I call the adjuster in my case to see if they got my demand package and she got it the day before. I give her some background on my client and start posturing. As I'm talking, the adjuster is looking through the file and my demand letter and tells me her insured only has $30K coverage (minimum in MD). She immediately tells me she's fine with giving me that in this case (around 1.8x the meds). She was very nice on the phone and I can't really ask for anything else, made things pretty easy and now I just have to do a claim against client's own under insured coverage. I guess I'll see how that goes. So I guess YMMV with adjusters. I can't imagine filing a lawsuit in a case like this, would be a waste of time/money.

In the demand packages I got on the defense-side, the demand would usually be for the limits and there would be a financial affidavit attached which showed the assets of everybody that could conceivably be sued (the driver AND the owner of the car if they are different people). Did you send the financial affidavit and an affidavit where they swear they were not driving for the purposes of employment?

Little confused by some of this, I might not be following.

Why would you always demand the limit? That's not useful. I don't believe there's a requirement to demand anything specific really, at least not here. Generally I'm demanding 3.5-4x my meds, on the higher side if I have more than just soft tissue injuries. They seem to always come back with 2x to start though so I'm not even sure they are looking at it.

Also, at least here, they aren't required to tell you limits until you send in a demand. I guess you can ask, but it hasn't really come in to play until my most recent case. Unless you mean the letter would just say "limits" without specifying what they are. I could always demand one number, then have new info come in, and modify it later, the amount I demand isn't binding as this is ultimately this is just a non binding negotiation. I've actually seen that happen with my friend's case where some new medical bill showed up after the demand was already sent in, and he just asked for more and the adjuster added money. She may have been more willing to do this because she looked him up in her system and knows he will litigate, but I would expect most adjusters to do this in good faith. In my experience I've only really had one kind of hard ass adjuster, and in retrospect I think he was fair to do that. My client's case wasn't as good as I thought it was back then, and may just be a case where she has permanent injuries that are just hard to prove/medically document. So I think the adjuster was just doing his job, and ultimately I think we actually got a pretty good result under the circumstances.

Why would you ever disclose this info about your client? How is it relevant? In the cases I take on (and what seems standard practice), I usually ask the client to call the other side's insurance and ask if they will take liability. I won't take it unless that's established from the start. Their insurance follows up with a letter saying they are accepting liability.

I mean I could take a case where we end up litigating fault, so is that what you mean?

Not really sure why you would disclose this without being asked. It's never been asked for either.

Yo Bros,

I'm about half way done with my first semester of my 1L year. I've been attempting to prepare for finals as the semester progresses, i.e. keeping up with outlining, doing some hypos, and the last few weeks I did a couple practice exams I found online. Do you guys have any tips for anything else I should be doing? Take note I'm 33, I feel like I've been more dedicated than most of the younger students around me and I'm hoping this will pay off but the curve is obviously intimidating. Most of what I've read basically said to front load a lot of the work if you can so that you can take lots of practice exams during the exam period. Why do law schools haze 1st year students with zero feedback and only final exams? Seems LOL archaic. Really glad I took a big scholly and don't have to worry about crashing and burning because I'll prob only owe like ~30k when I leave.

Also, as a former athlete/ hard partier I'm pretty intimidated by the kids going to school with me. I'm not at Harvard but at a mid T1 and it's weird being in class and everyone is smart and competent. Weird feeling for a guy that lived off of the B's for degrees mantra in undergrad.

Let's suppose for a second that you have a rear-end collision where your 50 year old client is complaining of neck stiffness. The client went to the emergency room and there were four herniations, two in the C-spine and two in the L-spine. The tortfeasor was driving by himself and has a $100K maximum policy. Can you make a case for the entire $100K limits in this case? Can you make a case for $200K limits if that is what is available?

There are a few points I am trying to make here:

(1) Your job is to justify the maximum amount of damages possible for your client. In the above fact pattern, as a former personal injury defense attorney, I can argue that your case is worth nothing more than the medical expenses for a couple of months. You should be able to argue that it is worth millions of dollars. In reality, it is worth something in the middle.

