Yea. My current firm doesn’t do ANY advertising. Lives completely off referrals. But I definitely want to get into SEO. Especially in Spanish.
We get more cases from referrals than any other source and my biggest cases come from referrals but SEO/ PPC are a big part of what we do as well. Settled a $300k case earlier this year that came from a google ad.
A secretary from a few years back that subsequently moved to Georgia came to us from an immigration firm in the area. That firm started sending us PI clients because of her and still does. A decent amount. I need to call the owner and send him something for Christmas.
Ethics rules pretty much everywhere say you can’t give a non lawyer money for sending you a case but you can give them something of nominal value for a token of your appreciation. What are yall doing for this? I’ve been doing Omaha Steaks around Christmas for law firms that I have good relationship with.
I’ve heard of firms gifting cruises and calling it “nominal” but I guess you could make the argument that 5k for a family to go on a cruise is “nominal” when the person getting the gift referred 500k worth of business.
Interviewing yet another assistant today. We've had a revolving door the last few years--cannot get/keep anyone decent. So frustrating.
I took on a plastic surgery case in Miami because the damages are catastrophic, though the patient survived. The doctor is one of these super self-promoters who touts his “international fame” and the fact that Wendy Williams praised him in her book after he did surgery on her. (Which, she looks like a wreck but that’s a whole other matter). Anyway, the client requests her records months ago and the practice refused to give them to her. They kept trying to get her to come back in, though she’s done with them. I send them a 10-day records request letter on my letterhead and they completely ignore it. Months after they were due, an attorney reaches out in July on their behalf promising me the records. She never sends them. Under Florida law, they waived my obligation to get a presuit expert affidavit, so I immediately serve the doctor and the practice with a Notice of Intent. The 90-day presuit expired last week with ZERO response from the defendant. Today, the lawyer that promised me the records 4 months ago emails me letting me know she was just reviewing her cases and wasn’t sure if she ever sent me the records (she didn’t). I let her know that it doesn’t matter because presuit is over and I’m filing suit. She responds with, “What?!?! I didn’t know about the presuit!” Even though I served the doctor, the practice and the registered agent for the practice and have the green cards proving it. I just looked her up and she’s a 6 year lawyer in a very general practice that has no idea how in over her head she is on this.
Alabama guys, somebody with some experience with personal injury settlements and the interaction with medicaid eligibility of a child give me a shout.
I served 2 notice of intents recently in med mal cases and they both let the 95 day period expire and I sued all the parties involved. Whatever. Let's rumble I guess. One of them they used adhesives on a lady that had a known allergy and had on a band for the adhesive and caused these huge nasty welts all over her body. Seems like one they could have settled pre suit.
Also, my motion for sanctions and to strike against OC in a comp case today for an ex parte letter to my treating doc went about like I expected (my complaint is that they shouldn't be able to just pop off a letter with case determinative information and cc me because I may not get the letter until after the doctor has signed it): (1) Judge noted that the comp act itself waives the medical privilege so it doesn't matter if they don't have a release. (2) There's some comp commision decision -he couldn't cite the name of it- but it says if they cc you on the letter then it isn't ex parte . I think I'd have to prove that the doctor got the letter before me to prove ex parte. I've instructed my staff to start saving the envelope and scanning the envelope itself into the file to prove when we received it. But I'd also have to get the doctor's envelope which will never happen. So it sounds like this may be impossible to receive. (3) even if it was ex parte you'd have to show something was wrong with the questions asked in the letter in order to get the letter struck. The judge didn't buy my reasons for why their letter sucked and to be honest the questions they asked were fine (4) He wasn't buying my argument that they should email me the letter. I even asked, "Judge if you were the claimant attorney would you want them sending a letter to your treating physician without giving you a heads up first?" His answer: He wouldn't care. This judge had no sympathy whatsoever for the issue involved. Brutal!
For anyone else who does med mal work, I can’t stress enough the importance of getting your hands on the chart audit trail early on. Just finished prepping for a big depo I have in the morning and found a massive gem in the audit trail where one of the key symptoms the doctor should have known about was documented by the medical assistant, and that’s going to fuck the doctor over tomorrow when he claims the now dead kid lied about his symptoms.
Met with treating doc in a premises liability case at 8AM this morning . Plaintiff had knee surgery in 2005 , was asymptomatic afterwards, then re injured same knee in 2018 during the subject incident. During the meeting today he signed a questionnaire saying subject incident permanently aggravated a preexisting condition and accelerated the need for knee replacement . Getting these opinions in writing is hard work. We paid for this questionnaire like 6 months ago and had to keep following up. Finally just had to set an in person meeting with him.
insanely dumb question, I assume that the cases I leave behind that I worked on, I am shit out of luck when they settle right? I don't have the ability to put a lien for the work I did because my salary is commision based?
