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I can’t speak for everyone on here I’m sure, but I have never told a client to lie or stretch the truth in any way. On the contrary, I’ve had clients who show up to depositions wearing double back braces/ severely exaggerating their ability to walk, etc. I normally tell them to knock it off and only act like they do in their every day life. 1. There’s more than enough negligence happening that you don’t need to exaggerate. 2. All you need is one client to say in a depo or at trial that you told them to lie and you’re shot for the rest of your career.
On the flip side, however, I’ve rarely ever had an adjuster or defense attorney concede that my client is actually severely injured… even in cases where there’s surgery etc. sometimes I feel like PI work has more extreme side than politics…
It is very polarized. I’ve only ever worked defense so the internalized bias against (most) plaintiffs is strong. Lol. I think a lot of it is that we see so many cases where it was a parking lot fender bender at 3mph and a 67 year old, who supposedly never had back pain in their life, now needs 3 surgeries (I’ve had some level of back pain since I was 16 without any MVAs, so I call BS). Or a 23 year old who graduated uni with honors and has maintained a full time job since the accident but now supposedly needs 24/7 home health care, a personal chef, and $16 million in other future treatment for a “debilitating TBI.” So it’s hard to tell the difference between the legit and the exaggerated. I will say, if the injuries are clearly legit (and related), we may not admit it to the plaintiff’s attorney, but there’s a good chance we’re telling the carrier and trying to push for a reasonable settlement. Whether they go for it isn’t really our call. That said, we’ve seen surgeons treat an obviously malingering plaintiff and say “there are no objective findings, but he says he’s in pain so I guess we’ll do a 3 level fusion.” And then they do it. Which blows my mind on so many levels. Very few of our plaintiffs aren’t recommended for surgery by one of three plaintiff friendly doctors in the area. So a surgery or surgical recommendation doesn’t hold much sway in convincing us it’s legit. Haha.
I'm a plaintiff's lawyer. I always tell my clients to tell the truth but also to shut up. Often, most of my deposition coaching is around getting the client to be honest without divulging way too much information. I typically spend 30-90 minutes prepping clients for depositions
I like to tell them not to answer questions they haven’t been asked. Make them work for the information. I’m ID.
ID gets paid the exact same, win, lose, or draw. There is next to 0 incentive to even get close to crossing that line. Can’t say the same (at all) about my brethren across the way though… when your client lying might mean an extra family vacation or being able to finish that basement, I’d imagine that there is quite a bit of incentive to “coach.”
For me, even when my client shits the bed at their deposition, that’s fine, because it just helps me steer the case to settle faster..
Rising Star
You're naive to assume all ID lawyers and all Plaintiff lawyers all have the same compensation structure.
Many ID charge variable rates. Not all Plaintiff lawyers get percentages. Knocking ethics and assuming the worst in people reflects more poorly on you than those you're knocking.
For example: a plaintiff tells EMS and ER staff that he was horsing around at an event with a friend and fell on the uneven ground. His friend found security and security got medical help. After he talks to an attorney, suddenly it was a person who attacked him. He told security that this guy had threatened him and security ignored him. When his friends told security he had been hurt, they laughed at him. Suing the security contractors for negligent security practices is a better case than suing the facility for having uneven grass. But they wouldn’t know that until they talked to an attorney.
Here’s what I see on the defense side. At depo Plaintiff can’t remember any treatment providers names or the name of the facility/practice. Can remember any diagnosis or what the MRI showed. Yet when trial comes around they remember every name, diagnosis and reasoning for treatment and they’ve had intelligent conversations with their doctor.
Also, certain firms push uneducated Plaintiffs into very expensive treatment all on lien. These Plaintiffs are typically illegal immigrants who don’t know any better. I had one Plaintiff tell me under oath that her attorney told her to get the cervical fusion if she wanted to get paid. She said she never had neck pain.
Worse yet, firms who play case manager and approve or deny treatment.
We’ll recommend settlement right away if the treatment has a clear path. Accident to ER to specialist and Plaintiff use’s insurance. It shows to all that getting better was more important that litigation.
Plaintiff’s counsel putting clients on the “treatment train” for sky high costs is an everyday occurrence. Parking lot accident with no police report and no property damage turns into a fucking ACDF in no time with everything being on a lien. I’d love to find the time to deep dive into some of those providers and really explore how many of those cases when tank at trial lead to bills being forgiven in full. “The usual suspects” know who is feeding them and are happy to take a loss 4/5 times if they can clean up on that 5th case.
Billing experts are new new big thing. My trial experience has been that juries understand and don’t like when providers (selected by plaintiff’s counsel) are charging 5x the national rate “just because.”