The legal system is a marathon, not a sprint. A lot of people don’t understand this or don’t want to accept this, especially when they think that they have a great case. Sometimes what seems like a great case to an attorney ends up not looking so good once they get some additional information.
For example, if you have a client come to your office with a broken leg who tells you that he was hit in a cross-walk when he had the right away, as a lawyer you’d want that case. But after the lawsuit starts an independent witness comes forward that says the client was running back in to traffic to get a dropped cell phone and didn’t have the right of way then the case isn’t so appealing anymore.
So whether it’s the passing of time or the lawyer not feeling as strongly about the case, some clients get suspicious. About once a month someone calls us looking for a new attorney because they are just sure the insurance company has filled their lawyer’s pockets with cash in order to make the case go away.
I’m not denying there are some shady attorneys in Illinois. And I’m not denying that some attorneys don’t do a great job on their cases. But I have no doubt in my mind that there has never been a time when an insurance company bribed a lawyer for a plaintiff in order to make the case go away. How do I know this? Let me count the ways:
1. First off, if the case is worth a lot of money, then the lawyer would make a lot if he was successful. Why risk prison and a loss of your career over an amount of money that you could earn by just doing your job? e.g. If the case is worth up to one million, most lawyers would get 1/3 of that. Why would you accept a bribe of $100,000 if you can make three times that? And if you think the insurance company would pay more then what is the point of the bribe as it wouldn’t help their bottom line?
2. Second, this isn’t the type of scheme that two people could just pull off. Even if a defense attorney wanted to do this for his plaintiff buddy, he’d have to tell his client to break the law which would then require a multi-million or billion dollar company to do something that could cause them to be shut down. All of these cases are audited and reviewed by multiple people at the insurance company and the chances of many people covering up something illegal when they get no personal gain is almost none.
3. As a client if you felt that you had a big case and it wasn’t going your way or you didn’t like what you heard, you’d get a 2nd opinion. If you did then the schemers would surely get busted. Aside from jail and a loss of license, your lawyer would be subject to a legal malpractice lawsuit.
4. Over the years we have seen individual attorneys get busted for un-ethical conduct; we have seen insurance execs busted for stealing from the company; we have seen plaintiffs busted for faking claims; but we’ve never heard of a case where parties with competing interests were in on a scam together. If they can un-cover individuals breaking the law, don’t you think it would be easier to uncover a big group? Of course it would, but it has never happened.
I could go on and on, but there is no need to. You might have a lazy lawyer. You might not have a case that is as good as you think. You might just be impatient. But if your case isn’t going well take our word for it that it’s not because people are scheming against you. It just doesn’t happen.
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Tags: personal injury