(2) While there isn't a requirement that you demand anything specific, there is a requirement that you do your job well, for both the sake of the client's and your sake. Making offers only because you think that is what the insurance company is going to accept is incorrect. You can make your demands, you can negotiate with the insurance company, you can do better than what they are offering you almost all the time.

(3) If people are just going to accept what the insurance company is going to offer from the beginning, they do not need you. Your job is to do better than people would be able to do on their own. You have to justify your 30%-40% cut. Complaining that the insurance company is not offering you as much as you'd like is not fruitful. If they do not offer enough, it is your duty to litigate the case; which is what we can do that our clients cannot do on their own.

ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

The link implies that you are entitled to such information after filing a lawsuit. So in your jurisdiction, you should be filing more lawsuits.

In FL, the plaintiff's lawyer would send a demand to the insurance company for information regarding the policy, such as who is insured, the policy limits, etc. The plaintiff's attorney is entitled to that information before a lawsuit is filed.

Either way, if you have a real case, you need to know the limits. Maybe you need to send demands with much higher numbers than what you would be typically asking.



Part of "good faith" negotiation is looking at the strengths of the plaintiff's case and his lawyer. If there is a law firm that is known to go to trial often and winning hard, then they are going to get better offers than some guy that has a solo shop and is desperate to settle cases because he cannot go the distance.

The second you sent your demand letter, the adjuster asked himself whether he knew who you were. The adjuster may have even called some of the defense-side lawyers to ask whether they know who you are and whether you will go the distance. Being an aggressive trial lawyer will give you more respect and better offers. Being a lawyer that needs to settle the case just to keep the lights on will give you worse offers. That is how it works across all litigation, regardless of the specific area of law you are in at the moment.

I apparently phrased this badly, so let me try again. A plaintiff's attorney sends to the defense (whether that be the insurance adjuster or the defendant's attorney) an affidavit that the defendant has to fill out. The affidavit should have the amount that the defendants make per year, how many assets they have, the amount of debts, etc. That comes into play when you have a case that is potentially more than the limits; you have to ensure that the defendant does not have more money or assets to make going after the defendant personally worthwhile.

If the settlement is coming in for less than the limits, then it isn't a big deal to not require that type of affidavit. It still behooves you to ensure that the defendant's vehicle was not being used in the course of employment.

Why are you asking your clients to call the insurance company for you? Is there some law in your jurisdiction that a lawyer cannot call the opposing party? I find this quite bizarre.

Ok a lot of misunderstanding going on. I get it now though.

When you said:

What I thought you meant was I.e. I was expecting you might respond with something like 1. in FL you're statutorily (or by custom) required to state the max amount in the original demand or 2. lawyers just do this for X reason. I was asking why a case you would receive with $2000 in meds would have $100K demand, which is what I thought you meant. I thought maybe there might be a rule similar to here where when you plead, you demand a million dollars, even though the court can only award $30K.

The rest of what you said wasn't really on point, given that a few posts earlier I said a routinely settle for around 3x the meds, ie significantly more than what insurance usually comes back with after my demand, and certainly a lot more than what I've seen insurance offer before an attorney was involved.

Implied in that is that I also know a judge will usually only give me around 3-4x at trial (you can only pray a jury here for above $15K), so that's a good offer. It's also part of what I was saying earlier about attorneys willing to reduce their fee to 20% (due to competition) if the client agrees not to file, because they know the deal they will negotiate is roughly the same as trial.

Yes I'm sure about that. If you read the article it says that one of the requirements is at least 12.5K in medicals/lost wages. Also if you read the article (and the statute), the requirements to disclose to insurance in order to get the policy is basically what goes in a demand package. I guess below 12.5K they don't have to tell you limits, but if you have less than that you probably don't need to know, since even 30K is probably going to be around 3x your damages and that's a decent settlement and you can usually take the route I am of under insured coverage to supplement, the minimum required being $20K here.

Yeah my point there was just that there's no reason to put in some ridiculously high amount in the demand (because I thought you were saying everyone always demand the limit in EVERY case), because it's not binding. I think in practice demanding too much money would make you look like a n00b and be detrimental too.

I also said she probably looked me up in their system, so yes I know that they are evaluating me based on my potential to litigate etc. What I've been told is the insurance companies all share a DB with notes about what attorneys have settled for, when they've filed, and even if they are someone you can work with etc.