I’m sure many of them would. But I’m 100% going to be told to kick rocks when it comes to that and get drawn out into a long fight. Not sure if I want to stir that hornets nest.
You can either work with your current firm and draft a letter that says you are leaving and they have 3 options: stick with current firm, go with you, go somewhere else all togehter. Let them check the box and sign it and date it. If you don't trust your current firm to do this properly then when you leave send it to all of them yourself. Check with your bar ethics folks first. But that's generally how it goes.
I know that’s the right way. But the managing partner is EXTREMELY territorial. When my potential future partner left they basically forbid her from telling her firm assigned clients that she was leaving.
I think you have a duty to let your clients know you are leaving. I think you would be justified in sending them all a letter after you leave and saying you didn't trust your old firm to do it the right way and you felt you had a duty to let your clients know. I would double check your bar rules though. I did a pretty thorough deep dive on national case law on this when I litigated the issue with my old firm. I have a bunch of cases on it if you want me to dig them up.
It’s 4-5.8(c)(1) and (d)(1) of the Florida Rules Lawyers Leaving Law Firms. Absent a specific agreement otherwise, a lawyer who is leaving a law firm may not unilaterally contact those clients of the law firm for purposes of notifying them about the anticipated departure or to solicit representation of the clients unless the lawyer has approached an authorized representative of the law firm and attempted to negotiate a joint communication to the clients concerning the lawyer leaving the law firm and bona fide negotiations have been unsuccessful. Lawyers Leaving Law Firms. When a joint response has not been successfully negotiated, unilateral contact by individual members or the law firm must give notice to clients that the lawyer is leaving the law firm and provide options to the clients to choose to remain a client of the law firm, to choose representation by the departing lawyer, or to choose representation by other lawyers or law firms.
There you go. It's good Florida actually has a rule on this. Mississippi doesn't have anything on point. Sounds like you need to broach the subject and if you come to an impasse then you can send your own letter. I wonder if "bona fide negotiations"has ever been defined. Sounds like that terminology was employed to prevent, Departing lawyer: "Hey we should send a joint letter." Managing partner: "Fuck you , you aren't talking to my clients." Departing lawyer: "Fuck off I'll send the letter if I want." And then later claiming it was "bona fide negotiations." I'd draft a letter to the managing partner addressing the subject. Maybe even record your meeting with them about it. And if you come to an impasse, then you are good.
Do yall decline to send "one-off" letters for friends etc. "Hey will you send this letter? If they get a letter from a lawyer they will surely do x,y,z." I just had a client that is also a lawyer ask me to send a letter to someone that screwed up her roof. I never feel like sending one-off letters because inevitably it won't resolve the situation and the addressee will call me and now I'm dealing with the issue. Maybe yall have more sympathy than me.
If I can draft the letter in 10 min or less and it's an aquaintence, I'll do it and hope it eventually gets future business in my field. If its a good friend/family member, I'll do it if it takes 30 min or less.
In your state does attorney/client privilege apply to low level employees that used to work for your client/corporation but have since gone and no longer live there? OC is saying that attorney/client privilege applies to people that left his client's company and that contacting them would be ex parte.
There's nothing wrong with contacting a former employee, provided that the former employee is not currently represented. That lawyer currently representing the company =/= that lawyer representing a company's former employee. However, previous communications between that former employee and the company's counsel were privileged when made, and that privilege belongs to the company. Only the company can waive it; not the former employee. So, you can contact and ask the former employee whatever you want, so long as it isn't about communications that were privileged when made. * I think *
Spoiler It is well-settled that Miss. R. Prof'l Conduct 4.2 does not prohibit ex parte contact with a represented organization's former employees. See Durham v. Advance Stores Co., Civil Action No. 3:04-cv-199-HTW-LRA, 2007 WL 2903206, at *1 (S.D. Miss. Sept. 30, 2007) (explaining that "first, the language of Rule 4.2 does not cover former employees; secondly, no current attorney-client relationship exists; and thirdly, former employees' statements cannot bind the corporation and are not excluded from the hearsay rule as admissions."); Dauro v. Allstate Ins. Co., Civil Action No. 1:00-cv-138-JMR, 2003 WL 22225579, at *7, fn.2 (S.D. Miss. Sept. 17, 2003), aff'd, 114 F. App'x 130 (5th Cir. 2004)(quoting Mississippi Bar Opinion 215, "In representing a client, a lawyer may ethically communicate, ex parte, with an unrepresented individual that was formerly employed by a represented party. Neither the text or the comments to Rule 4.2 prohibits such contact. . . ."); White v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 162 F.R.D. 118, 119 (S.D. Miss. 1995) ("since [the former employee] was not employed with the defendant at the time of the interview, it was not improper [for opposing counsel] to interview him."); see also Jenkins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 956 F. Supp. 695, 697 (W.D. La. 1997)(explaining why prohibiting ex parte communication with former employees would not further the purpose of Louisiana's Rule 4.2, which is based on the same ABA model rule as Mississippi's). Rule 4.2 does not prohibit counsel for the United States from speaking with former employees of the State of Mississippi. However, other privileges or Rules may apply to the plaintiff's interviews of former State employees, depending on the identity of the interviewee. For example, the interviews of certain former or current employees may be subject to the physician-patient privilege, attorney-client privilege, or Mississippi Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6. United States v. Mississippi, CIVIL ACTION No. 3:16-cv-622-CWR-FKB, at *7-8 (S.D. Miss. Oct. 12, 2018)
absolutely not. Just don’t ask them privileged shit. I always push them at the outset to identify every person they represent and state they will agree to produce all of them for deposition without a subpoena. then if they say they represent former employees ask for a copy of their retention agreement. Or ask the employee questions in the depo about when they asked the defense lawyer to represent them. We’ve gotten someone disqualified for solicitation before.
