Gleeful defense attorneys
mm
attorneys in civil cases are often gleeful when they make benchmark
progress pursuing their cases, like winning a motion or having a
secret witness. Does this happen in real life, or is it just put in
by the script writer so viewers will further dislike the bad side?
Like a guilty defendant and his lawyer.
Or a negligent philandering drunken defendant and his lawyer?
They also strut about how strong their case is, seemingly for the fun
of it, and not just to get a compromise from the other side. Do they
do that? I presume lawyers really do strut about how strong their
case is to get more in a compromise, but I don't know. Do they even do
that? Or is it obvious to the other lawyer from the depositions,
evidence, and testimony, without the lawyer bothering to ham it up?
What little I've seen has had no glee or strutting, but I havent' seen
much.
Mike Jacobs
> On television, the defense attorney in criminal cases and maybe both
> attorneys in civil cases are often gleeful when they make benchmark
> progress pursuing their cases, like winning a motion or having a
> secret witness. �Does this happen in real life,
Hardly. This is TV scriptwriters jazzing up a basically detail-
oriented, paper-pushing, rational and analytic profession, to make it
resemble a football game or something like that, so it looks more
appealing on the small tube. TV does that to _everything_ BTW, not
just law. Lawyers do not do end-zone dances and then trash-talk their
opponents after scoring an extra point. For one thing, it's
unprofessional. For another, if the "game" (trial) isn't already
over, doing so may give the other side some ammunition that could turn
around and bite. Maybe the other guy was asleep at the switch and
didn't notice the important concession you just got his witness to
make, and won't try to rehabilitate his witness's testimony on re-
direct exam after you are done cross-examining. And unless you do
something stupid like moonwalk over to the other counsel table and
thumb your nose at them and say "Nyaa-nyaaa!!!," the first time they
will realize how they goofed is when you point out the significance of
the testimony you elicited, to the jury, during your closing
argument. At which point, you can drive your message home without
being all silly about it.
> They also strut about how strong their case is, seemingly for the fun
> of it, and not just to get a compromise from the other side. Do they
> do that?
There _is_ a bit of puffery involved in settlement negotiations but,
there are practical limits. We lawyers will have to deal with the
same opposing lawyers again and again, and have a reputation to build/
uphold. The lawyer who makes wild, unsupported claims about the
strength of his case soon finds no one willing to offer him decent
money (or decent plea-bargain terms) to settle them, as the opponent
is more likely to say, "Fine, if you think your case is so hot, let's
roll the dice and go to trial." It is the lawyer who speaks softly
but carries a big stick who is more likely to have the local
reputation as an honest heavy hitter and therefore, when he says his
case is strong, he means it, and the other side _will_ offer a fair
settlement. NOT an outrageous one, mind you, just a FAIR one.
Lawyers who demand outrageous settlements soon find themselves losing
that hard-earned reputation as diligent case-builders who can deliver
on what they threaten.
> I presume lawyers really do strut about how strong their
> case is to get more in a compromise,
Um, I still think "strut" is too strong a word for the touting of
their case most lawyers do in negotiations. "Sell" is a better
word. Which kind of salesman would _you_ be more likely to BUY from,
the low-key guy who gives you the info you need to make what looks
like a rational decision (so you think it's YOUR decision) all while
painting his product in the most persuasive and appealing but
understated tones, or the loud-mouthed, loud-tied pitchman who reminds
you of a carnival barker?
> Or is it obvious to the other lawyer from the depositions,
> evidence, and testimony, without the lawyer bothering to ham it up?
The facts _are_ what they are. Nothing either lawyer can do will
change that. A good lawyer who is closely following the factual
development of his case (and the opponent's case) during all those
phases is pretty much going to be on the same page as his opponent in
terms of evaluating the case, which is why cases are MORE likely to
settle (or plead out) when there are GOOD lawyers on both sides. It
is mostly when one or the other lawyer has an _unrealistic_ view of
the strength and value of his case that a trial is even necessary.
> What little I've seen has had no glee or strutting, but I havent' seen
> much.
What you've seen is typical.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
TheMightyAtlas
I second this based on my experience as a client and witness. The
lawyers who are most successful both in and out of the courtroom are
the ones who either are, or appear to be, the most even-handed, the
best listeners and knowledgeable about the local rules, personalities
etc.
