Sounds like someone couldn't hack their 1L year.


By the way, what do you do for a living Hoss?

How about a reasonable system that forces a plaintiff to prove a law suits merit prior to it being filed? How about a system the punishes attorneys for filing meritless and frivolous lawsuits? How about a legal system that holds the courts responsible for their actions when they are grossly and blatantly wrong......gee, what a novel concept.


I was sued buy an old customer of mine. I defended my company to the tune of $25,000 in legal expenses. After the plaintiff and his attorney not showing up for two trial dates, the judge dismissed the case in my favor.....with prejudice and awarded me all legal fees. The douchebag attorney had the nerve to tell the judge that he missed the last date due to a senior golf tournament in St. George Utah.

The plaintiff and his attorney appealed the dismissal. I spent an additional $8000 in appeal fees and lost in appellate court. The court said that the lower court did not afford the plaintiff his day in court as he was entitled to.


So wait a fucking second.....i just spent $8000 in appeals fees because the lower court acted improperly? So they fuck up and I pay the price?!?!

In the end I settled the case for $3000 to make it go away. This was a case that started out at $300,000.00. It was so ridiculous and frivolous that the plaintiff finally settled for $3000. At one point I had offered him $18,000 just to make it go away because I knew the legal fees would cost more than the settlement.

In the end I ended up spending close to $40,000 to defend myself against the most ridiculous bullshit that any ordinary and reasonable person would have seen it for the nonsense that it was and thrown the case out on its ear. But thats not how the legal machine works.......gotta feed the beast and the foxes are in charge of the hen house.

Nope.....never had an interest to suck off the life blood of other living beings.

Im self employed.

You do know that not all lawyers are bad don't you?
 

So you want a trial to determine if you go to trial, yet you're bitching about costs. Either that or you want a civil grand jury where only P presents evidence, and that's still stupid as fuck from your prospective.



Did you notify your state and local bar associations?



In OH they are elected positions.


For what?




The plaintiff and his attorney appealed the dismissal. I spent an additional $8000 in appeal fees and lost in appellate court. The court said that the lower court did not afford the plaintiff his day in court as he was entitled to.

So wait a fucking second.....i just spent $8000 in appeals fees because the lower court acted improperly? So they fuck up and I pay the price?!?

In the end I settled the case for $3000 to make it go away. This was a case that started out at $300,000.00. It was so ridiculous and frivolous that the plaintiff finally settled for $3000. At one point I had offered him $18,000 just to make it go away because I knew the legal fees would cost more than the settlement.

In the end I ended up spending close to $40,000 to defend myself against the most ridiculous bullshit that any ordinary and reasonable person would have seen it for the nonsense that it was and thrown the case out on its ear. But thats not how the legal machine works.......gotta feed the beast and the foxes are in charge of the hen house.[/quote]

lulz. I'm sure it happened exactly like you described it.

Of course......I know that not all of them are bad.

I also know that such a majority of them are though, unfortunately the good ones.....however few they are, get flushed down the toilet with them.

How, and to whom, would you "prove" the merits of a lawsuit prior to litigating it?

You do know that litigation in the court system IS the vehicle by which a plaintiff attempts to prove claims, right?

What does your business do?

People who charge through life in flagrant ignorance of the law are the reason why people like you and I don't live in refrigerator boxes in an alley.

No man, you see he wants a pre-trial trial of claims to avoid costs.


This is almost as dumb as the firing unionizing workers thread.

To be fair sir, I still do. Check in on me in about a year


Got one more year in this bitch till I graduate.

I fart in your general direction.  Now go find a lawyer to sue me.  

Oh, you're a rising 3L. I wouldn't have known, as you've already acquired a level of cynicism usually achieved only after years of actual practice.

Bravo.

Don't worry, in a few years you'll look back and realize that law school is the intoxication to the hangover of practice.

lulz. I'm sure it happened exactly like you described it. [/quote]


Tell you what....you an attorney?


I have a stack of attorney paperwork and court documents a foot thick that prove the entire case from beginning to end happened the way I say it happened.

I couldnt care less what you think....I lived it and payed for it.


