undefined | Better HN

0 pointslibertymcateer9y ago0 comments

Yes, it does, and yes, that is correct.

Lawyers can drop clients with cases that they think are losers and refuse to take them to trial. And, very, very often, before or directly after closing arguments, if the writing is on the wall, a case settles.

Additionally, what sorts of cases are we talking about? Insurance defense? Toxic torts? Data breach?

The 'winnability' of these cases varies highly. There are many, many law firms who's entire business model is built entirely only on taking no-brainer winning cases. Think injury lawyers. They may - perversely - have very low winning percentages, because 90-95% of their cases settle, and only the real squeakers get to trial.

Let's look at the inverse. Do you really need Quinn Emmanuel or Gibson Dunn if you have a slam-dunk case? Or do you need the best litigators around when your case is a total coin-toss? And, in that event, is it an example of bad lawyering if your crack-team loses because they are pushing the bounds of appellate advocacy?

The idea of judging 'law firms' without further taxonomic distinction, generally, by trial disposition is just - it is frankly idiotic.

0 comments

selectron9y ago

It is always easy to criticize a data-driven analysis by saying its assumptions could be wrong. In the real world, all analysis is based on assumptions, some of which you can always claim might not be correct. But you have to really present an argument as to why and by how much the assumption is likely to be wrong, you can't just state that the assumption might be wrong. The assumption that cases which don't settle are not at all indicative of how well a lawyer performs is a very bold claim, much bolder in my mind (admittedly I am not a lawyer) than the claim that there should be some correlation between lawyer performance and results in cases that did not settle. It is possible that lower ranking lawyers settle less often, I'd like to see the data on that.

Furthermore, on average the effects you are mentioning will wash-out, unless there is a systematic bias whereby lower ranking firms and higher ranking firms settle in different manners.

CPLX9y ago

There's a difference between saying ones assumptions are wrong and stating that the units of measure are completely meaningless.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse