In
This Issue
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1. Good Results Pay for
Themselves. Obvious? Apparently
not to everyone.
2. Did You Know?
Hours, fees, and risk aversion.
3. Techniques for Expediting
Litigation
Putting similar cases
together.
4. Happy New Year.
Auld
acquaintance shouldn't be forgot.
5. What a Jury Might
Do. Encouraging accurate case
evaluation up front.
6. Hot Lunch. Class
action settlements.
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Did You Know?
A typical full-service law firm devotes more
than 95 percent of its time to hourly work, principally
on non-litigation matters. The emphasis on hourly
billings reflects relative aversion to risk.
Susman Godfrey lawyers, on the other
hand, invest around 60 percent of their billable
hours on contingent fee and flat fee engagements,
all on litigation matters.
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Happy New Year
Best Wishes on a Prosperous
New Year.
A sincere thank you to
all who helped make 2005 Susman Godfrey's second-best
year in the two and a half decades since we opened our
doors with a handful of lawyers in Houston. Your
confidence has allowed us to grow to more than 70
commercial trial lawyers in four offices. We couldn't
have done it without you.
Please accept our
hearty wishes for a safe and prosperous -- and litigious
-- 2006.
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Hot Lunch.
Class action settlements call for
vigilance on the part of counsel as well as the
presiding judge. A presentation that Your
Editor gave in November 2005 to the Cuyahoga County
(Cleveland), Ohio, bar association illustrates the
procedures that courts have developed for handling
settlements of class action litigation. These safeguards
help assure that settlements are non-collusive, that
they properly value class claims, that they provide
global peace for the settling defendants, and that any
fee award to class counsel ties their compensation to
the benefits their efforts conferred on the
class.
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Good Results Pay for
Themselves.
Companies make a scary request when they file or
defend against a lawsuit. They ask for
justice.
Why does a prayer for a just outcome
frighten businesses? Because it always
involves two kinds of risk -- first, that the
decision-maker won't see (or care about) the justness of
your position and, second, that justice will cost more
than you can afford or want to spend.
A company
can minimize these risks by paying lawyers not for
impressive lawyering but for results. Only
counsel who believe in your company's cause and their
own effectiveness will agree to base their pay on
getting a good outcome. The benefits to your
company will often more than make up for the lawyers'
fee.
Barry
Barnett, Editor |
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Techniques for Expediting
and Streamlining Commercial Litigation
Last month, we examined handling discovery,
discovery disputes, and trial preparation to enhance
cost-effectiveness.  In this issue we look at
transfer, consolidation, and coordination of similar
cases as techniques for expediting and streamlining
litigation.
This excerpt, like the four that
preceded it, come from Chapter 55 in
the ABA-and-West treatise on Business
and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (2d
ed. Robert L. Haig, editor). |
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What a Jury
Might Do
Do you thoroughly evaluate claims and defenses up
front? Really? Really really?
Scene from Trial by
Jury.
Don't feel special if you don't. Most of the
time clients fail to give lawyers the
incentive to project litigation costs and benefits
at the start.
Maybe clients should consider paying lawyers a bonus
for accurately estimating the value of a case. It
can be done! Law firms that handle cases on a
contingent fee basis routinely spend thousands of
billable hours and millions of dollars every year on
case acceptance. They evaluate potential
claims (and defenses!) to decide whether to take an
engagement that rewards them for sharing the risk of
loss with the prospective client. Their
investment of their own money has a way of
concentrating their attention. Why not get lawyers
to do the same thing even in hourly cases?
The
claim evaluation process should compare the likely
cost of getting a
favorable outcome through trial and
compare that expense against the value of the
result. A lawyer who takes a case only on the
assumption of a quick settlement does both
himself and the client a disservice. A lawyer
who accepts the risk of going to trial, on the
other hand, stands the best chance of maximizing the
client's recovery or minimizing loss.
What might a jury do? Ask that question at the
beginning and reward the lawyer for answering it
right. You'll be happy with the results. |
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Copyright (c) The New
Yorker. Used with permission. |
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