The worst performance I have ever seen by lawyers was a Washington DC
white shoe firm who came out to Kansas City (Kansas) to represent a
big DC based multinational in a commercial dispute. I was working for
the client, but these guys ticked off every one, including the judge,
with their arrogance and over-the-top attitude. Of course Kansas City
is one of those places where people pride themselves in being low-key
and workmanlike.
I have never been able to figure out how these guys got to the
position they did in the first place. Though now that I live in
Boston, I have noticed that the big Boston based firms have lawyers
who are a lot more boastful and dismissive than the suburban small
firms.
My experience has all been with lawyers practicing commercial, real
estate and employment law. Thankfully I have not experienced the
criminal side in any way (victim, witness or defendant).
Cy Pres
<themigh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>The worst performance I have ever seen by lawyers was a Washington DC
>white shoe firm who came out to Kansas City (Kansas) to represent a
>big DC based multinational in a commercial dispute. I was working for
>the client, but these guys ticked off every one, including the judge,
>with their arrogance and over-the-top attitude. Of course Kansas City
>is one of those places where people pride themselves in being low-key
>and workmanlike.
These white shoe firms are populated with lawyers who grew up rich,
went to the "best schools," now are at the "best firms," and are often
paid top dollar to completely screw up their clients' cases.[*]
I know lawyers who have nothing but their state law school degree, a
few frowsy suits, and their skills, who take great pleasure in taking
one of these firms to the cleaners. Since they are also generally not
going to come back to the same venue, there is also no particularly
compelling reason to extend them the courtesy one normally extends
peers, and all the stops come out.
Many times these white shoe firms come out to somewhere like Kansas
thinking they're going to mop the floor with some dumb hicks and go
home after a cakewalk. I generally approve of the Kansans (or
whoever) sending them home with a couple black eyes and a nice verdict
against their client. That's my idea of a "teachable moment."
[*] Though it is less the case since the legal economy imploded along
with the rest of the economy that companies are fat and happy enough
to pay legal bills without question when the service was either
ineffective or downright destructive.
Bob
>These white shoe firms are populated with lawyers who grew up rich,
>went to the "best schools," now are at the "best firms," and are often
>paid top dollar to completely screw up their clients' cases.[*]
>
>I know lawyers who have nothing but their state law school degree, a
>few frowsy suits, and their skills, who take great pleasure in taking
>one of these firms to the cleaners.
[snip]
So many generalizations in such a short space. There are many lawyers
at big firms (I don't know anyone who still calls them white shoe
firms, a rather outdated and restrictive term) who did not grow up
rich. There are many good lawyers at big firms. There are many bad
lawyers with "frowsy suits." There are many lawyers at big firms who
graduated from state law schools.
Not that I'm a fan of big firms, but I'd steer clear of such sweeping
stereotypes.
Mike Jacobs
> On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:14:59 -0800 (PST), TheMightyAtlas
> <themightyatl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >The worst performance I have ever seen by lawyers was a Washington DC
> >white shoe firm who came out to Kansas City (Kansas) to represent a
> >big DC based multinational in a commercial dispute. I was working for
> >the client, but these guys ticked off every one, including the judge,
> >with their arrogance and over-the-top attitude. Of course Kansas City
> >is one of those places where people pride themselves in being low-key
> >and workmanlike.
>
> These white shoe firms are populated with lawyers who grew up rich,
> went to the "best schools," now are at the "best firms," and are often
> paid top dollar to completely screw up their clients' cases.[*]
They have "white shoe" firms in Kansas City too, not just in NY and
DC, Cy Pres. 8*)
>From what I hear, everything's up to date there. They even have
buildings 7 stories high! And gas buggies, and bell telephones, and
burlesque theaters!
I used to work at one of them (a big firm, that is, not a burlesque
theater) in a mid-sized, blue-collar town. I was not a rich preppie
son of a power family myself, even though I worked among many of them
(along with many other colleagues who came up from humble roots like
me but did well in law school).
There is a pleasing symmetry to the stereotypes Cy Pres puts forth and
they _do_ have some basis in reality but, like all stereotypes, they
distort what they purport to describe because they don't recognize
individual variations.
