Say you’re a personal-injury lawyer. A cliched poster boy for ambulance chasers, maybe, but you happen to be a decent and hard-working attorney. You do well for yourself by trying to do right for your clients while maybe even doing some good in the world. Surely these goals, of doing service to your clients and to the law, aren’t wholly incompatible and we haven’t lost readers whose eyes have rolled back in their heads yet? You just wait.
One thing good attorneys do is negotiate favorable settlements for their clients. A good settlement gives the client a certain result, by sidestepping the risk of trial and providing closure in a shorter time frame and with less cost than full blown litigation. Still with us? OK, so say you’ve done all that, or you think you have. You had an injured client who sought a speedy recovery. You employed a medical professional to assess the injuries, you sent the appropriate letters to defense counsel and the insurance adjuster with medical documentation supporting your claim, and you negotiated a good settlement package. You maximized the recovery for your client in an efficient manner, yes? In a straight-shooting legal world, perhaps. Perhaps also in a closed case with tight insurance policy limits and an insolvent defendant.
