6 ms·

Just to put a word in for the other side. A friend of mine had some startup that had a huge contract for its product. One of the employees got let go and file

Just to put a word in for the other side. A friend of mine had some startup that had a huge contract for its product. One of the employees got let go and filed an employment suit. The lawyer he got was somewhat unethical and basically buried the company in legal fees. They went out of business before they could fulfill the big contract and tried to settle many times with the employee, but the lawyer kept egging him on and nobody got any money in the end except the lawyer. The end.

rectang 8y ago
Burying the opposition in legal fees is only available to parties with the financial resources to keep their lawyers going. The vast majority of the time, it is companies employing this stratagem, not individuals.
- narrator 8y ago
  It's different when it's a bootstrapped startup though.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    so, because in this one time the company was as vulnerable as the person, the law is.... what? I can't even guess where you were going with your point!
    - renholder 8y ago
      I'm guessing that it was: Corporations are people too? Otherwise, likewise, I can't fathom what the point of the anecdote was. If the company was truly in the wrong, then it going out of business isn't - necessarily - a bad thing. It sucks for the employed by it, yes, but - in the overall scheme - perhaps it was for the best? Either way, there's - clearly - not enough information for this to be worthwhile.
devereaux 8y ago
How can the lawyer of one party cause legal fees to the other party? I genuinely do not understand, as each party is responsible for its own costs
- steven2012 8y ago
  It sounds like the OP got a second-hand storytelling of what happened, and the original storyteller didn't know the exact details or made things up. It doesn't make sense for the lawyer to not to suggest settling especially if the company is going to go under.
- unreal37 8y ago
  Each time you file a motion or a brief, the other side has to review that brief and file a counter-motion or brief. And research has to go into those things and you might spend days trying to come up with the information being requested. Every request you make from the other side, causes the other side more work and thus more expense. Imagine I asked you to find a receipt for every restaurant you've eaten at in the last year, along with a list of who was there and what was discussed. How much work is that for you? Would answering that question be a significant amount of work?
  - renholder 8y ago
    >Each time you file a motion or a brief... That doesn't sound like arbitration.
- fencepost 8y ago
  If I'm suing you and I file a motion for summary judgement in my favor, do you need to respond to it? How much is your attorney going to be charging for the time required for that response? Now imagine that I'm filing multiple motions per week some of which may require a fair amount of time to respond to, so you're getting billed for 10-40 hours of attorney time per week. How long can you sustain that burn rate? This ties into SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, aka "I may not be able to win my suit, but I can make you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against it anyway") and the saying "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" ("we may not be able to convict you, but we can drag a court case out for years and ruin your life").
lostdog 8y ago
We should fix the legal system to be more effective and more fair. Forced arbitration doesn't do that--it just makes it (more) unfair in different ways.

rectang 8y ago

Burying the opposition in legal fees is only available to parties with the financial resources to keep their lawyers going. The vast majority of the time, it is companies employing this stratagem, not individuals.

narrator 8y ago
It's different when it's a bootstrapped startup though.
- gcb0 8y ago
  so, because in this one time the company was as vulnerable as the person, the law is.... what? I can't even guess where you were going with your point!
  - renholder 8y ago
    I'm guessing that it was: Corporations are people too? Otherwise, likewise, I can't fathom what the point of the anecdote was. If the company was truly in the wrong, then it going out of business isn't - necessarily - a bad thing. It sucks for the employed by it, yes, but - in the overall scheme - perhaps it was for the best? Either way, there's - clearly - not enough information for this to be worthwhile.

devereaux 8y ago

How can the lawyer of one party cause legal fees to the other party? I genuinely do not understand, as each party is responsible for its own costs

steven2012 8y ago
It sounds like the OP got a second-hand storytelling of what happened, and the original storyteller didn't know the exact details or made things up. It doesn't make sense for the lawyer to not to suggest settling especially if the company is going to go under.
unreal37 8y ago
Each time you file a motion or a brief, the other side has to review that brief and file a counter-motion or brief. And research has to go into those things and you might spend days trying to come up with the information being requested. Every request you make from the other side, causes the other side more work and thus more expense. Imagine I asked you to find a receipt for every restaurant you've eaten at in the last year, along with a list of who was there and what was discussed. How much work is that for you? Would answering that question be a significant amount of work?
- renholder 8y ago
  >Each time you file a motion or a brief... That doesn't sound like arbitration.
fencepost 8y ago
If I'm suing you and I file a motion for summary judgement in my favor, do you need to respond to it? How much is your attorney going to be charging for the time required for that response? Now imagine that I'm filing multiple motions per week some of which may require a fair amount of time to respond to, so you're getting billed for 10-40 hours of attorney time per week. How long can you sustain that burn rate? This ties into SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, aka "I may not be able to win my suit, but I can make you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against it anyway") and the saying "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" ("we may not be able to convict you, but we can drag a court case out for years and ruin your life").

lostdog 8y ago

We should fix the legal system to be more effective and more fair. Forced arbitration doesn't do that--it just makes it (more) unfair in different ways.