Got an OC who wants to set an inspection. SOP is to just ask for an inspection date and we help coordinate. Instead of just requesting an inspection he filed a motion to compel it and sent an email asking to set it for hearing. We responded saying we’d be happy to make the property available just give us dates. responded this morning, Saturday for those reading this Monday, saying if we don’t respond to dates to set the hearing by end of day he’s unilaterally setting the motion for hearing.
get chat gpt to draft you a motion for protective order and for sanctions . win/win. you don't waste too much time on it and you get under his skin
It sure seems like the judge would tear him a new asshole if he shows up on a unilateral MTC without having done a good faith conferral or a bunch of proof of non-cooperation.
buddy who is my accountant just referred a slam dunk of a $300k case. his brother who is a civil litigator in san antonio i guess asked him to call me to see if i wanted the case. i called back and apparently he has no expectation of co repping this or a referral fee umm thanks?
If he’s from a big firm, most malpractice carriers will not let attorneys be a co-counsel for a referral fee. We have a flat prohibition on it. You either work the case or don’t.
We have two guys in Cincinnati that probably get 60-70% of their work from big firm conflicts on plaintiff cases. They have a 10 attorney firm and kill it.
Every post in this thread from here on out should be either in this format or in the format of a longform linkedin thinkpiece.
This is the cringiest thing I've ever seen. And she 100% has a personality disorder. I feel worse about the legal profession after reading this.
I mean it's not great but i feel like i see something more unhinged on linkedin basically every time i bother to check it.
I offered to help her get ready for her first trial when I saw her posting stuff like trial in 5 days!! realized she didn’t know what she was doing. Then found out it was her first setting and she was like #90 on the docket she 100% has no clue that someone not having a drivers license isn’t admissible
I am being closely babysat by more senior attorneys as i get ready for my first civil trial (and i did about half a dozen criminal trials) and i'm terrified and probably fucking up a bunch of stuff. I cant even imagine just doing one entirely by myself with no guidance.
I feel like getting really good before/after witnesses is one of the most important things that drives damages other than of course bad conduct and rule breaking. You can try to get your staff to identify these b/a witnesses but it's really hard for them to do it properly. My theory is to ask them what they do other than just go to work and drive home. Do they do anything outside of work. Sometimes they will say they don't do anything. LIke no matter how hard you ask them. I think a small % of society are just bums that have nothing to do with society outside of going to work. No connections to the community. But a decent amount of folks are productive members of society and/or do stuff in the community besides just go to work and go home. So just identify how the incident impacted those things. Turns out one of my clients volunteers for old folks in the neighborhood, helps out older members of the church, used to play church league volleyball, used to help landscape his neighborhood before the crash. He told me witnesses that can testify for all of this stuff. He didn't volunteer any of this to my staff when they tried. I'll just call a bunch of these folks for 15 min vignettes at trial. Get them in and out. Defense probably won't even cross them.
I’m guessing they’re advising you to not be an absolute dick to regular person who made a mistake and got into a car wreck
I tell my staff that I want at least 5 friends and/or family members listed on our disclosures who can testify to that. If the case has a decent chance of going to trial we just line up zoom depositions for them and yeah most of the time there isn’t much the defense can ask that doesn’t make them seem like dicks.
It also sounds like she's taking a defendant depo in a case where there's not even questionable liability.
I'm bringing 2 to my trial but they largely won't answer my phone calls except to confirm availability for trial so i really hope they have nice things to say at trial.
From focus grouping this....juries expect your wife/son/sister to be biased and say whatever it takes to help you. Neutral witnesses with no skin in the game seem to be infinitely more helpful . You need much more than 2 of them.
Also we don't get to do them via zoom as a matter of right. I've had defense counsel bitch that it should be in person at trial.
It depends a lot on the client and the injuries, but as a general rule, don’t over-try your case. From my experience, the vast majority of cases don’t warrant a half dozen before and after witnesses. If they don’t believe your client, no amount of vouching is going to make up for it.
I got sanctions against the employer/carrier in a WC case , order came through today. $1500. Trying to decide how to disburse them. Could give them all to the client. It's a 25% contingency fee contract. So maybe we keep 25% of it? How are sanction awards typically distributed in a contingency fee case?
I think most everyone here with offers of settlement and any sanctions awards just treats it as an additional recovery and takes a fee, turns the rest over to the client.
I just got an invoice from a life care planner. Hasn't even testified yet but claims to have done 31 hours of work and $7500 of work. I used a different one in a case last year , did a shit ton more work, prepped them for trial testimony, had to do revised reports as case advanced, and was $5800 total. Never using this one again. $7500 for a report in a simple case is a fucking rip off. Gonna be like $12-15k after they testify probably.
And only time I’ve got sanctions was against a Fred loya lawyer (surprise surprises!) and it was for $1000 which was for fees/time spent preparing multiple motions to compel. We kept it
I would gladly pay a Cadillac of a life care planner $20k or whatever it cost in a complex injury seven figure case. This case is straight forward, nothing crazy, the entire lifecareplan is like $100k, she didn't have to do complex work talking to doctors, I already had the doctors opinions in writing.
Originally the opinions of the doctors on paper looked promising. Then it turned out a bunch of the stuff they related to the incident was really preexisting or completely unrelated so the plan got smaller and smaller. Before she even wrote the report I thought about pulling the plug on the lifecare plan altogether. It was a close call. It's an upper extremity injury with nerve damage that will require PT, neuro visits, OTC medication, and some other minor stuff. It's a bench trial so I'm not worried about a jury thinking it's dumb. I feel a judge is more likely to award it.
Update: my most critical before and after witness, whom I’ve informed on 5 separate occasions of when he needs to be available just called me to say he won’t be coming because he’s going on a cruise
Well that blows we had that happen once or twice and just started doing video depos for a lot of that stuff
We are seeing if he can do a video depo tomorrow but I can’t imagine the defense is going to be terribly interested in letting me do that
I did a video depo of one for a trial last year and she did it from a starbucks with people ordering shit in the background. It was awful.
You can get a good verdict without a before and after witness. You don’t have to follow a specific script. Prepare your client hard on every conceivable attack on how the wreck affected him/her. Practice cross examination and give them ideas on opportunities for mic drop moments. The jury won’t know to expect a before/after. When the defense lawyer overdoes beating up on the plaintiff, it will work out in your favor.
x factor is the client themself. Some folks just aren't very likeable. Hopefully bricktop's client isn't terrible.