> I know lawyers who have nothing but their state law school degree, a
> few frowsy suits, and their skills, who take great pleasure in taking
> one of these firms to the cleaners.
Ditto. And some of the best of those hungry small-firm or solo,
quick-adapting and more-efficient practitioners are refugees from
large firms who found they could work better with fewer layers of
supervision and overhead and thus get better results for their clients
at less cost by going out on their own. Most of my year-class cohort
who started out at my big firm have, like me, gone on to do that, and
they include those from silver-spoon backgrounds as well as those of
more proletarian origin. Some have moved out to the suburbs or
exurbs, but many do just fine working solo right downtown among all
those skyscrapers and burlesque shows (apologies to Rodgers &
Hammerstein).
Think about it, Cy Pres, and you will realize that the biggest factor
here is the sheer size and dinosaur-like ponderousness of the so-
called "top" firms, who (during their salad days in the latter half of
the 20th century) were comfortably inured to having a captive stable
of large corporate clients, billing them by the hour for the "full
workup" on every case regardless of however much it costs relative to
the issues at stake. They represent a dying, or at least seriously
ailing, business model, as you do note in your final footnote comment
(quoted below).
Bar association blogs and newsletters are replete with tales of so
called "Big Law" or "top 100" firms who have been laying off hundreds
of workers _each_ this year - many thousands, in total. Partners and
associates as well as nonlegal staff of big firms are being let go, or
have had to accept drastically lowered salaries. New law grads'
starting salaries had gotten out of all proportion to these newbies'
actual value to the firm, and are now being slashed as well, at the
firms that haven't cancelled hiring of incoming first-year associates
altogether. Big firms are lowering their hourly billing rates and
are also seeking alternative billing methods largely at the urging of
their penny-pinching, corporate-general-counsel clients. Firms
engage in "beauty contests" or "dog and pony shows" to compete with
other big firms for this clientele on the basis of value-for-cost, and
client companies think nothing these days about switching law firms to
save a few bucks, longtime "old boy network" relationships be
damned. It's a new world out there. Meanwhile, the small firm and
solo lawyers are increasingly able to compete on a level playing field
with big firms in terms of available resources, what with the cyber
revolution placing the world's legal libraries and investigative tools
on everyone's desktop, and permitting widespread collaboration among
far-flung colleagues.
Images of giant, lumbering reptiles being taken down and driven
extinct by tiny, furry mammals who scurry about nimbly, nipping the
dinosaurs at their toes, all as volcanoes erupt in the background and
the glaciers advance, come to mind. It has nothing to do with "rich"
vs. "poor", or "big city" vs. "country lawyer" - it has everything to
do with organizational structure and flexibility even assuming one is
dealing with professionals of equal capability on both sides of the
rich/poor or city/country fence (and often, the _same_ individual, at
different times, on different sides of those fences).
Nor is it always the corporate defense firm that is the
carpetbagger. Sometimes, a rich, out-of-town PLAINTIFF lawyer,
working on a contingency fee, will come to town to sue a local
business (perhaps the major employer in a "company town") or a
connected local squire whose aura of protected privilege scared away
all the local lawyers from suing this 800-pound gorilla even when the
merits justified it. Then, it may be the local bigwig defendant who
hires local, streamlined and hungry, little-guy defense attorneys to
go up against the famous hired gun working for the widows and orphans.
Since you already pointed it out, I probably need not add (but will
anyway) that this evolution of the economy, of corporate structure,
and of the standard business model is in no way unique to the law
profession. From what I hear, most fields of endeavor today are
experiencing similar upheavals, leading to a lot more innovative free-
lancing of all kinds and a lot less of the corporate sinecure for the
rich but incompetent scions of the former elite.
> Since they are also generally not
> going to come back to the same venue, there is also no particularly
> compelling reason to extend them the courtesy one normally extends
> peers, and all the stops come out.
I don't agree with you there, Cy. A _good_ lawyer will behave civilly
and professionally wherever he is, whichever side he's on.
