I’m doing a hysterectomy case so office staff (100% female)have commented on how they hear me always talking about the vaginal canal, cervix, and uterus. Kinda funny
how often do you fire clients? i have this shitty small case and they literally call every day asking for an update.
im on the verge with one now who thinks she can mouth off to my staff with impunity. The only people allowed to mistreat them are me and my surgical clients
I used to fire those fuckers all the damn time. Mouth off to my staff? You're gone. Mouth off to me? You're probably gone. Unless your case will make me good money. In which case, yes please mouth off to me daddy.
Soft tissue disputed liability: Calls every day and ask for funding nonstop. Dude that has all his extremities missing in a commercial case : Probably calls like once a month
Well, his missing extremities might cause dialing to be a bit of an issue (ignoring voice calling, thank you very much).
it is wild how many firms let their main line go over to voicemail.... like, it's 1k a month to have an answering service.
have a pre-lit case that is coming up on the SOL that I just know is going to be the biggest pain my ass. Spoiler Soon-to-be Plaintiff got in an accident 3 years ago in which a tractor trailer began to merge into the fast lane from the slow lane on the interstate to allow traffic from the on-ramp to merge. To avoid an accident, she slowed and veered left. she impacted a construction barrier. minimal damage to the vehicle. She did not impact another vehicle during the accident. she didn't really have any physical injuries. was in the car alone. But she has some of the most intense PTSD / Anxiety / Depression I have ever seen. 3 years later, she is afraid to drive, cries if she sees the interstate, only eats saltines and 7up, will get "vegetative symptoms," cancels family events and turned down an internal promotion at work because she felt she could do the work properly, has to be by her husband reminded to shower, etc. she is nearing retirement age. her past meds are less than 30k. her pre-suit demand totaled damages over 3 million. her attorney seems to be a real believer in her case. my client is obviously going to push back on putting a high value on the case when the meds are so low and the symptoms are so extreme.
Sounds like a classic eggshell skull plaintiff. Tell your carrier to pony up Real talk, there's some real risk there with a good attorney. Does she have real mental health diagnoses?
In my day, I would’ve put surveillance on that ass and made my value determination on what it showed me.
we got the file just a few weeks ago, surveillance will be incoming. of course. that's what makes this case such a pain. a jury could tell this lady " " and give her like 75k or they could buy everything and give her several million. my client isn't going to just split that difference anytime soon, if ever.
How much is surveillance on something like that The most we’ve had happen is like a gotcha they took out the trash!!!
surveillance provides something useful like 10 percent of the time but this is one of those extreme circumstances where even seeing her engage in every day activities would actually be useful. this isn't like a back pain / taking out the trash gotcha thing. I obviously don't have her priors yet, but I am going to presume what I am reading in her post-accident records are accurate, but not sure if a jury is going to be sympathetic to these symptoms. Fortunately for me, this accident did not happen in or around Denver.
Surveillance is a big risk because juries typically hate the concept of it. But brother when it works, it fucking works. I had one on the defense side where we got the dude claiming he couldn’t bend over to tie his shoes loading a washing machine on a truck without assistance. I had another one on the plaintiff’s side where they got my client’s sister mowing her lawn for her.
Shit 10% is generous. In the 9 years I did defense work I bet we got great surveillance less than 5x.
Surveillance discussion reminded me of one of the more hilarious cases I ever handled. Security clearance is a big deal in my town. We would regularly get calls from companies who had an employee get in trouble and needed help sorting out a clearance issue. One time, a fairly high up rocket scientist type guy got arrested for soliciting prostitution. His company called to see if there was anything we could do. We reached out to the DA and he just laughed and said, "have y'all seen the tape?" It was like one of those old Cops episodes. Cameras set up all over the hotel room, girl on the bed, guy comes in the room, etc. Except in this case he had a big ass duffel bag with him. Before the cops got in the room, he removed all sorts of sex toys. Ropes, gigantic dildos (I specifically remember one shaped like an entire arm), handcuffs, you name it. He about shit his pants when the door flung open and 5 cops rushed in. The inventory list from everything he had in the bag was hilarious. And the old wives tale about a PI following a lady who claimed to have hurt her back only to find out she worked as a stripper. He records her dancing but only gets her tits, never her face. An old partner of mine swore that happened to him but I'm convinced he made it up.
agreed, I probably overstated it. But here, the woman is saying she can't keep a clean home because she does one task and gets exhausted and struggles to remember to shower. should be a wild one.
