By Robert Nislick
You are in a dispute with someone. They have harmed you and it is time to do something about it. You hire a lawyer. What do want the lawyer to accomplish for you? Maybe it is to get paid money that is owed to you. Maybe you need to prevent further harm from happening to you, or your family, or your business. Maybe a tenant has assaulted another resident in your building.
How aggressive should your lawyer be? How quickly must your lawyer act? How much is at stake?
Every case and every client is unique. Sometimes a problem requires immediate attention and no expense should be spared. A good lawyer will simply have to drop everything, work late into the night, and take care of it. If that is what my client needs, then that is what I will provide.
Other problems, by their nature, take more time to resolve. For example, someone may have caused damage to your property. You may have a viable claim that will result in you receiving a sum of money, some day. The person who harmed you may have insurance, and their carrier may pay your claim. In these cases, I try to get my client as much recovery as possible, as quickly as possible, while spending as little as possible.
Let’s say you have a money judgment against someone and he has just declared bankruptcy. Is all hope lost? Not necessarily. There may be things I can do, and which must be done very quickly, in order to protect your ability to recover at least some portion of your judgment against him.
Maybe you are running up against a statute of limitations and your right to bring any claim will be foreclosed if you don’t act quickly. In that case, I prioritize and make sure you do not lose your right to sue.
In the midst of a lawsuit, I look at things through several different lenses. First, I look at everything I need to do to win, assuming the case gets decided by the court. I may take a very aggressive approach. Sometimes, the other side will simply fold on an issue or on the entire case when they get the papers I serve on them. Yet even in the most contentious cases, I also keep looking for ways to resolve the dispute. I never lose sight settling in the most advantageous way for my clients, and in a way which keeps their costs down.
I am an attorney based in Framingham, Massachusetts. Feel free to contact me today to discuss how I can handle your case for you.