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Key Points:

1. Know what you specialize in and become a master of that skill.
2. If you do not specialize in something and need assistance in that line of the law, recruit someone who does.

Key Points:

1. Checklists help you organize the thought process, especially in complicated situations.
2. Checklists help you grow and better yourself and your skillset.

Key Points:

1. “Settlement is a beautiful thing.” It requires a lawsuit to be filed.
2. Without a lawsuit, you have nothing more than a breach of agreement.
3. “Shoot first, ask questions later.” Take action.

Key Points:

1. At our firm, we focus on litigation. However, we have a staff member who specializes in corporate compliance. We make a fair assessment of individual liabilities even though you’re doing business as a corporation.

Key Points:

1. “I encourage any client to strongly consider the use of email with your attorney.”
2. Emailing your attorney “provides accountability, clarity, and also, the natural byproduct to this is cost savings for the client.”
3. Emailing “gives some clients time for reflection and to make sure their questions are clear and well worded, as a result, clients are saving money because they are sending better questions in a more well thought out manner.”

Key Points:

1. “We can practice in the State of California in any county and have an assurance that the law is going to be interpreted in a similar fashion regardless of which judge you are in front of.”
2. “When clients come to me and ask ‘Can you handle a matter in another county’ well the fact of the matter is, I am going to handle that matter the same as I would handle a matter in any county because California’s laws are statewide.”
3. “The processes and technology are such that you can have confidence that you are going to be taken care of regardless of which county your matter is in.”

Key Points:

1. “The law is a changing and moving target.”
2. “There is a 60% window…that cases are always between and so I would give my client my best estimate where they are at in that window.”
3. “We will help you make carefully balance decisions that you can afford.”

Key Points:

1. “The challenge with litigation is that there are two sides to the story.”
2. “We do our best to educate and to make sure we have the facts from [clients] in order to dispel any concerns or questions from the beginning of litigation.”
3. “As far as managing costs, we have a team that is bottom heavy, instead of having a litigation firm with a lot of attorneys billing between $200 and $300 an hour, we have a lot of [college graduates] who have have applied for and been accepted into law school, who are almost attorneys, who are billing at usually a fourth of the rate as an attorney.”

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.”

Key Points:

1. “There are risks in both hourly and contingency cases.”
2. “From a plaintiff’s point of view, you can choose to do a hybrid of the two, where the client pays a percentage of our hourly rate and the firm has an interest in the outcome.”
3. “With this approach, there is a mutualistic relationship where the client has a vested interest and the attorney has a vested interest.”

Key Points:

1. A big motivator in lawsuits is expense. Be sure to get value for the attorney’s fees invested.