This now makes sense, you meant a BLANK affidavit. I hadn't heard of this specifically, but I didn't think that's what you meant because the other side isn't required to send either of these back (at least not here). I wouldn't. I think if I were the at fault insured, I would tell the other side to go pound sand I'm not telling you my assets. I think most lay people would take that position.

As far as the employment part, this filtering should have been done when insurance they talked to their client on day 1. If the purpose of the affidavit is to "remind" their insurance to maybe "double check" that's different?

I doubt I would get either of these affidavits back from insurance, maybe as a gesture of good faith.

Also, since my client has underinsured coverage, the preferred line is to file a claim with my client's insurance, and let them do the work of going after the at fault party. Which is what I said I would do. It will be a much faster recovery, and will actually pay a significant amount of money. In my case (and many people with low limit policies especially), the at fault party probably doesn't have any assets so suing them is a waste of time.

I guess I should have said "before they become my client" to be more clear. I can't call and insurance probably wouldn't talk to me, unless I represent that I am the client's attorney. This means signing a retainer and obligating myself to the case. Much easier to ask the potential client to ask if they are taking responsibility at the follow up call they will probably be getting from the other party insurance anyway. This is the number one thing on most people's mind anyway, so a lot of the time they already know before they talk to me. Liability has usually been fairly clear cut in the cases I've taken, but I've only done like 8 cases so far so I know not always the case.


PS I thought you were a former PD? What happened since then now that you're former insurance defense?

You'll do fine. You'll be surprised how many of the gunners do badly on exams. I started at 33 too. I was a bit reluctant to socialize at first for same reasons you cited. But once I just made a resolution to do at least one social engagement a week I found out a lot of students were almost the same age and some were even older.

Additional pressure: 1L grades will determine your results at OCI and therefore your probable long term job prospects.

I was 29, being older makes life so much easier.

In case anyone didn't know, GULC's career services office is useless.

They've done basically nothing for me and the most I've heard from them is after graduation when they desperately want me to tell them I am employed. (Doing NYU Tax LLM instead going to biglaw antitrust lit. I'm going to be in tax advisory and will be angling to move toward straight quant modelling and maybe even management/strat consulting a few years down the line).

That said, it ultimately doesn't matter much. At the end of the day, your 1L grades and OCI interview performance are >90% of your employment outcome.

I'm just writing this because I logged in my GULC account to find a pile of emails asking how I am doing and to reach out to GULC career services if I have any questions.

PS: I found it hilarious the SBA had emergency meetings when GULC fell to 15. Extra hilarious the incoming class got a little smaller and LSAT/GPA ticked up a tiny bit. Extra extra hilarious nowadays TLS is talking about T13 instead of T14/T15.

Who leapfrogged them? Texas?

UT Austin beat GULC and UCLA tied GULC in 2017.

It made absolutely no difference to me but some people were nearly apoplectic.

I got applied to Texas because I thought it would be a good value but still didn't go with a modest scholly. I can't imagine paying for somewhere like GULC and not being provided a good service. I would be irate. Maybe, I'm risk averse but for that reason I took a low-cost punt over the more expensive higher ranked schoosl. I'm at Bama and it is nice to know I won't have much debt and, because I'm from AL and plan on staying here, I'm going to get a job in AL at worst. I looked at Vandy because I wouldn't mind ending up in Nashville but that seems like even a worse value. Their best schollies are like 50% of 60k and their stats barely beat bama.


I've definitely made friends with some of the older students. We all eat lunch for an hour everyday and talk. It's nice to have because I'm not hitting the semi-formal cocktail parties that our SBA sets up to try and make friends. I figured I was fine just treating it like a job and putting in 50-55 hours a week at least this 1st semester when it matters so much.

Yeah, going to a school for free that is ~10 spots lower than others I got into was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’m in the exact same biglaw job I would’ve been in and have zero debt. $190k base with no debt is so much money.

Yeah no doubt 10 spots doesn’t matter unless you’re a prestige whore. You want to stay in AL, that’s 80% of it.

FWIW the complaints about GULC were the same back 10 years ago too when I was in school.

