Does Your Law Suit Make Economic Sense
A law suit is a tool, not an end in and of itself. Thus, don't sue someone because you are angry. Do it if filing a law suit helps accomplish an important personal or business objective.
That sounds like common sense advice or even something that you can expect your lawyer to tell you. Too often, however, that's not the case. Lawyers can get caught up in the litigation process. They focus on upcoming deadlines and what needs to happen in the next 30 to 60 days. Thus, it's critical that you, as the client or potential client, emphasize what goals are most important to you. Moreover, it helps lawyers if you regularly ask them how the specific steps they are taking during the law suit are designed to serve your goals.
One of the most common problems that arise relates to whether the law suit is actually reasonably calculated to bring you money. Good lawyers think of this at the beginning of the process. It's not enough to show that someone or some entity broke a law; you also need to make sure they have money. Sometimes the difficulty in collecting or tracking down money makes pursuing a law suit a dicey strategy, regardless of how clear cut the legal issues are. Fortunately, there is a concrete step you can take to determine whether the law suit is likely to make sense financially. Consider retaining an investigator who specializes in tracking down assets before you file a law suit or before the law suit has progressed too far. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they paid their lawyer tens of thousands of dollars or more only to find out that "winning" their law suit wasn't worth the money it cost.
