Legal professionals usually get referred all types of instances as they develop their practices. Generally, legal professionals will take the case for themselves, and different occasions, legal professionals will refer the work to a different legal professional since they don’t assume {that a} matter is profitable or maybe as a result of it isn’t inside the legal professional’s apply space. Nevertheless, in my very own expertise, legal professionals ought to take a cautious have a look at issues they won’t assume have appropriate worth, and one lawyer’s trash might be one other lawyer’s treasure beneath the correct circumstances.
In my profession, I’ve routinely been referred issues that different legal professionals have turned down. Often, having a matter turned down by one other lawyer is a giant pink flag a couple of file. Absolutely, there should be a motive why prior counsel turned down a matter, and this both pertains to the deserves of the issues, the amount of cash that could be recovered or different points. Often, the extra legal professionals which have turned down a file, the extra issues a file could have, and I’ve seen shoppers come to my agency after being turned down by three or extra prior legal professionals.
Nevertheless, legal professionals often prefer to work on simpler instances, and won’t be prepared to speculate the little little bit of effort that could be wanted to show a stinker case right into a goldmine. As an illustration, I used to be as soon as concerned in a private damage case that was turned down by three different legal professionals. The consumer tripped and fell, and he had signed a launch promising that he wouldn’t sue. Both due to the discharge or due to proof points within the case, three legal professionals turned the consumer down.
Fortunately, a fourth lawyer took the case and filed the lawsuit actually the day earlier than the statute of limitations expired. The lawyer went on the offensive and connected the discharge to the grievance, arguing that defendants have been at fault for extra causes of motion apart from negligence for making an aged and infirm particular person signal the discharge. In the long run, the defendants didn’t even file a movement to dismiss based mostly on the discharge due to this argument, and a concern of all of the legal professionals who turned the case down was by no means realized.
The case proceeded fairly usually, and after a 12 months or two of soppy matzoh ball litigation, the matter settled. The fourth lawyer who ended up deciding to take the case made more cash on the case than a median particular person would want to reside super-comfortably for a 12 months. Altogether, the fourth lawyer was in all probability extraordinarily pleased that he took a bit of little bit of danger and determined to work on this case regardless that so many legal professionals had turned it down previously.
One other time in my profession, I took a case that had been turned down by a couple of different legal professionals my shoppers went to earlier than me. The matter not solely required a lawsuit towards some main companies, however some extraordinarily large legislation corporations have been additionally certain to become involved. Furthermore, so as to win within the litigation, my shoppers would want to argue an exception to a basic rule reasonably than depend on the rule itself, which isn’t a snug place to be in litigation.
In any case, I painstakingly spent many hours placing collectively our papers since I knew that I needed to make a powerful impression on my adversary within the first occasion if I had any probability of resolving the case shortly. The trouble paid off, and my adversary reached out to attempt to settle the matter nearly instantly after the papers have been filed. With an affordable quantity of effort, and solely a number of months of delay, my agency acquired a particularly beneficiant payout for our effort. I want I knew all the legal professionals who turned down the file so I might inform them how fallacious they have been, and the way a bit of little bit of effort turned this file right into a goldmine.
In fact, for all of those tales of success at having the ability to create a profitable case out of one thing that appeared like rubbish, I even have tales of being slowed down in litigation by pursuing issues different legal professionals turned down. I’ve taken issues on contingency which have been turned down by prior counsel after which I ended up litigating them for years with solely a small payout for my efforts. I do know some individuals who ended up with nothing after pouring assets into information that have been turned down by different legal professionals who maybe had sufficient expertise to know {that a} case didn’t have legs.
Nonetheless, legal professionals ought to rigorously evaluation all the potential issues that land on their desks to see if there’s a totally different manner of approaching a matter that may have been missed by prior counsel. On this manner, what one lawyer believed was rubbish can flip right into a goldmine for different counsel.
Jordan Rothman is a companion of The Rothman Legislation Agency, a full-service New York and New Jersey legislation agency. He’s additionally the founding father of Scholar Debt Diaries, a web site discussing how he paid off his pupil loans. You’ll be able to attain Jordan by way of e-mail at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.
