Why does insurance defense get a bad rep?

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Insurance carriers are... difficult. It’s a high volume business that leads to cut rates. We have clients where partner billable rates are as low as $150/hour. Thus, to make any real money (for the firm or yourself) you likewise have to be a volume business.

On top of that, most carriers use aggressive systems to scan their bills and write off time. For example, I can’t use the word “draft” my time is automatically written off before a human looks at the bill because the client does not pay for “rough drafts” . So if I screw up and say “Draft correspondence to client regarding” my time is written off and I have to spend unable time appealing it just to say I meant “draft as in prepare.”

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OP, depends. Can be the work. If you’re doing “red car blue car” all day every day that gets old. But insurance policies and thus insurance defense touches literally everything from medmal to constitutional litigation. So it depends on what kind of work you are doing, just like everything else.

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From what I read on here, insurance defense lawyers grind hard for a relatively (i.e., compared to other areas of law) low salary/income.

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Dilatory tactics

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IMO Insurance defense lawyers get a bad reputation by delaying trial.

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In my brief time doing ID, I found ID to be more administrative than legal work. So it’s one of the practices that is commonly looked down upon by some in the profession. Also, the comments about clients and cut rates are absolutely correct. It’s a volume business and a race to the bottom to keep the volume coming...

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I focused on the hands on litigation training I got at my level, and my desire to apply those skills to more challenging work. I stayed in litigation though. Not sure how transferable these skills will be to other practices, however, you do have great file carriage experience coming out of ID. Also, if you’re thinking of leaving I think it would be easier to switch earlier rather than later.

It really just comes down to practical experience vs. theory experience. ID you get a lot more practical experience (depositions, trials, court appearances) while Plaintiff’s work you get into the theory and truly develop the case. Maybe prestige comes with developed theories, but you’re limited if you don’t have the practical experience to deliver the theory to jurors/judges.

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OP, are you in ID, like it, and are wondering why others think it sucks, or are you not in ID and just curious?

TL1 hit it on the head. Work is boring AF

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I did ID right out of law school. Trucking accidents. We had high billables, high volume, low rates, and very little control. If I do any ID now (not MVAs) it’s because my client needs it and we were approved by carrier to defend. It’s a much better dynamic. We send status reports and get approvals, but the carrier stays out of the way.
I think ID gets a bad rep because of the carrier/type of insurance, and plaintiff’s firms get annoyed we don’t just throw money at them.

Insurance Defense is way too broad of a term. Insurance carriers cover literally everything. Working for an auto insurer on MVA cases is the bottom of the barrel, and that’s where the stigma comes from. But I now work complex class actions, products liability and professional liability and it’s a whole different world. The billable rates are higher, the clients are more sophisticated and selective, and the work is interesting...but a the end of the day, they’re still insurance carriers, so it’s technically ID. When most people’s trash the ID industry, they’re referring to low value MVA, workers comp and slip and fall stuff.

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