Any advice for an associate switching from plaintiff-side firm to defense side? What have you found to be the biggest challenge?

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Your job is making things go away, so the psychological approach tends to shift from vindicating something towards everything being a nuisance and a stupid waste of time and resources. When you win, the matter goes away instead of you getting to continue working on the project. Client doesn’t want to pay for anything so you may have to do excruciating task billing.

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Definitely a shift of approach toward conservative valuations, slowing things down, forcing the other side to jump through as many hoops as necessary to be sure the claim is legitimate. The other side must now prove and all you do is “be reasonable” and analyze why there is another more plausible side of the story. Defense insured clients are not always responsible for all plaintiffs’ complaints. Some plaintiffs are grifters, exaggerating or professional victims so it’s your job to keep the Karen’s/Gary’s of the world from forcing all of us to pay too much in insurance costs. On the flip side, some insurance employees do not pay legitimate claims if health insurance or the state or anybody else will pay the bill.

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Litigation Budget and Litigation Plan…

Defense work is more sophisticated in the sense your client is not ready to open her checkbook and relies upon you to minimize her expenses and overall exposure in the litigation…

Pros: Increased opportunity for developing a Law and Motion practice; opportunity to second-chair a trial; requires an assessment of both liability and damages on a more robust scale (as Plaintiff’s counsel liability is assumed, damages are negotiated)

Cons; Harder to be a rainmaker; typically clients fix your billable hour rates; must learn to facilitate Partner-Associate interaction; must meet billable hour requirements or firm will not meet their bottom line

In the end, either can be enjoyable as long as you contribute and make certain the firm exceeds its bottom line…

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