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"A great lawyer can achieve a settlement against a party like this without the need to throw sacks of cash onto a firepit." A lawyer, good or bad, has no contr
by staticman2 4y ago
"A great lawyer can achieve a settlement against a party like this without the need to throw sacks of cash onto a firepit."
A lawyer, good or bad, has no control whether the other party settles.
- shon 4y agoThis is incorrect in my experience. My company was sued by LinkedIn about a year after receiving a $1MM seed round. We were low on money with about $250K left and raising when the suit hit. This is a game of leverage. Lawyers are tools that have to be used effectively to apply leverage. Like any tool, good ones make a big difference. At the time LI was worth about $30 Billion, we had $250K. We convinced LinkedIn to settle after about 4 months in SF court for a nominal amount. Good/ethical lawyers were critical along with significant creativity from our side on how to use them. We survived, raised a round and the company is still kicking.
- staticman2 4y agoIf Linkedin decided they wanted to put you out of business the lawyer would not be able to arrange a settlement. A lawyer does not even control whether their own client settles.
- shon 4y agoYou think so? Read the case. “LinkedIn v. Robocog”. If you think they let us go out of the kindness of their hearts, I’m interested in hearing more of your thoughts Also, I didn’t say lawyers control settling. I said they’re tools that can be used to achieve an outcome. And the good ones are very helpful. Force multipliers. Ours were experts in IP law. They knew it well. We used them along with other leverage points to achieve our settlement.
- _rutinerad 4y agoIn the same way that a parent has no control over whether their child goes to sleep.
- staticman2 4y agoThe lawyer can control whether the opposing party settles in the same way I can control whether you retract you post and concede I was correct.
- _rutinerad 4y agoExactly. And you’re not using that control very well.
- ABCLAW 4y agoI didn't say a good lawyer will achieve the settlement. I said they could. Keeping costs down and only spending enough to acquire the absolute key arguments, research and evidence is how you get to discuss a settlement with leverage. A large corp can still pepper you with motions then push into trial, but a great lawyer will be limiting how quickly you burn through your war chest and fight battles judiciously instead of throwing the kitchen sink at every motion.
- e-clinton 4y agoYou clearly haven’t seen Suits