That people pay ~$300k for the prestige just makes me laugh.

Even more when prestige only matters in name. Bama sends 30% to big law and fed clerkships; so does vandy. Why spend the extra 200k? So you can tell the cute girl at the bar you went to Vandy Law.

Texas is a solid value. The rest of the t14/15 are hard to justify unless you got a 175+ and can pull big money. Obvi my opinion.

<<== confirmed prestige whore

Honestly, if I had the option to drop only a few places while getting money and staying near NYC, I'd have done it. But I had to drop 20+ to get half scholly.

I was a split app (I suspect a lot of people here were lol) with high LSAT and low GPA. I was literally above 25% on LSAT and below 25% on UGPA (I didn't realize it was this bad... retook classes when I returned to college so LSAC calculated GPA was way lower than what my undergrad transcript shows) for every school I applied to.

I just realised my post was prickish. Prestige is not a bad thing if you really want Nyc or westcoast. I want to live in the south/ texas so no one gives a **** if you went to Cornell. No way its worth the cost for me.

I was a hard split too but was a D1 athlete so I think I got a scholly boost for that. I was rocking a 3.1 gpa lol. I have to be bottom 10% gpa and top 10% LSAT. Also, took LSAT ten years ago and got a 146. Was hammered from night before when I took it. Very serious student.

My case to get some pseudo prestige is a bit stronger than most. I knew going in law school there was a good chance I wouldn't end up a lawyer and I went to a state undergrad so it was actually important for me to get a respectable school name on my resume.

It was basically an extremely expensive "real option" for me.

What are you going to do? I vaguely remember something tax related...

Big 4 tax advisory, probably int tax or transfer pricing. M&A second choice. I still may end up in biglaw if I can find a firm where I can be sure I will be doing structuring instead of due diligence work but I doubt that’s happening.

At NYU tax LLM program now.

Got 2 more PI's settled this week. An auto with soft tissue injuries resulting in permanency for 35k and a slip and fall with minimal injury (i.e. elbow contusion) for 6k with no follow up treatment and/or any x-rays, MRI, etc.

Adjuster blew a gasket that we wouldn't just settle the slip for 4k and I thought he was going to have a heart attack over our final offer of 6k. Eventually, he lived and accepted.


Weird spot for the thread....


I have a NIED case that I've posted about previously. Complaint filed and I'm like 99% preliminary objections are coming. Two nights ago, our client (Plaintiff), had two individuals show up at her house, sit in her driveway blasting loud music, and smoke cigs for about 10 min. Client is at work during the incident.

Her neighbor came outside, confronted the pair, and they yell obscenities at her/scare her off. She tells them she's calling the police, police show up and the pair flee before police arrive. Neighbor gives a general description of the duo, which matches the 2 defendants in the case, and their vehicle is similar to the defendant 1's vehicle. (Neighbor gave description to police of "black car, mid size" but didn't know make/model/or any other identifying features)

It is a pretty strong chance that this is the defendants coming to intimidate her. We alerted police and they pretty much told us to pound sand/nothing they can do, but call if they show up again.

My thoughts for the case were to get an affidavit from the neighbor and the officer incident report. CL has installed cameras now to watch her home in case they return.

So, wug thread? How do we leverage this in the case? My initial thought was compile it, get our ducks in line, and then call OC (who I've had a good relationship from prior cases) and let them know we plan on amending complaint to include harassment unless they meet our demand. However, harassment is intentional and I'm afraid it would bump insurance coverage. These clowns have no real assets, so collection would be nearly impossible.

Appreciate any advice. Not a situation I've come across yet and honestly, don't even know who to ask in my area, as it is a relatively small town and everyone knows everyone type of thing. I have a mentor I talk with constantly, but he's traveling Europe right now.

I don’t think you can amend. Just bring up at trial. You wouldn’t amend a child support motion for every time more money is due. Also you don’t really know it’s them.

Guys, "a black car parked in my client's driveway and the defendant has a black car" is not going to fly in court of law.

Nice, NYU tax.

I've thought about getting a tax LLM but brought it up with my wife and I thought she was going to kill me when I said it was another year or school.

So that's probably not happening...