If we're talking about solos with a nationwide practice, plaintiff
lawyers like Wyoming native Gerry Spence (of "Silkwood" fame) or (on
the criminal-defense side) the late Johnnie Cochran, due to their fame
they have even MORE of a need to protect their reputation than an
unknown local guy would. What they do in Vegas will _not_ stay in
Vegas, but will be reported nationally and will thus become readily
known to the denizens of the next town where they will have to try a
case. Need I add, those "country lawyer" types with a nationwide
practice have achieved both wealth and fame beyond almost all of their
humbler colleagues, despite affecting touches of down-homeyness like
Mr. Spence's ponytail and buckskin-fringe coats (don't get me wrong, I
have great respect for him as a brilliant lawyer, but I still find his
trademark getup a bit over-the-top twee). Anyway, the reason these
guys WIN so consistently is that they know how to CONNECT with judges
and juries, and how to _avoid_ ticking them off.
Or, did you mean it was the BIG firm guys who travel, from (say) DC to
KC, who are "generally not going to come back" to that remote venue
and who thus feel free to act like assholes? Surely they realize
that ticking everybody off (including the judge and jury) is NOT the
way to win cases and gain fame and fortune? The smarter ones among
them DO NOT put on the big-city airs that the cow-county juries find
so irritating, when they travel beyond the urban fringe to try a case,
any more than the Spences and Cochrans of the profession do.
Or, did you mean it the opposite way, that the LOCAL lawyers feel free
to pull out "all the stops" so far as courtesy and civility are
concerned, when dealing with a bumbling big-firm blowhard from The
City whom the locals know will probably never come back to Podunk
County, East Dakota after finishing the trial at hand? Sorry, that
doesn't match my experience at all. I can't believe that's what you
meant, since it sounds like you are accusing the local country lawyers
of the same lack of integrity, the same brusque lack of civility, that
the big-city carpetbaggers are rightfully criticized for displaying
(_when_ they do, which, as I say, is _not_ always the case).
> Many times these white shoe firms come out to somewhere like Kansas
> thinking they're going to mop the floor with some dumb hicks and go
> home after a cakewalk.
There is some of that, but a lot less than you would think. Mostly
the big-firm, big-city lawyers worry, with good reason, about getting
unfairly "home-towned"* when they travel to the sticks to try cases.
And, it doesn't have to be halfway across the country to get that
effect, either; the downtown Washington silk-stocking lawyer who
travels just half an hour out to Fairfax county in Northern Virginia,
or the lawyer from a Wall Street firm who needs to try a case out on
Long Island, will feel the same effect.
* This term refers, of course, to the non-level playing field, in
which the visiting-team outsider has an uphill battle just to get
fair, equal treatment from the local judge and jury pool even if his
professionalism and the merits of his case are beyond reproach.
> I generally approve of the Kansans (or
> whoever) sending them home with a couple black eyes and a nice verdict
> against their client. That's my idea of a "teachable moment."
Surely you are not advocating "hometowning" as I defined it above.
But, you're right, it does give one a certain innate satisfaction when
the local underdog can beat the "big guys" on the little guy's home
turf, so long as he does so on the merits and not due to a
reprehensible hometown bias The highly-qualified, highly-motivated
and non-arrogant lawyers who tried but never succeeded in getting
justice from State courts and juries for the murdered and oppressed
victims of bigots in the Deep South during the Civil Rights throes of
the 1950's and 1960's come to mind. Local juries would consistently
refuse to convict "respectable" local bigwigs (rich plantation owners,
Chamber-of-Commerce business proprietors, Sheriff's deputies etc.) who
moonlighted with the KKK and who had (allegedly, and assuredly)
lynched uppity Blacks and "outside agitators" - the latter referring
to idealistic activists who had come to their steamy town for the
deeply subversive purpose of getting local Blacks registered to
vote. That kind of local bias is _not_ something I applaud - and, if
it constituted a "teachable moment" at all, the lesson learned was
that State court civil rights suits would be going nowhere fast, while
using Federal courts to pursue Constitutional torts as well as
lobbying for Congressional civil rights legislation were worth trying
to finally get justice for those victims and put an end to the Jim
Crow social order.
> [*] Though it is less the case since the legal economy imploded along
> with the rest of the economy that companies are fat and happy enough
> to pay legal bills without question when the service was either
> ineffective or downright destructive.
