Leucadia Law & Mediation

Need a lawyer – but don’t know where to start?

I need a lawyer!

You may be here right now because you are looking for a lawyer but you don’t know what type of lawyer you need. I can tell you first and foremost that you need an ethical lawyer who will look out for your needs above everything else. But many people are confused by the different areas of the law and what type of lawyer they need. Below is a brief primer on what to look for within each specialty or area.

1. Criminal Law

If you have been charged with an offense, whether it’s traffic or trafficking, you may need a criminal lawyer. There are lawyers who spend $1,000,000 per month (yes, $12,000,000 per year) advertising their practice. Obviously those lawyers are doing a volume business, often referred to as a “mill.” With a mill, you (the client) are a cog in a giant machine. You are not hiring a single individual for his or her expertise, but the structure of the mill to hopefully provide some value. Personally, I know a handful of top-notch criminal defense attorneys who work in smaller practices, charge less than the large firms, and provide you and your case with greater attention and greater results. In my experience, advertising dollars do not equal capability or results. I do not practice in the area of criminal law, but if you call I am happy to provide you with a list of referrals to lawyers I trust. It is important that you interview these lawyers to make sure your goals and styles are aligned.

2. Family Law

If you are going through a divorce, or have child custody or child support issues, then you need a lawyer who specializes in family law. To me, this is the single area of the law where referrals are most critical. The stereotype for family law lawyers is that they are masters at creating disputes, which is easy to do with the emotion inherent in the family law context. Emotion + litigation = $$$$. I abhor cases where only the lawyers win. If we are doing our jobs then we are acting in the best interests of our clients. And if we are the only ones profiting, then how can we be acting in the best interests of our clients? I do not practice in the area of family law, but if you call I am happy to provide you with a list of referrals to lawyers I trust. It is important that you interview these lawyers to make sure your goals and styles are aligned.

3. Civil Litigation

In a nutshell, civil litigation is the description of disputes involving money. This is a very broad and diverse area of the law, as it covers everything from PI (personal injury) to IP (intellectual property). As you might imagine, that leaves a broad range of areas and a varying degrees of technical knowledge and expertise required. I practice in the area of civil litigation and one of my greatest enjoyments in practicing is taking the principles that I have learned from my various areas of practice and transferring them to a new or different area of the law. I am currently focusing my efforts on insurance bad faith litigation, business litigation, public works construction, and internet piracy (copyright infringement and/or trademark infringement). If it is the right case, or comes in from the right source, I will occasionally take on a personal injury case or an employment litigation matter. As a sole practitioner, I have to be very selective in the cases I take. I consider myself very fortunate to have experience in a wide array of areas within the civil litigation field. If you have a question about a particular issue or matter, please call or email and if I cannot help you I will do everything I can to refer you to someone who can help.

4. Wills & Trusts

I have a complex litigation matter concluding right now where I represent the plaintiff and there are settlement agreements with multiple defendants that could require my client to repay some of the settlement proceeds to one or more of the defendants. I am in the position of defending the settlement or, as I like to say, keeping the rats away from the cheese. Similarly, a good lawyer in the field of wills and trusts will keep the rats (the taxman) away from the cheese (your money). I do not practice in the area of family law, but if you call I am happy to provide you with a referral to a lawyer I trust. It is important that you interview this lawyers to make sure your goals and styles are aligned.

5. Other

If there is another issue you have that does not seem to fit squarely into one of these boxes, please feel free to give me a call and I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction.

Evaluation – What is a legal case worth?

The most important thing a client wants to know is how much his/her case is worth. Sometimes the assessment is fairly simple: there are monies owed pursuant to a contract that have not been paid. I recently had such a case in the context of public works construction. That case became more complicated, however, when additional elements of damages were factored into the equation. My client, a subcontractor, was also entitled to prompt payment penalties (Cal. Pub. Contract Code § 7107; Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 7108.5), interest, and attorney’s fees. Having a firm grasp on the underlying contract damages made the job of calculating the remaining damages much easier. At that point, the question became what the client would accept to resolve the case short of trial.

Some cases are not as easy to assess. For example, I have been working on a number of internet piracy cases. I have a client who is an industry leader in his field. He has registered copyrights on his web site content. In attempting to enter that field, several different entities and individuals have simply cut and pasted material from my client’s web site. Statutory damages for willful infringement of a copyright range from $200 to $150,000. (See http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html.) So if someone has taken 2-3 pages of copyrighted content verbatim, is that infringement worth $200 or $150,000? I have conducted extensive research for verdicts and settlements on these internet piracy cases to ascertain that the infringement may be worth anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000 per infringement. (Note: this assumes that there are no actual profits made by the infringer and/or actual damages incurred by my client.)

The value of a case may also change throughout the pendency of the litigation. I have had cases that appeared to be $100,000 cases when they came in the door only to find, through the discovery of adverse evidence, that the case was only worth $30,000. I have also had cases that appeared to be $200,000 cases that ultimately resolved for several times that amount. Sometimes the evidence falls in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t. There are always risks to litigation: There is the risk that evidence will be unearthed during discovery that is adverse to your claim or case. Then there is the risk that all of the evidence will fall in your favor, but a jury will not be sympathetic to you or your case.

One of the most important things I do is to minimize your risk, and to help you understand the level of risk. It is my job to constantly and continually evaluate and re-assess your case, and to communicate these assessments and evaluations to you. There are several steps I take to make sure we are headed down the right path. The first is to always understand the evidence as it currently stands. The second is to obtain the strongest evidence that will help us prove our case or disprove the opponent’s case. The third is to conduct whatever research is necessary or appropriate to ensure that we have the proper documentation to substantiate our position. The issue is not whether or not there are going to be curveballs; the issue is whether you can hit the curveballs when they inevitably come.