Vegas Litigator

I’ve met with the client and prepared him for Trial.  He has a copy of the Exhibits to review to refresh his memory about the two accidents, his injuries and treatment from a few years ago.

In the meantime, other cases continue to move forward.  I’ve got a Deposition tomorrow with an out of State client who came in today to get ready for her Deposition.  That took about an hour to discuss the Deposition process and her Deposition in particular.  Tomorrow’s Deposition will take an hour or so plus some more time to finish getting the client ready and comfortable with the process.

I have a Mediation on Friday that I’ve also been preparing for: going over medical records; getting the client ready for the process; and writing a Mediation Brief for the Arbitrator to read.

On top of all of the case work, life continues on the administrative front as well.  Making sure money is distributed to clients and the office runs as smoothly as possible. Life goes on and it’s good to be busy.

Since a lot of my practice is Plaintiff’s personal injury cases, I have to deal with insurance companies and their adjusters on a  regular basis.  Some are pleasant…others are not.  Here’s an example of regarding a case I recently had to file in Clark County District Court.  Here’s what happened. . .

My client was rear ended and there is no question that the other driver was at fault.  My client got treated for her injuries and incurred nearly $6,000.00 in medical bills as a result of the two 5000 pound trucks colliding and  moving my client’s body.  Yes…that’s 5 TONS of weight acting on my client’s 120 pound body.  I make a demand for $20,000.00.  The insurer counter offers $4,500.00.  I tell the adjuster no way the client will accept this (rather insulting) offer.  I talk to client and counter at $18,000.00.  The insurer comes back with….drum roll, please…..$4,750.00 on a Wednesday – another insult and, to be honest not a real increase of any value. I don’t like going back and forth wasting time on these, so-called, negotiations.  Based on history, I knew that the insurer was never going to offer anything reasonable and would probably not even make an offer in the $7,000.00 range.  Based on that and my client’s response, I write to the adjuster telling her that I want the top offer by Friday or I will file suit on the next Monday.  Friday comes and goes with no word.  I file suit on behalf of my client.

On 11/10 the adjuster calls and leaves a message that she want to negotiate.  I return the call and leave a message just to give me (or any member of the staff) the top offer.  She calls back again – does not leave a message with the offer – but asks for me to be told that she “wants to talk about the case.” I tell her I know her reasoning, as I have since the start of negotiations, and just want the top dollar.  I eventually get it……$5,500.00 and a threat that they will do a “statutory offer” and will never offer this amount again once the time to accept has expired.  I tell her that I can accept the offer if she (the adjuster) is willing to sit in a chair in the parking lot and let me hit her with a  car at 5 mph with my 4,400 pound car.  She’s not willing to do so…..and my client was hit by more than twice that amount. The adjuster advises that she will send me a letter confirming our conversation.  That letter comes today and states:

 This letter is regarding claim status. We extended an offer of $4,750.00 for your client’s bodily injury claim.  It appears that you have responded to our offer by filing a lawsuit against our insured.  If you are interested in resolving Ms. XXXX’s claim for a  fair and reasonable amount, without having to incur the unnecessary cost of proceeding with litigation we urge you to contact the undersigned.

I did exactly what I said I would.  I wonder if she actually believes that this letter or her other threats will make my client accept a lousy offer…

Well…what should I do? Ignore the wishes of my client and accept an offer that will get her to break even IF I and the medical providers grant a 30% reduction in bills/fees? Or should I continue to do as I said: sue until the insurer gets reasonable.  Mind you, the bed of my client’s FULL SIZED pickup truck hit the back of the cab and kinked it.  I wonder what will happen with this one? I know one thing: I’m not going to crump and abandon this client.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens with this.

I have two cases I’m working on today  One is the Short Trial in Clark County (Nevada) District Court I talked about the other day.  The other is a Federal Civil Trial.

I am still hoping that we will be able to resolve the case that’s in Short Trial.  if not, I will continue to move forward to prepare for Trial.  This will truly be a SHORT, Short Trial: we have one witness and the other side’s attorney is not the type to talk unnecessarily.  He and I worked on drafting the Jury Instructions and Pre-Trial Memorandum as well as preparing the Exhibits that will be presented at Trial in a couple of weeks.  Everything has been dropped off at the Short Trial Judge’s office down the street with the understanding that things may need to be changed before the Trial.  All is going smoothly.

