How We Choose Cases
For a number of reasons, we don’t take every case that comes in. Some cases shouldn’t be pursued, and those we quickly decline.
The cases we choose to take vary, but they share some things in common:
• You and your situation are the most important thing—We base a lot of our decision on you and your situation. Until we have a chance to hear about your situation, there’s no way of predicting whether we think we can help you.
• We represent people and the occasional small business—Sorry Microsoft, we’re not for hire. With very rare exceptions, we limit ourselves to representing people who make claims, also known as the plaintiff.
• We take cases that are in areas we understand—You wouldn’t want a doctor who specializes in treatment of skin diseases to operate on your heart. Neither do we. We limit ourselves to cases in the areas we know and understand.
• Our usual areas of practice—injury, employment, civil rights, class actions, environmental, child abuse and neglect, and consumer matters. But even in those areas there are some kinds of cases we will handle and some we will not.
• We handle cases in which we have a chance to make a difference—Some problems can’t be helped or solved by the courts. If we believe that we can’t make a difference, we won’t go forward.
• We don’t take a case if it will spread us too thin—Your lawyer should be present and available for you. Taking too many cases means we won’t honor our commitments to our existing clients. For that reason, we often refuse cases that we would otherwise take.
• There’s only one way to know whether we will consider your case—Feel free to contact us by phone or email for information to see if we can assist you. We do not charge you for our time when we consider whether we will take your case.