Your former partners had one of a kid, whose mom was claiming had been so significantly and permanently impacted by a broken leg playing catcher I think it was in a baseball double header, sliding, involved in collisions at the plate, etc.
on the other hand, just learned that a guy suing for a slip and fall on his motorcycle at a car wash / gas station late at night. he said he slipped on a wet substance when circling the gas station pumps. turns out, we have video that shows him gunning it into the parking lot late at night in February in Colorado, circling around the pumps unnecessarily because all 8 of them were unavailable, and then he drove past the pumps into the area that was wet. He then gunned it again and lost control and fell over. broke his leg. also turns out he committed an aggravated robbery 3 weeks prior and was arrested soon after our accident. also, he admitted to drinking the night of the accident. he also admitted to using cocaine. he also tested positive for meth and opiates.
not answering will put you in google purgatory . They track answer rate %. It's worth having an answering service for that alone.
lawyer blew deadline to hire experts or file counteraffidavits to dispute the medical in one of our cases. the stowers deadline is today. she has just totally disappeared and her mailbox is full. i love the flat fee defense lawyers so much.
how strict are they on those deadlines in Texas? In FL they’re getting at least one continuance to remedy it absent prior bad behavior
that's my experience as well. judges hate to enforce the deadlines and institute actual consequences if they can just say "tsk tsk, but we prefer all matters to be resolved on the merits."
Liberty Mutual has probably paid for 50% of my fees this year. They're putting so much money in my pocket. They write a ton of $100K policies out here, and make absolute shit offers pre-lit. I file on 99% of my Liberty Mutual cases, and I don't want to be mean, but their captive counsel are just...awful. 40-year-old lawyers taking depos from a script and stumbling over words with zero follow-up, or someone that's been barred for like a year. WA has a mandatory arbitration provision where if you agree your damages are capped at $100K, it gets fast-tracked thru private arbitration whereby an independent lawyer is appointed as arbitrator, experts can testify via affidavit, and everything is on Zoom. Once you put it into WA Arb, you usually have a hearing withing 2-3 months. It's great for $50K and $100K policies. We get a $2,000 affidavit from a doc relating all our treatment. Liberty Mutual never pays for a medical expert - even on questionable causation cases. So we go to the hearing, I put on my case, reference the affidavit, and then Liberty Mutual does...nothing. They barely cross Plaintiff, never call their insured to testify, and they never have a medical expert. Zero case in chief and just give a 5-minute canned closing argument. So my medicals have to be awarded. I just counted, and I've had 7 hearings against them this year. $100K awards on all of them. Less than $50K offered on all pre-lit. lol thx guys
call defense lawyer to ask some questions about their discovery responses. their admission says that they werent aware that their driver didnt have a drivers license when they hired him. he filled out every blank asking for a drivers license with his ID number and put (I.D.) next to it so i ask if i'm missing something?? his response is that he gave his sons drivers license to the company when they pulled a driving abstract. they conveniently forgot to include the driving abstract in their discovery responses. there is no paper trail with him providing his sons license. and, even if we take that at face value that he lied and did that, the abstract specifically says it's for a 20 year old and the driver was 43.... he couldn't get a license because he had multiple warrants out + 18 driving violations since 2010. dont think that's a positive document/position for you to take pimps.
My paralegal got rear ended around Christmas last year by an uninsured driver. Her UM coverage offered her 4k She coordinated all her own care, drafted her own demand and they still offered her 5k even after she got injections She drafted and filed her own civil remedy notice. they tendered the 25k. Very proud of her
Anyone tried/evaluated a case where the plaintiff wasn’t wearing a seatbelt? I have a Lyft case we are mediating on Friday. Pretty bad injury but she wasn’t wearing seatbelt
I have a $500K settlement check that we can't disburse because, after 2 months, the VA is still non-responsive about their final lien. bwi2 if I pay you a grand will you go knock on their door?
Check is from third party defendant. Client is military, all his treatment was through VA. And he's continued to treat thru litigation (questionably related), so we don't know the full amount of subro
Anyone an expert dealing with tax liens on land property? I kinda got fucked over and need some advice.
I took tax in a once a week, marathon session from 4:00-8:00 every Wednesday. The air crackled with excitement. The only redeeming part of the class was that it was taught be David Williams, before he became the first African American AD in the SEC when Gordon Gee brought him to Vanderbilt. Every tax anecdote was about some athlete who got sideways with the IRS.