So a judge just tried to set me for trial on Monday at 4:30 the day before thanksgiving. Never mind that we were already excused from the docket because OC is on medical leave. So what’s his response? Makes us jump on a zoom meeting where he wants to push forward anyway. I’m in the keys. my managing partner is in Indiana oC is on bed rest OC’s managing partner is in Canada. he finally relented after 10 minutes of begging. it was so late that there wasn’t even time for Oc to call her client and beg for settlement authority.
I feel like you left out a very important piece of information: why was the judge trying so hard to make the case go to trial monday ?
It absolutely crossed our mind. But it just wasn’t worth the risk. And I didn’t want to cut my vacation short by two days on the hope that they blink.
Have to be quite obscure about this one, but my mom filed a lawsuit where the defense doesn’t want a single thing filed with the court. Haven’t even gone through interrogatories or anything. One of our main clients decided they didn’t want the case, so this is a pretty hilarious development.
I know I've bitched about him before, but the partner I worked for at my old law firm is a "true believer" on the insurance defense side. Like this guy gets out of bed in the morning for the sole purpose of defending insurance companies. It's mindblowing to me. I can't tell you how many times we have, say, $50K in authority, and he will spend hours settling for $49,500 so we can "look like heroes." One of my come to Jesus moments was seeing this 50 yo partner doing the same mundane car wreck shit I do and deciding "there's no fucking way I'm doing this my entire career." I still do contract work for my old firm, so we still work together. We have a death case of very questionable liability, defensible, but because WA is pure comparative fault there's still some exposure. Client has given us $100K in authority. Opposing Counsel has told us $100K will resolve the case. Said partner is refusing to offer our authority because he thinks it's worth less. Wants to bring it in "under $90K to look like heroes." We just had a pretty tense conversation, I basically hinted that he's not following the client's wishes. We can put this case to bed right now for exactly what the client wants, but he is refusing. I'm sort of dumbfounded.
I only need 17 hours of CLE before December 31. Thank God that Ohio went to unlimited online CLE for Covid and has not lifted that order yet.
just pay for a course and have it on in the background while doing actual work? that's what i do every year
wait what? Florida always allowed unlimited online CLE. I just buy a bunch of online lectures and listen to them while working.
Just finished a depo where its a scope and price case where the carrier stated the damages were under the deductible. Corporate Rep just testified under oath that they did not pay a 15k EMS bill that would have taken the claim well over the deductible amount. Did she have a reason why it wasn't paid? Nope. Did they deny coverage for the EMS bill? Nope. Do they have any evidence as to why it shouldn't be paid? Nope. Post depo. Me: you know I have a foolproof MSJ on this right? OC: Yeah, but the carrier is only willing to offer 15k total considering this issue. (remember in my field fees are paid on top of indemnity) Me: I guess I'll start drafting that MSJ.
Until 2020, Ohio only allowed 6 hours online and requires 24 hours every two years. The order is supposed to expire after 1/1/23.
Settled a PI case for an awful client on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, got more money for her than expected. She is blowing me up because she doesn't have her money yet. Doesn't understand why the insurance carrier can't just send her the checks and she'll pay out my fee.
Yall call balls and strikes on this: Taking a safety manager of corporation's depo earlier this week , not a 30b6. He says various members of the company including safety managers had meetings after a wreck involving one of their employees. They plug data about the wreck into an internal software system as they do their post wreck investigation. After having meetings including meetings with their driver who was involved in the collision, they plug a narrative into the software/server with root cause analysis . The stuff from their server hasn't been produced. The deponent has seen this internal root cause analysis within their server and he was involved in the meetings that led up to the analysis. I asked him what the server said regarding root cause analysis. Lawyer for corporation objected and instructed him not to answer because determinations about fault are developed in anticipation of litigation and are privileged. I've never researched or briefed this issue. Was that a BS instruction or legit? It ultimately doesn’t matter because their driver was obviously at fault and they are going to admit liability eventually. But for future purposes I’m interested.