Yes indeed. No more free lunch.
Bob
<mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Bar association blogs and newsletters are replete with tales of so
>called "Big Law" or "top 100" firms who have been laying off hundreds
>of workers _each_ this year - many thousands, in total. Partners and
>associates as well as nonlegal staff of big firms are being let go, or
>have had to accept drastically lowered salaries. New law grads'
>starting salaries had gotten out of all proportion to these newbies'
>actual value to the firm, and are now being slashed as well, at the
>firms that haven't cancelled hiring of incoming first-year associates
>altogether. Big firms are lowering their hourly billing rates and
>are also seeking alternative billing methods largely at the urging of
>their penny-pinching, corporate-general-counsel clients. Firms
>engage in "beauty contests" or "dog and pony shows" to compete with
>other big firms for this clientele on the basis of value-for-cost, and
>client companies think nothing these days about switching law firms to
>save a few bucks, longtime "old boy network" relationships be
>damned. It's a new world out there.
[snipped large amount of discussion before and after **]
I read (I think it was in the Daily Journal) that the majority of big
firms are *raising* their hourly rates in 2010. There are also
reports that some (many?) big clients may "reject" those increases.
And there are reports that it may not matter as much because more
clients have legal contracts that don't depend on hourly rates as much
as they used to.
As for it being a "new world," the big law firm business is cyclical
just like all businesses, and although they have been more impacted by
this recession than by other recessions, so have other businesses.
Some things may change, but I'm guessing much of it will remain the
same.
** Mike, how are you able to write such LONG posts? Do you have lots
of time, or is it just easy for you?
Cy Pres
<mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
[Big snips with responses to a couple points; needless to say, I am
not going to defend a few throwaway stereotypes and tropes as gospel
truth, although they don't come from nowhere and are not so worthless
or invidious as to be dismissed entirely because they don't entirely
capture reality.]
>Nor is it always the corporate defense firm that is the
>carpetbagger. Sometimes, a rich, out-of-town PLAINTIFF lawyer,
>working on a contingency fee, will come to town to sue a local
>business (perhaps the major employer in a "company town") or a
>connected local squire whose aura of protected privilege scared away
>all the local lawyers from suing this 800-pound gorilla even when the
>merits justified it. Then, it may be the local bigwig defendant who
>hires local, streamlined and hungry, little-guy defense attorneys to
>go up against the famous hired gun working for the widows and orphans.
An obvious example would be the Buffalo Creek case that is always used
in civil procedure classes. However, the handling of that case was
also a textbook example of how *not* to invoke the "out of state
bigtown lawyers coming here to tell us how to do things" stereotype,
and it was the local lawyers who bungled things out of a "home turf"
arrogance.
>> Since they are also generally not
>> going to come back to the same venue, there is also no particularly
>> compelling reason to extend them the courtesy one normally extends
>> peers, and all the stops come out.
>I don't agree with you there, Cy. A _good_ lawyer will behave civilly
>and professionally wherever he is, whichever side he's on.
Professionally, perhaps. There is a certain strategic value to
incivility in certain, uncommon situations, nor is behavior which
would be considered incivility in social circumstances necessarily
unprofessional.
I offer William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass as examples of
attorneys who used outright rudeness and, in some cases, outright
unprofessional conduct, to achieve eventual victories for his clients.
In particular, in the Chicago 7 trial, his clients were simply going
to get railroaded if he behaved as a normal lawyer would. His conduct
brought the bias of the trial court to the surface in an undeniable
way, which led to convictions that were unsustainable on appeal.
While the Chicago 7 trial was the most notorious of such cases, other
cases defended by the Center for Constitutional Rights have been
almost as high profile and involved similarly dramatic practice by
lawyer-activists.
This is, however, not an example of what I meant originally, but a
tangent. I meant the strategic use of incivility to throw an opponent
off his game. There are generally too many downsides to this to make
it worthwhile; after all, if you treat your adversaries like that now,
they will treat you like that in the future. This doesn't apply if
you will never see them again, although of course, other
considerations apply, such as that you might look like a jerk to your
colleagues. Finally, and making the situations where such conduct is
strategically useful even rarer, your opponent has to be the sort of
person who actually *will* be thrown off their game by this.
