Who Has The Authority To Settle A Lawsuit?
The basic rule is simple: The authority to settle a lawsuit belongs to the client and not the lawyer.
In essence this means that a lawyer can't force you to settle a lawsuit unless you don't want to settle it. This is an important power and too few clients seem to know that they possess it.
I have heard of lawyers that insert language into their fee agreements providing that a case can't settle without the lawyers consent. This language is at a minimum problematic and is likely to be invalid. You can generally settle a case, even if your lawyer doesn't want you to, but you don't have to settle a case that your lawyer thinks you should settle. The power is in your hands.
That being said, lawyers and judges regularly try to influence a client's decision to settle. Lawyers have the right to urge you to settle and may do so in strong terms. They can tell you that you're making a huge mistake by settling or not settling a particular case. One of the more common ways that lawyers try to "force" a settlement is by suggesting that they will stop working on your case unless you follow their advice. And as has been discussed before, lawyers generally have the right to stop representing you if their departure doesn't cause you undue harm. Their ability to fire you is somewhat limited. But that doesn't mean that lawyers can't exert a lot of pressure on clients to settle or not settle a case.
Judges also can strongly influence a decision not to settle a case. In many states, courts have fewer resources at their disposal. Court time is limited, and judges can have an incentive to get cases to settle before they get to a trial. This is true in both criminal and non-criminal cases. For example, in non-criminal cases a judge can make a settlement more attractive by pushing back the dates in which the court is available to start the trial. Some judges also make trials in non-criminal cases less attractive by spreading them out over time. For example, the trial starts on a Monday and the next trial day doesn't take place until Thursday or the following Monday. This is more common when the judge rather than a jury is the ultimate decision maker.
There are many interesting and potentially complicated questions that can arise in connection with a client's authority to settle a lawsuit. What, for example, should a judge do when the lawyer reasonably believes that he or she had the authority to settle a case but the client later claims that he or she didn't give the lawyer that authority. These and other settlement-related issues can be addressed in future blog posts, but for now remember the basics: the power to settle a lawsuit is in your hands not in the hands of your lawyer.