On the other hand, I retained an expert witness for a case in Federal Court.  The witness came out and examined the location of the fall, rendered an opinion, sent a bill and got paid.  Nice and smooth….until the Defense Counsel tried to schedule his Deposition.  This should be a simple process.  Either he comes here and charges for his time or the attorneys go there and pay him less, but charge their clients for their time.  This Deposition has now been scheduled to take place in Las Vegas and two other locations.  It was even looked at to move to a third at the last minute since the expert decided he was going to be on the other side of the Country.  We have been in front of Federal Magistrates on at least two occasions with a phone conference for clarification of the last Order set for this afternoon.

The Court has advised that if our expert is not deposed within a certain time IN LAS VEGAS, then the his report and testimony will be subject to being stricken.  Not good for my client.  The issue this afternoon is what charges, if any, the expert will be allowed to charge for his travel and Deposition time.  The recent Order noted that the expert, this office or my client may be responsible for paying the reasonable attorneys fees incurred by the Defendants for filing the most recent Motion to Compel the Deposition.  The Defendants have taken this to mean that, in addition to possibly paying those fees, the expert will have to come to Vegas and be deposed for free.  I don’t think the Court intended to have this double punishment and, had it meant to do so, the Court would have included language that the expert will not be paid for the travel or Deposition time.  The expert’s fees were set by a prior Court Order at $300.00 per hour of Deposition and travel time and this Order did not state that the prior Order was being vacated or overridden.

We’ll have to see what the Court says in a few minutes.

I just got back from vacation and found I had a blog post due. Everything worked fine while I was away – not perfectly at all times, but certainly well enough to keep in touch. Fortunately, I did not have to do any research or writing while I was away this time. Everything was pretty standard stuff (sending out Discovery Requests to clients, setting up Depositions, etc.) and was able to be handled by the staff and my partner, Allen A. Cap).

I did call in a few times using Skype.com. It worked well and I was even able to use the video – even if only as a toy for this trip. Between email and Skype.com (and AIM.com on a couple of occasions for variety), I was able to handle all of my interactions with the office and clients.

I’ve noticed during my time sitting in airports that there is a serious lack of consistency regarding the availability of Internet access. For instance, McCarran Airport in Las Vegas appears to be completely wired for free internet access. In Dallas/Fort Worth, I had to pay $9.99 for internet access on my laptop in the American Airlines Admirals Club: it was free if I used their computers, but then I would not have the use of Skype.com. It would have been free if I had access to the Club as a paid member or paid for a day pass. New York was the same at the Admirals Club there. Both use T-Mobile Hot Spots so, if I was a T-Mobile Hot Spot subscriber it would have been free. In Buenos Aires it’s also the same – unless you ask for a password which they will give you. Internet access is Free at Jet Blue’s terminal at JFK in NYC. The point is to know what your options and needs are ahead of time to be prepared.

Speaking of traveling with a computer, you have options there as well. Considerations include:

• your needs as far as power and accessories (i.e. a cd/dvd player), the weight of the computer (including a power adapter);
• the battery life of the computer; and
• the size of the monitor (too small is hard too read and too big is heavy – try for a balance.)

You should also consider if you are going to pack the laptop in your bags or take it as a carry on. Know where you will be traveling and consider the possibilities of your computer disappearing from you luggage.

As an example, I travel with a PC or a Linux based Asus eee pc. My wife uses a MacBook Pro. My PC weighs in at about 4 pounds it’s charger another pound or so. My wife’s Mac with the adapter is about the same at 6 pounds. The Asus is 2 pounds with a small and light adapter. However, the Asus does have some drawbacks:

• It does not have Word Perfect, which is what my office uses and I have not (yet) found a way to save files as Word Perfect files;
• although sufficient for my use, it has limited somewhat storage space;
• it does not have a cd/dvd player;
• and it has a 7″ screen (newer models have bigger screens).

Again, the important thing is to know your options and needs ahead of time to choose an appropriate machine for your use.

I also found out that Skype.com can be used for conference calls. As we all know, it’s easy to set up conference calls with two lines and three people attending the conference call. But, it gets difficult if we have more than that. You can “daisy chain” your conference call with A calling B and C in a conference and C conferencing with A and D. It works, but sound quality and levels get lost very quickly – especially if A is using a speaker phone. You can also go to the expense of using ATT (or some other third party vendor) to set up a conference call. Those have worked well in my experience, but they lack some flexibility when someone has to leave the office at the time of the call. So, if Skype.com works like they say it should, you have another alternative.

And, no, I am not a paid advertiser for Skype.com. I can only talk from personal experience and that is wha I was using this trip.