[Cochran and Spence]
>Anyway, the reason these
>guys WIN so consistently is that they know how to CONNECT with judges
>and juries, and how to _avoid_ ticking them off.
Also, Spence is unlikely to trigger the "arrogant out of town lawyer
here to tell us how to do these" reaction. As over the top as his
getup may be, it seems to put people at ease.
[Question as to whether I meant the local or the city attorneys who
might do this; from a game theory perspective it could very well be
both. Once the costs of a particular tactic decrease, its use
increases. If the costs of the tactic actually increase, though, its
use decreases. Since the big firm from out of town may already be
disadvantaged by that status, they may not be able to afford to act
that way.]
>> Many times these white shoe firms come out to somewhere like Kansas
>> thinking they're going to mop the floor with some dumb hicks and go
>> home after a cakewalk.
>There is some of that, but a lot less than you would think. Mostly
>the big-firm, big-city lawyers worry, with good reason, about getting
>unfairly "home-towned"* when they travel to the sticks to try cases.
>And, it doesn't have to be halfway across the country to get that
>effect, either; the downtown Washington silk-stocking lawyer who
>travels just half an hour out to Fairfax county in Northern Virginia,
>or the lawyer from a Wall Street firm who needs to try a case out on
>Long Island, will feel the same effect.
It could be across a river. New York City lawyers practicing in
Newark, New Jersey, or the contrary. This has more the air of a
healthy rivalry, although New Yorkers tend to look down on their
neighbor.
>* This term refers, of course, to the non-level playing field, in
>which the visiting-team outsider has an uphill battle just to get
>fair, equal treatment from the local judge and jury pool even if his
>professionalism and the merits of his case are beyond reproach.
>> I generally approve of the Kansans (or
>> whoever) sending them home with a couple black eyes and a nice verdict
>> against their client. That's my idea of a "teachable moment."
>Surely you are not advocating "hometowning" as I defined it above.
No, so much as the arrogant being taught a lesson. Preferably, this
isn't due to judicial or other bias, but due to the hometowners'
superior knowledge of their own local rules and procedures, and the
same sort of appreciation for the "feel" of how things go that works
for a sports team playing in its own stadium.
>But, you're right, it does give one a certain innate satisfaction when
>the local underdog can beat the "big guys" on the little guy's home
>turf, so long as he does so on the merits and not due to a
>reprehensible hometown bias The highly-qualified, highly-motivated
>and non-arrogant lawyers who tried but never succeeded in getting
>justice from State courts and juries for the murdered and oppressed
>victims of bigots in the Deep South during the Civil Rights throes of
>the 1950's and 1960's come to mind.
Agreed with regard to the use of federal courts to vindicate civil
rights when state courts were not doing their job. Sadly, the
situation has nearly reversed. Civil rights attorneys I know have
told me the last thing they would do these days, if not absolutely
necessary, is file a lawsuit in federal court, or file a lawsuit that
could be removed to federal court by the defendant.
Often, state courts are now better at vindicating civil rights, and
have not slammed the courthouse door shut in the face of civil rights
plaintiffs, based on sweeping immunity doctrines that threaten to
swallow the entire concept of civil rights.
Steve Bartman
<mjaco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Think about it, Cy Pres, and you will realize that the biggest factor
>here is the sheer size and dinosaur-like ponderousness of the so-
>called "top" firms, who (during their salad days in the latter half of
>the 20th century) were comfortably inured to having a captive stable
>of large corporate clients, billing them by the hour for the "full
>workup" on every case regardless of however much it costs relative to
>the issues at stake. They represent a dying, or at least seriously
>ailing, business model, as you do note in your final footnote comment
>(quoted below).
My limited POV, having worked at a fairly-large, insurance-defense
firm as a long-term contract paralegal, is that this is very true. The
firm was founded by lawyers fleeing more sclerotic firms in the late
1980s, and has now grown to the point where it is not so nimble or
cost-effective as it was in the early days. Having listened to the
grapevine there, I fully expect a new generation of hot-runners,
frustrated by the partnership rolls being closed, to bolt in the next
years and thus begin the cycle anew.
