From the Desk of Lenden Webb

A Revised Video-to-Audio Transcription

One thing clients ask me at the beginning of their litigation is “how much is this all going to cost,” and “can you tell me with certainty what it’s going to cost?” The challenge in litigation is there are two sides to the story. There are often times a litigator on the other side or attorney on the other side who may or may not be reasonable and may not see the law the way it should be seen.

We do our best to educate and to make sure that we have the facts from you that can dispel any concerns or questions at the beginning of the litigation. We will do our best to get an early resolution.

The other thing we do, as far as managing costs is we have a team that is bottom-heavy. What that means is that instead of having a litigation firm where there’s a lot of attorneys billing between $200-300 an hour (which is what a lot of law firms have), we have a lot of the people who are in law school who are almost attorneys and who are billing usually at about one fourth to one third of the rate of an attorney. So you’re getting essentially the same legal mind plus you have the attorney supervising and making sure they’re working on the work product in an effective fashion and doing it right, but you’re getting it for a fraction of the cost.

A lot of our work is done in teams where you have a law clerk, paralegal, and an attorney all assigned to your matter. The end result of this is that you can effectively litigate without burning the budget and having an attorney do things that are well-suited for a paralegal or a law clerk who can do legal research. So that’s one of the things we do to effectively manage the client’s budget.

Another thing that we do is I have a pamphlet called Getting the Most for Your Legal Dollar which I developed with another attorney. This pamphlet explains (especially to people who have never been in litigation before and would like to never be in litigation again) how to effectively use an attorney, how to communicate with an attorney, and to make sure they realize that every time the attorney picks up the phone and is on your matter, since the attorney doesn’t have things to sell, it’s just the attorney’s time. So, in those 6-minute increments, how to make the best use of your attorney’s time.

One thing that’s done at the inception of litigation by our office is, when we receive your documentation we’ll scan it in (we’re completely electronically-based here at Webb Law Group), we turn around and give it back to you. Then we Bates Number all those pages so that when you’re communicating with our office, you’re communicating and telling us “look at page number 5,023. Look at page number 5,014, it has this.” You’re giving us a timeline of the events on the timeline referring to specific page numbers of documents you’ve give us. With an effective timeline and effective narrative from the client, we can litigate much forcefully, effectively, and quickly. In the end, this saves the client money on litigation expenses.

Key Points:

  1. “Clients often ask at the beginning of litigation, ‘Shouldn’t we file a demur or motion to strike’ the challenge is, in a motion to strike or demur at the early stages the pleadings are taken as if everything said in the complaint is true and you can not bring in extrinsic evidence to argue or change what has been pled.”
  2. “Motions to strike and demurs should only be filed, in my mind…, if there is  a dispositive claim.”
  3. “If there is not a dispositive claim, all you do is educate the opposing side because leave to amend is freely granted.”

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Webb Law Group is a reputable business and liability litigation firm with experience in matters involving California law. Having a reputable attorney by your side for these matters will offer you the best possible chance of your case arriving at a positive outcome.

If you feel you need legal representation in California, Webb Law Group would be happy to review your case and provide consultation and support where necessary. For questions, or to schedule a consultation, contact Webb Law Group today at 559-431-4888 (Fresno) or 619-399-7700 (San Diego).