IF YOU WANT PEACE, PREPARE FOR WAR
Pretty simple.
Truth be told, there will always be disputes, arguments, disagreements, controversies and too, hatreds and brazen abuses of power and rights.
And over the years, those Seven Words have become the keystone of my personal injury practice.
I am in the business of helping folks who have been hurt by the carelessness of others, drunk drivers, sloppy corporations, inattentive doctors, sleepy truckers, neglectful landowners.
People do not show up in my office anticipating trouble. They come only once the trouble has landed on them, often with tragic, heartbreaking consequences.
How do I help them? My role is quite limited. While I always hope I am polite, interested and empathetic, my primary job is to take them along the difficult path to the money they have a right to seek in damages.
Often, it is a long, twisting, confusing, aggravating path.
But the path is usually there and it is my job to get my people from Point A to Point B.
My job to get my people the money.
That’s all I can really get from the other side. I don’t get apologies, I don’t get ‘principle’ (as in: “It’s the principle of the thing.”). I don’t get empathy. I don’t get anything but the money.
It isn’t a new idea. The men who wrote our Constitution understood our public had to have a forum for the redress of injuries. That’s why they gave us Article VII of the Constitution-suits about money damages to be tried before juries.
So, how do we go about getting the money for our injured, damaged victims?
We prepare for War in order to let Peace have a chance to come to the table.
Each case that comes into our office is instantly evaluated to see if it is reasonable to take it before a jury and if so, how will it get there and be received by folks who have been poisoned by insurance company and political propaganda and lies, by folks whose entire outlooks have been changed by the horrible day’s events of 9/11, by folks who need to have a reason to reach out and help.
And we then begin to assemble the facts and visit the scene and study the places and parts and people who make up the case and its problems,
And then we take a hard look at the applicable laws and statutes and try to fit the facts and the concepts of the case into that world that makes up the case.
And then, we usually file suit. If it is a serious matter, if someone is now dead or seriously injured or really compromised, most insurance companies and big corporations need to be educated and timidity and hesitation about going to the mat will rarely ever assist in that goal.
Written discovery, questions about important parts of case are sent and exchanged and then, depositions are scheduled and taken. These are witnesses and parties sitting, under oath, answering questions about themselves and their negligent acts.
All the time, we are on War Footing, pressing the other side, making them respond to us, exposing their weaknesses, making them look at what they’ve done, creating way after way at moving them toward to courthouse in the least favorable position we can create for them.
The key is in knowing which battles to fight and which to set aside.
I cannot take every case as I have a duty to my people to provide them with the best chances to emerge victorious.
I must use my education, my background, my training and my experience to intuitively sense and feel which cases will go and which ones won’t.
This is why I HATE lawyer advertising on television. All of it proclaims to be able to help everyone and that the help is easily gotten and easily and fully achieved. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is but a big fishing expedition, trolling for cases and has done Nothing but have My Honorable and Beloved Profession held up to the mockery and lies of political parties and the big money of greedy insurance companies and corporations who will try to get away with an awful lot, no matter what greasy tales of care they spout to the contrary. Butter would not melt in their moneyed mouths.
So, when we go to work on one, we want to make sure that our saddened families, our hurt clients have the higher ground from which to wage war.
And as the case moves forward, our entire, little office gets involved, deeply involved.
From photography to graphic and chart design to power point presentation to continued analysis of records and files and notes and brainstorming sessions to working with nursing and medical record specialists to life care planning and consulting with forensic economists to working with focus groups and mock juries to planned campaigns of aggressive and pointed communication directed to the other side, we rev up as though preparing for battle, preparing for war.
And, much more often than not (but surely not always), war is averted as the other side decides that it is in their better interests to come to the table and talk peace.
Because they know and I know that while I may not win all my cases before a jury (and surely I don’t), I’m ‘in the game’ just about every time out and there is more than a little risk to them if I strike them as hard as I will try to.
And too, they know I am not afraid of war but happily seek war, if that’s what they want, and because I can communicate effectively and speak with and talk with people because they are people and not a bunch of lawyered up, uptight suits, I am doubly threatening.
And they know I can get the case into the jury room , behind closed doors and that’s where their uncertainty really starts to grow. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get them yet again.
And they know that I am, indeed, just a little bit...shall we say, crazy, uninhibited, aggressive, engaging, imaginative, creative... whatever...and that the courtroom, I believe, belongs to me and my clients, my people.
So, in my 31st year, I keep preparing for War, keep finding Peace, keep working for my broken and hurt clients, keep believing in the righteousness of the jury system, keep believing in the power of what is ‘right’.
And I am still sustained
