no clue where i would even find one. I'm gonna just send a pre-suit demand and give the money tree a shake and see what happens.
There are a million premises experts out there. Most of the ones I use are either architects or engineers. But you can look in directories as well https://www.seakexperts.com/search?...ty]=192&search[location]=&commit=Find+Experts
I fully believe in Murphy's law. Went completely off-grid for 2+ weeks, first time not even checking emails in my professional career. I probably get 1-2 voicemails every few weeks. I received 9 voicemails during my time off. Some with my old firm, some from existing clients, some from new client inquiries, shit absolutely hit the fan. Whatever. On the plus side, I got 3 new inquiries from people just Googling "yoga lawyer, Washington." One wants to initiate a retainer contract while they start their business, two others just wants to talk. I don't do anything for SEO, but guess my website is alright. Hell yea. Also received two decent offers on some PI cases I have, one from Geico and one from Progressive. This shit is profitable with little-to-no expenses. Sorry not sorry for tooting my own horn. I've enjoyed the past year practicing on my own more than I ever did with a firm. Still don't have health insurance but YOLO
Not been the best year for me, but it's picked up a decent bit in the last few months. Settled a case with total specials of $3,800 for $150,000.00 on Thursday so that was nice.
Congrats on things going well! How is it working out financially compared to when you were working full time in person at the prior firm?
Facts must have been especially good for plaintiff and horrible for defendant and your venue always helps it seems
This was actually a Tuscaloosa County case, so venue was relatively neutral. If I'd had these facts in the Black Belt, it would've been policy limits.
It feels like a lot better, but we'll see when the tax man cometh. Think I'll at least be making the same, but def working a helluva lot less. Filing as a real estate professional this year which should significantly reduce my tax burden.
Plaintiff lawyers -how many cases do you have in litigation. Currently have 17 PI cases in litigation. Wondering if that is high or low. Handling about 50 PI matters currently. Rest of my matters are WC.
Depends on the types of cases. For med mal I want anywhere from 10-20 in suit at one time. But some of the auto guys have dozens in suit at the same time.
I'm rocking 12 MVAs with some being large commercial vehicle cases and complex cases, 2 premises liability, and 3 med mals.
Is there anything worse than getting dates for trial in October of a year and OC saying they are already booked for the entire next year? Like how am I going to move this case along or force the carrier to do anything when I can't even get it set for trial.
If we filed today in Houston we would probably get a trial date first quarter or 2024 with not actually being called to trial until 2026
I was joking. We have defense lawyers here that are legitimately booked with trials through the end of 2023 because they have too many active files. Our courts won't even give dates out in 2024.
https://www.justex.net/Courts/Civil/CourtSection.aspx?crt=22&sid=818 The top ten cases on call for the two week trial docket in one court in Harris county. The #1 case is from 2016. We called the coordinator with our 2020 case and said we are ready and he just laughed at me
I have 50 in litigation right now. Trying to get to 75. I carried about 80-100 on the defense side with a lot less help/support.
My CLE reporting cycle is up at the end of the year. I bought one of those cheap bundles of courses to play in the background while I work. I’m done with all of the ethics, professionalism and tech requirements and went through a few others that are relevant to my practice. After running out of the ones that matter to me I made the mistake of clicking on one that talks about cryptocurrencies and I want to stab my ears out with a letter opener. If I heard the terms “accredited investor” one more time, people in this office may die.
anyone ever tried a case on pure mental anguish? have a guy and his wife who were hit by a drunk dude at like 70mph. she went into early labor a week later. guy and his wife were fuckeddd up by the experience. i don't think we would be able to get their obgyn to say anything more than it was possible that the wreck accelerated their pregnancy. drunk guy was uninsured. they have 100/300k uninsured coverage. progressive offering 5k each. tempted to just say fuck it and go up to dallas and try it in a year.
Did they get any sort of mental health treatment? Regardless, if I was going to try that case, I'd line up a ton of before/after witnesses to discuss the impact it had on them. Sounds like a decent case to try. I don't think you'd have to spend a ton of money on it and what do you have to lose, 5k? It might as well be a no offer case.
Sue the tortfeasor too and try it on punitive damages. I have a case right now involving one injured plaintiff and one uninjured plaintiff that was just "shook up" but got no medical treatment. I sued the uninsured, drunk tortfeasor and Allstate, gave Allstate the opportunity to defend the tortfeasor, the captured counsel totally dropped the ball and did nothing, so I took a default with damages and the UM claim to be tried by jury. I'm just going to basically go up there and ask for $100,000 in combined compensatory and punitive damages for both of them and see what happens.
