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Originally Posted by DonkJr
I did personal injury defense for a year-and-a-half. Something we constantly talked about was whether the plaintiff's attorney can and will go the distance. If it was a solo attorney, especially a younger guy like you, they would almost always be offered less because the thought was that they are hoping to settle the case quickly to "keep the lights on." Being very experienced for an attorney that has two years of experience means that you are still very inexperienced, and the insurance company and the defense attorneys know that. They know that the $15K you are going to have to spend to go to trial (badly) is daunting for a new attorney.
On the other hand, the biggest plaintiff's firm in FL had a rule that every attorney must go to trial at least three times in a year, or they incur a severe financial penalty for failing to do so. Everybody knew that those attorneys would be jones-ing for trials, and that firm tends to have very experienced attorneys, so they got higher offers.
You can't take personally that insurance companies are going to string you along somewhat. What you have to do is make strong initial demand letters with deadlines, make it clear that you will pursue a bad faith claim if they do not do what is right, and (most importantly) go to trial.
I don't have insight from the defense side, but I have definitely seen this in action. There is a huge douchebag defense attorney here in my neck of the woods who is just one of the worst people ever. He apparently gets good results at trial and just literally makes stuff up. Gets someone agreeing to innocuous stuff then drops in a "You testified earlier you couldn't see over the hill, correct?" and that's not what they testified to and there is no hill at all...and then he acts incredulous if the witness denies it, etc. That's just the very tip of the iceberg. Telling my legal assistant she's committing fraud..etc. fraud...etc...it goes on and on. Anyway, I get like a 170k verdict on a case where they offered like 4k against this *******.
So, I'm at a hearing months later in a different court and the bailiff is talking to me and the other lawyer..."did you hear about that kid who kicked xxxx's ass at trial?" So I'm like "yeah...?"
Then I'm talking do a defense lawyer who asked me if I'm the guy who kicked xxx's ass at trial, and that mediator Y was talking about me. I had never heard of or met mediator Y.
So then someone suggests mediator Y for a case where they aren't paying but they should be. I agree obviously, and then I'm getting the "look, their offer of $5k is really reasonable, do you really think you're going to do better at trial, kid" routine from him at mediation. He obviously didn't remember that he had apparently been talking about me.
So I'm not a big *don't you know who I am* guy at all, but I kind of needed to do that in this situation, so I slipped in the details of the opposing lawyer, the fact that we had a good result, and we think we'd do fine with similar facts...and his whole face changed, he goes "hang on, let me see what I can do" and they come back in and pay policy limits.
I think it sucks the way they treat kids. It's not so much the insurance companies/adjusters because they are just doing their job trying to minimize exposure, etc., but it's the tag team from the mediators. Or it's trying to defend a summary judgment on a very serious case and having to bring an old person just to stand there with you so that they "know you're serious".