Step five in how to win a lawsuit: Controlling your costs

Almost all lawsuits are about money, either winning the best settlement or paying the least settlement. To achieve that goal, the costs you spend litigating the case must be properly controlled – spend too little and you lose the case, spend too much and you still lose because you have not optimized the results you could have obtained. Let me give you some examples. As I mentioned in my last blog, I have defended many cases where a highly skilled and aggressive lawyer for the plaintiff has spent an enormous amount of money building the best possible case he can for his client. Then he comes to me, bragging about all the great evidence he has developed and wants to settle the case. Unfortunately, the lawyer has spent too much, more than his case is worth, so a settlement becomes impossible. Lawyers like these do not understand the meaning of the word “win,” and their clients never win, even if they get a verdict in their favor.

Lawyers representing defendants have their own set of problems. I have actually seen cases where the legal fees spent defending a case far exceed the value of the case itself. I once got a call from a disillusioned client who had received a bill from his lawyer for over $400,000 for defending him successfully on a case where the worst possible result would have required him to pay only $250,000. The lawyer actually sued him for his fee, which is how I got involved. To my astonishment, the lawyer did not even recognize he had done anything wrong. He just kept telling me it was a very complex case with difficult legal issues that required him to expend an enormous amount of time preparing the case properly. Obviously this lawyer does not understand the meaning of the word “win.” The lawyer really thought he had “won” because his client did not have to pay anything to the other side. His client, however, considered the result nothing short of a total disaster.

These are, of course, extreme stories, but these unfortunate situations occur every day in thousands upon thousands of cases across the United States. Spend too little or spend too much, either way you lose. The sad truth of the American legal system is that many lawyers do not understand the basic economics of their cases, and they get their clients into major pickles where the clients cannot possibly achieve their goals. The problem is that law schools do not teach lawyers what it really means to win a lawsuit. Walking out of a courtroom with a big legal victory is totally meaningless if the client does not in the process achieve his or her goals.

The moral of the story: clients need to take ownership of their own lawsuits. If you want to see what happens when clients just turn over their cases to their lawyers, check out my award-winning novel, The Litigators. This is a must read for anyone who has a pending lawsuit; you will have new insights into the legal system, and you will understand what you need to do to ensure your case turns out well for you.

Join me next week for Step six in how to win a lawsuit: Understanding the Rules of Civil Procedure – depositions