Step one in how to win a lawsuit: Choose a lawyer

The one question I am constantly asked as a lawyer is: How do I win a lawsuit? So that all of you can benefit from this answer (and also with the hope that less people will be asking it!) I am dedicating the next ten blogs to this subject. This first blog offers my perspectives on how to select a lawyer to represent you.

Perhaps the first question is whether to use a lawyer at all, since court records today indicate that a much larger group of people are choosing to represent themselves. There is an old axiom that “lawyers who represent themselves have a fool for a client.” This axiom is based on the notion that a client is too close to his case, too emotional about his case, too involved in his case to appreciate the risks in the case and fairly and responsibly assess and respond to those risks. I might also ask whether you would feel comfortable diagnosing your own medical complaints, deciding which medications were most appropriate or performing surgery on yourself. Probably not if you care much about your personal health. In fact, there is an enormous difference in the quality of lawyers in the United States. So, the question is not whether to get a lawyer but how to find the best lawyer available.

Let’s start by saying what not to do. Do not, I repeat, do not hire a lawyer based on advertising you have seen. There is absolutely no relationship between lawyers who put out enticing television ads and the level of their legal expertise. Indeed, if there is any relationship at all, it is a negative one. Why is it, one might ask, that a lawyer needs to advertise to stay busy? The vast majority of lawyers do not advertise and instead rely on word of mouth from their current and former clients to refer new clients to their attention. If these lawyers advertised as well, they’d have too much to do.

Then does this mean that lawyers who put their pictures on TV, in newspaper ads and magazine ads don’t have enough clients? But why wouldn’t they have enough clients from referrals from all the clients they have represented in the past? Especially lawyers who advertise almost incessantly...why aren’t all the clients they get from previous ads sending new clients to them? There are only two explanations for this – either they do not have enough clients because they are not very good or they just want to get you into their office and then turn your case over to some other lawyer in their office, someone who does not have enough clients on his own. Trust me on this; I have been trying lawsuits for over 42 years, and far and away the best lawyers I go up against have never advertised once in their lives.

How do you get a GOOD book published?

How likely is it that a well-written novel will actually be published? Here are some interesting statistics...John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was declined by 15 publishers and 30 agents (I’ll bet they’re all kicking themselves now). Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected 24 times. Before he wrote Roots, Alex Haley received 200 rejections. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck was rejected 14 times before it was finally accepted and won a Pulitzer Prize. Louis L’Amour received 200 rejections before he sold his first novel; he then went on to sell over 200 million copies of 112 books. If you visit the House of Happy Walls, Jack London’s estate in Sonoma County, you will see some of his 600 rejection letters.

But here’s my favorite – 8 years after his novel Steps won the National Book Award, Jerzy Kozinski permitted a writer to change his name and the title of the book and send it in manuscript form to 13 agents and 14 publishers just to test the plight of new writers. They all rejected it, including Random House, who had published it originally.

So what’s the lesson to be learned by all this? One thing is certain, do not stop writing for fear of rejection. What if that had been the reaction of any of the great authors mentioned in the last paragraph? What I tell everyone who asks me about my own experience in having my novel The Litigators published (and yes, John Grisham used the same title for his latest book - titles are not protected by copyright laws) is that they need to write for themselves, not for others.