Had a deposition last week with a lawyer that does a lot of work for State Farm. He recently had a direct action trial in the Black Belt of Alabama, which is predominantly AA and always puts up huge verdicts. The entire jury was AA. I asked him why he would ever try that case in that venue, and he said the plaintiff's first treatment was 3 years after the crash. He said, "So, if State Farm ever wanted to try one, this was it." Jury returned $1+ million verdict. Afterwards, the jury all went up and had a group hug with the plaintiff and then took group pictures.
My best case that I put hundreds of hours into fell apart because the client got impatient and sold the property. kill me now. 100k + in fees just flushed down the toilet.
I once had to give 20-25 clients the files back and fire them after I discovered that they weren’t actually getting treatment they were just signing in for therapy and then leaving that was not a fun day
We were able to bluff and get something out of the case via settlement, but my dreams of a huge pay day just completely fell apart.
Just as likely. Crazy verdict down in Perry a few months ago too. Over one million on something like $20,000 in specials.
I was defending a phantom vehicle case in Perry County where SF wouldn’t give me $20k of their $25k to settle. I told them that it could just as easily be $20 million as $20 thousand.
I'd try a contested liability case in Perry County with no depositions and guess I could get $20k, 95% of the time.
Had the right venue today in mediation. Specials were $520. We settled for $350k. Alignment of the parties was amazing. Took Defense counsel a little while to figure it out. If only I had about 15 more of those. Been a good week.
I mean this in the nicest, totally not jealous way possible - you’re the poster child for tort reform.
She just asked me to join her. 50/50 partners. She thought she could handle the case load, but it’s too much for her to manage on her own with only one staff. if there ever was a time, it’s now with all the Ian claims out there. any advice on going out on your own would be appreciated from the thread.
in addition to talking to people here, i'd recommend joining the maximum lawyer facebook group. It's full of "#entrepreneur" linkedin tryhard types, but they tend to have tons of great advice on how to make money and run the business side of things.
How much can you feed yourself? This decision is always whether you can survive if forced to eat what you kill.
She’s already got 50+ cases with plenty more coming. I’ve also got enough in savings to live without a paycheck for quite a bit while we wait for the first batch of cases to settle.
To herb's point, though, think about the long term. You'll be fine now, but you want to know you can also generate yourself separate from these Ian claims. Or else, in a few years, you're headed for a confrontation where your "partner" screws you.
It’s not just waiting on cases to settle. That’s the easy part. The biggest question is can you generate your own business ? What’s your plan for that?
I’d also think long and hard about whether you like this potential new partner. Does she have good character? Do you trust her? Will she be easy or hard to work with? Can she generate her own business? What is overhead and staffing going to look like? Legal malpractice coverage, rent, IOLTA accounts. There’s a billion things
She’s got 3 PAs feeding her cases. I have a small one feeding me right now. Either way, we would be hitting the ground hard to drum up more business. Going to conventions and stuff like that. She’s excellent at creating business. Mid 30s, attractive, with a extrovert personality. Our last convention, she grabbed her now biggest PA within 10 minutes of being there with a simple, “hi I’m Jane”. I’m a lot more introverted but still willing to do what it takes to bring in new business. see above. In my field, it’s all about getting PAs to trust you enough to send you files (assuming you don’t do illegal shit and pay them on the side which I won’t do under any circumstances) imo she’s an ideal partner. We have different strengths but get along extremely well. She was easily my closest friend while she was still with the firm and taught me pretty much everything I know. Ate lunch together most days and would talk about how we’d run everything if we were running the show. The personality fit imo works well. do I trust her? Sure. Will I make sure there is an ironclad partner agreement? Absolutely. right now she has one staff she took with her but already needs more. I want to bring my remote staff with me. It’s a guy working in Central America for dirt cheap but busts his ass. Guy is so good I send him extra money on the side so the hiring firm can’t take a cut.
I would invest in SEO and PPC for storm/property damage claims but I’d also run a general personal injury practice as well. You’re going to need to spend at least $3500-5k a month on SEO alone. A good website is running at least $20k and you can pay monthly until it is paid off. Probably need to spend $5k a month on PPC minimum and pay management fee of 25% of the $5k on top of the $5k. Focus on mobile not desktop. Your ROI is going to be less than 2:1 but that’s still a good return. Our annual cost this year for PPC/SEO/website is projecting to $187,464 (averaging $15,622 a month) with projected revenue from those cases of $304,197 in fees. That's an ROI of 53.63%.