I actually made a statement to the appellate court that their finding was unfair and that this plaintiffs case was frivolous....so much so that he and his attorney ( who BTW was his uncle ) couldnt even be bothered to meet their court dates and even show up and that I was entitled to my court costs.

The appellate judge told me flat out that they tend to shy away from awarding court and attorney fees to defendants because it discourages plaintiffs from using the civil justice system if they feel they might have to pay if they lose.

WHAT?!?! Are you fucking kidding me?!?!

Everybody says that. Including the other side.

More like a 3 & 2/3L   Doing this part time takes forever, but cuts down on costs.

If lawyers are so in charge of the system than explain to me why things like "Legal Zoom" and self-help forms for filing lawsuits came into being?  If lawyers are so in charge of the system than why is there all the tort reform? Government controls the system lawyers just try to navigate it through the mess they've created.

If you think the courts are out of control than tell your legislature to stop making more things illegal.

Without lawyers though how would anyone settle differences in a civil manner?  You'd have people using force to settle arguments and a long time ago we decided that wasn't good.  Neighbor is doing something you feel intrudes on your enjoyment of your property without an attorney what can you do about it?  Either put up with it or get physical.  

I think because they have to give 10% to the Dems.

Fuck lawyers, all of them.  The only time you might need a lawyer, is because of some other lawyer.  They keep each other employed.  At your expense.  Obama's a lawyer.  'Nuff said!

I don't live in flagrant ignorance, I pay a lawyer, well lawyers, to keep my ass out of trouble when I get angry.  They are better at contract and securities law.  They are better at not cussing at plaintiffs and defendants in court than I am.  They are better in international law, etc.  A lot of the time I say "shit, glad I have a lawyer to cover my ass."  I pay them to specialize in stuff so I don't have to.  I know just enough to be a danger to myself and anyone within approx 10 feet of me.

Nope, pretty sure I have occasionally needed lawyers due to my own hotheadedness in business.

I tried that before I wised up and married a woman not involved in the legal profession at all, but I wasn't quite able to make it through all of them. And some of them, I can assure you, you wouldn't want to fuck anyway.

yes! and then spankings too!

 

Thats the whole point....it doesnt take a gaggle of lawyers and judges 1000's of man hours to determine the merits of most cases. It doesn't need to go to trial.

Fuck, in my case you didnt even need my testimony or defense to dismiss this jackasses case against my company....his own lawsuit and statements he made in them were sufficient to do that. He had NO CASE....period!!! His own statements and allegations were proof of that.

I owned a moving company at the time and we had moved some of his medical supplies from his office into a storage unit. Two months later his assistant went to the unit and found it was cleared out. She told him she believed the moving company guys must have come back later and stole the items because aside from her, my guys were the only ones who knew where the items were. They had the sworn statement from a gas station attendant that work across from the storage unit saw one of our trucks enter the storage facility some time between the date of his move and when the items were discovered missing.

Well no shit.....its a moving and storage company dumbass!! We go to storage facilities all the time. We did 8-12 moves a day....what are the chances that one of our trucks went back to that storage facility some time within a two month period!!??

That was it.....that was the extent of "evidence" he had against my company.


Heres the kicker, I ended up finding out two years later that his assistant, the one who had set up the move, was being sued by him for embezzling $80,000+ dollars from him while he was in the hospital from a crash. He knew she had been stealing from him while he was in the hospital. He waited to get a deposition from her to use against us before he filed a law suit against her because he knew she would become hostile and not testify in the deposition in his favor. He never mentioned that his key witness was a thief and a liar and my attorney couldnt locate her to get her deposition.

I finally found the court records filed against her in Wyoming through my own sources. I also found the insurance company that he filed a claim with for the missing items he alleges my guys stole denied his claim because he claimed things to be stolen that they found out were stored in a different storage unit and he was trying to get paid for things that were never missing.


All of this, except for the assistant being sued by him for being the real thief, was brought to the courts attention prior to the appeal.

They knew all this nonsense and still found in his favor at the appeal just to give him his undeserved day in court.


Scumbags the whole lot of them.

If I could interrupt the lawyer bashing for a second.