During this recession I also saw the "full workup" under attack from
the insurers. Some limited triage of cases happens now, and a
balancing of settlement risk and workup costs is at least discussed.
Some remarkably large clients also essentially do nothing after the
answer is served unless in danger of summary judgment. On the
plaintiff side, however, the reverse is true. Lots of cases are plead
on the thinnest of fact bases, and the defendant net is sometimes
thrown far enough to pull in triple-digits of defendant firms, in
hopes of nuisance settlements that together make the contingency
worthwhile. In the past six months I also saw a Twombly-based motion
filed in this particular area of state tort law to stop this nonsense.
Perhaps this will change the plaintiff-side economics, perhaps not.
>Bar association blogs and newsletters are replete with tales of so
>called "Big Law" or "top 100" firms who have been laying off hundreds
>of workers _each_ this year - many thousands, in total.
One I read semi-regularly is http://www.abovethelaw.com/
It's slowed down a bit, but 3-4 months ago there were documented
reports of Big Law layoffs in the thousands per week. Even though the
pain is real, I had to laugh at the arrogance of so many fresh-caught,
top-law-school grads who, without ever serving one client or
participating in one trial, thought it was their holy right to
$150,000/year plus perks. The market is a cruel mistress, but she does
"work," albeit slowly.
Big firms are lowering their hourly billing rates and
>are also seeking alternative billing methods largely at the urging of
>their penny-pinching, corporate-general-counsel clients.
Of course, an on-going "war", propelled by bill-auditing software, is
fought when associates do paralegal work, simply for the billing
premium. There are games played with billing codes and descriptions,
but its increasingly difficult to lard up a bill with associates
writing simple letters and making out subpoenas. I think in general
the legal field is woefully behind medicine in division of labor
analysis and specialization. Too many lawyers do tasks far below their
training and capability, and many/most firms don't know how to use
paralegals well. OTOH, there are too many lawyers, and I understand
them trying to look useful.
Meanwhile, the small firm and
>solo lawyers are increasingly able to compete on a level playing field
>with big firms in terms of available resources, what with the cyber
>revolution placing the world's legal libraries and investigative tools
>on everyone's desktop, and permitting widespread collaboration among
>far-flung colleagues.
Another trend I saw in my little corner of the law, was, again, very
large, Fortune 1000-type firms, hiring ham&egg firms, often 3-4
attorneys, to run the local counsel beat, taking care of 95%+ of the
cases that are routine, and then engaging a bigger, hairier, national
counsel firm in order to ride in whenever a trial looms. Very often
the small firm, knowing the case and the landscape, would have done a
better job at trial, but big, bureaucratic clients seem to like having
the hefty masthead when the money at stake gets real.
>Nor is it always the corporate defense firm that is the
>carpetbagger. Sometimes, a rich, out-of-town PLAINTIFF lawyer,
>working on a contingency fee, will come to town to sue a local
>business (perhaps the major employer in a "company town") or a
>connected local squire whose aura of protected privilege scared away
>all the local lawyers from suing this 800-pound gorilla even when the
>merits justified it.
Saw this too. In that case, speaking accents got in the way of trial
effectiveness, A strong (and I mean REALLY strong) regional accent by
the lead plaintiff attorney caused the court reporter, on multiple
occasions, to stop and ask for repeats, drawing the jury's attention
over and over to the fact that he had just gotten off a plane. Most of
the many (30+) defense firms' counsel were local. The plaintiff lost.
(Not only due to home-towning; among other errors plaintiff called an
expert witness in a science-based case who had lost his professional
license for a period of several years earlier in his career.)
Steve
Mike
> ** Mike, how are you able to write such LONG posts? Do you have lots
> of time, or is it just easy for you?
I'd always been wondering the same thing myself but chalked it up to
lawyers being naturally long-winded;)
JUST kidding, Mike. I really do enjoy reading yer posts (unlike those of
another, who will be nameless and who hasn't been posting in quite
sometime but who was famous for having the record length sentences in
all of Usenet. It even seemed like he managed to make a single sentence
span several paragraphs on occasion.) As someone else said recently
about you as well, "I respect your posts even if I don't always agree
with them." (or something like that.) It's very rare that I start
reading one of yours and then skip on to the next one without reading
the whole thing.