Step seven in how to win a lawsuit: Demands for documents

Every United States court permits full discovery, including complete production of all documents that have any potential bearing on the issues before the court. This means that both parties can be required to turn over all documentary evidence (including digital records and e-mails) regardless of whether the evidence supports or harms the other side’s case. The trick is that you have to ask for it in the right way. If you don’t use exactly the right words to describe what you want, you won’t get what you need. The responding lawyer will justify a decision not to produce a record on the basis that it was not properly identified and therefore not properly requested. The converse problem is asking for more than you really need. In this age of digital records and e-mails, a simple request could generate tens of thousands of pages of records and totally inundate you and your lawyer. Lawyers sometimes gladly produce such large volumes of records just to harass the other side or to bury an important document hoping that it might not get found if it is tucked in the middle of thousands of other documents.

Step two in how to win a lawsuit: Finding the best lawyer

Here are a few examples of what not to do when looking for the best lawyer for your case:

• Advertisements. In my last blog I advised you where not to go to find the best lawyer – advertisements. See that blog for my reasoning.
• Do not even think about hiring any attorney who contacts you. There are many unscrupulous attorneys who follow police blotters and newspaper articles and make blind calls to those victims offering to represent them. This is unethical in most states, and these people are almost always terrible lawyers.
• Internet searches. This is a very poor tool for finding a good lawyer. I tried looking for a good lawyer in Minneapolis where I have practiced law for 42 years and was unable to develop any search terms or phrases that led me to a list of top-flight attorneys in any given specialty. It appears that most of the lawyers listed have bought their way onto various lists either by paying money to do so or by using tag words in their firm’s literature that causes Google to put their names in the top ten. Occasionally I was able to find a list that did contain a few attorneys who are well respected as top-flight lawyers in their respective specialties, but even then the list did not include many names of people who were at least as good or even better. And those lists also included names of attorneys who are mediocre at best. This tool is clearly not reliable in getting you to the websites of the very best attorneys.
• Lawyers’ organizations – NBTA, ATLA ACTL, DRI, and various state and national bar associations. These are potentially good resources because these groups do have lists of excellent lawyers. Unfortunately, most of these sites do not provide directories of lawyers who are members, so these lists are not accessible to people looking for a lawyer.

Now, let’s talk about what you should do. Keep in mind that the best lawyers get their clients from referrals from two primary sources – happy clients and other lawyers. So that’s where you should start your search.