I've never needed a lawyer before but I could see it happening some day. So the question is, how do I go about finding a good lawyer who charges reasonable rates and establishing a relationship with said lawyer so that I can call them if my ass ever needs legal saving?

 

Yeah I know, even shakespear wanted to kill all the lawyers

I am late to the thread on this one.

Most of what is relevant has been said.  To add, though, pay $500 for a DUI/DWI and see what you get versus paying $1500 to $2500 for a first time.  Do you want plead out or an attorney who knows what he is doing?  I know both types, the one who charges more is usually beyond worth it.  The one charging $500 for a DWI or divorce is churning them and you are not a priority.  

Doctors charge and many have insurance to pay them, not really so in the legal field.  Take your chances with the cheap one, you will get what you pay for.

Attorneys laugh their asses off at hot headed clients storming in their office demanding justice. After its all over both attorneys high five each other over the fucking they just gave both their clients....cause in the end, only they win.

Do you know a lawyer? Ask them who they would go to for X

Local Bar association is also a good starting point.


Don't be afraid to shop around. You're not stuck with the first one you end up talking to.

Says the guy who charges people for a service you can do with a u-haul truck.

Please, you have no idea the absolute BS clients cause.  Most of a client's problems are their own making and end up hampering their attorney's efforts to help.  I have had to tell clients to shut the #$%@%@^@#$&# up during court so I could actually hear what was going on.  Clients lie all the time to you, don't pay you if you allow payments and then bitch about their case not going forward.  Continuances cost you money, client families interfer.  

The best of all is when clients think they know more about the law and legal system than you do, not too unlike many on GD.

I've never had a good experience with moving companies.  

They refuse to listen to me when I tell them how to do their jobs.  And from the rates they charge it is clear they are all in cahoots with each other.  They clearly manipulate and control the system, making it so difficult to navigate and afford, that a person can't rent her own u-haul and do it herself.   Not only that, they answer to no one for their corrupt and greedy practices.  And I bet they make $87 billion dollars a year.  

They must all be scumbags.

How are the lawyers and the court system scumbags?

Sounds like the person that sued you was the scumbag.

So, whose fault is it that you hired a shitty lawyer that couldn't get a case thrown out that "didn't even need a defense?"

Don't know any lawyers. I'm not sure how one shops around for lawyers. Is there a lawyer review website like there is for nearly any business or product that exists?





 

Call the state bar and ask for attorney referrals.  Check Martindale Hubble (
http://www.martindale.com/) for AV rated attorneys in your area.  Check Best Lawyers in America (
http://www.bestlawyers.com/).

Probably easier to call the first lawyer in the phone book at the jail house.

Thanks!



 

Pretty much. Don't use them if you don't want to pay.

You would shop around like you would the same way with a mechanic:

Experience
––How much experience do you have in this field?
––Have you handled cases like mine?

Managing the Case
––What are the possible outcomes for legal action?
––What are the alternatives to litigation?
––How long will this take in litigation or for alternatives?
––How do you go about communicating me with what happens in my case? This is a big one.
––Are you aggressive or cooperative in dealing with opposing parties?

Fees & Billing
––What's your rate and how do you bill?
––Do you do flat fees?
––What's the most it should cost to do this case from start to finish (ballpark figure)

Who Does the Work?
––If I pay you, do only you do the work?
––If you hand off the work, do you still charge the same rate? (junior attorney, paralegal)?
––How good are your people?

You are the customer, make them sell themselves to you.




nvm, already been answered.

Bunch of bottom feeding shysters. What kind of fucking nerve do they have charging people for lifting things up and setting them down. Shit, I can do that right now for free.

Good advice here.

 




 

I'm sure there are plenty of cheapo lawyers out there...


...if that's what you want representing you.

I thought you went to law school in the pen.

Sorry.  That's what came to mind.

Wait, I was supposed to go to law school to practice???

 

Brilliant.....you're gonna make a wonderful lawyer with those amazing deductive skills.  

So painters, lawn service guys, housekeepers, chauffeurs, chefs.....just to name a few......they're scumbags because they simply offer a service that you could do yourself but you'd rather pay them to do it?

LOL.....how much do you plan on charging per hour brainiac?