance or girlfriend has cut ties with him apparently and won't let him see their daughter and he's ranting about her as well. However, he seems like the kind of guy that would sue anyone that tried to help him. Apparently a couple of our other classmates are attempting to get him Baker Acted. Deciding if I should just stay out of it completely.
In life, I'm a major proponent of staying out of everyone else's shit. I think you do *technically* have a duty to report any misconduct/unfitness since you have actual knowledge of it. So, I guess I'd probably just make sure that the other classmates were doing something and passively offer to help them if they needed it. That way, he'll murder them first.