Has Your Lawyer Actually Tried a Case Before?

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After an accident, minutes matter. Your words and actions matter even more. You need help and you need it now. This is David vs. Goliath brought to you by Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, a boutique firm with a reputation for going head to head with the insurance company giants and putting people over profits. Thanks for joining us. This is an episode from our back catalog. So the episode numbers and firm name may have changed, but this is quality information. So instead of scrapping them, we decided it was more important to make sure you still had access. Enjoy the episode and listen into new episodes of David vs. Goliath at dolmanlaw.com.

Matt Dolman:

Welcome to another episode of Dolman Law Group Podcast. This is going to be a unique episode. So my partner in crime, Stan Gipe, he's a partner here at the office and he's a board certified civil trial lawyer, which is a bit rare for attorneys. And we're going to get into that. But what I want to do is interview you and discuss with the listeners out there so they can hear what is trial like? I get a lot of cases that come in and the clients ask, is this case going to go to court? Do I have to worry about this case going to trial? And I don't think they realize how rare trials are and that you try a disproportionate amount of cases because a lot of our cases come to us from other lawyers. But let's take a look at how rare are these cases and what does it mean to be board certified?

Stan Gipe:

Well, first of all, you kind of hit one thing on the head, board certification. Okay. In this area, especially you can see a lot of attorney advertising. You see some smokes, mirrors, cards, phone, you see all different kinds of ads. I can promise you if the attorney that's on that ad isn't telling you he's board certified, he's not. Because that is the one badge we wear with some-

Matt Dolman:

Which is why I love Jack Gordon's commercials. Another really, really, really good trial lawyer in the Tampa area. He's not about flash. He's a real trial lawyer. It's filmed almost in black and white and he's sitting there with a light on the stage. And it's just Jack explaining, is your lawyer board certified. They know how to try an actual case.

Stan Gipe:

And it shocks me that we get into this and you can look out there. There are people with 20, 30, 40 billboards, commercials, things like that. Never tried a case.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah.

Stan Gipe:

Okay. And from looking at their ads, their clients would be shocked because they think, hey, I see this ad, I'm going to get that courtroom bulldog. The one that everyone's waiting on the courthouse steps, throwing cards at them when they walk out where... I want that guy, I see it on TV. Well the Florida Bar regulates attorneys. And they're the ones who say all right, if you want to say you're a specialist, you want to say you're an expert, we will give you a way to do that. We'll give you a way to become board certified as a civil trial specialist.

Matt Dolman:

It's a rigorous process. It's not something that simple.

Stan Gipe:

It's a very rigorous process. And it's so rigorous that less than 5% of the attorneys doing this work are actually board certified.

Matt Dolman:

In different disciplines and less than 2% are board certified as civil trial lawyers.

Stan Gipe:

Correct.

Matt Dolman:

1.3% of them.

Stan Gipe:

Correct. Now, so you look at it for all of those billboards, all those ads, all those, everything. Most of those people, aren't certified, aren't legally allowed to tell you they're an expert in civil trial. A lot of those people aren't certified and many of them haven't even tried a case at all.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. They;ve never taken one case, a jury. And I've tried a number of cases. I've never been board certified. Not at the level Stan is. I can work a case from soup to nuts. I'm a litigator, but Stan, it's a unique skill set. It's a unique discipline and the Florida Bar has deemed you as an expert in that skillset.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah. What happens is you've got to get a certain number of case trials under your belt, both solo and second chair. Once you've got enough trials, you can then apply to take the test.

Matt Dolman:

And what second chair is for those who don't understand, there's lead counsel, that's a lead trial, attorney's doing the majority of the trial work and there's sometimes a second, third chair. Those are other lawyers who are assisting that lead attorney. Sometimes these cases take more than a week. Sometimes voluminous experts that are involved and you cut off some of the work so that you can get some assistance on that.

Stan Gipe:

Exactly. Sometimes you have more than one attorney involved, but you need a certain number of trials. The next thing you need is you got to take the test and they also have to interview attorneys you've tried cases against.

Matt Dolman:

And a judge.

Stan Gipe:

And a judge.

Matt Dolman:

Left that part out, the judge has to say you're in good standing and an expert as a trial lawyer that you've shown you demonstrate a certain skillset.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah. Basically the people, again, that you've tried cases against and in front of have to say he knows what he's doing. He is a legit good trial attorney. Then you have to take the exam, pass that, have the correct number of trials under your belt. And at that point in time, you can call yourself a board certified specialist in the state of Florida. So I can do that now. I've jumped through all the hoops, but-

Matt Dolman:

Which makes it rare.

Stan Gipe:

And I'll tell you, but most consumers coming to an attorney, don't realize that there's a difference, that there's a certification. And every consumer that comes to an injury attorney, I can promise you when they walk through that injury attorney's door and they're putting their faith in that attorney, when they're expecting that attorney to take their one shot to get them compensation, they're assuming their attorney is just as qualified as every other attorney out there. They're assuming they've got one of those specialists.

Matt Dolman:

And that's what makes it very scary. There is a difference between having a bite and having a bark with no bite behind it. If you don't try enough cases or you don't have a history of actually trying cases as a law firm, or as an individual lawyer, the insurance company does not see it as a major risk. Insurance is just risk management. It's risk assessment. Now there's a risk inherent in the fact that you could be the world's worst trial lawyer, which clearly you're not. But the world's worst trial lawyer is still scarier to the insurance company than someone who's never, ever tried a case and will not try the case based on the fact that the insurance company hates to do one thing, which is spend money. You make them take the case all the way to the MAT, all the way trial. They got to hire experts. They have to spend money on demonstrative aids, as well as a trial lawyer they're hiring to go litigate the case.

Stan Gipe:

Matt, this is the same thing that's happening in third grade, but we didn't realize it. There's been bullies everywhere.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. Of course.

Stan Gipe:

Once you get to your adult life, the insurance companies are the bullies. And it's not a physical bully, it's a financial bully. Because when we're talking about claims, it's all about finances. They are the financial bully in the room.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

And just like third grade that bully's going to pick on the kid who never punches him, just like it. It's still the exact same thing. Those insurance companies are going to financially pick on the people who never punch them. They never have to pay when they mess with these people because they never tried the cases.

Matt Dolman:

Even if you lose to a bully, when you're younger, they still realize you're willing to fight back and they're picking on the individual who's not going to do anything at all. And that's how the insurance companies are. They're not going to pick on the lawyer as much. Now we still are going to receive our poor offers. Insurance companies are still going to act unreasonable to everyone. Even the best trial lawyer can only try so many cases in a given year. If insurance companies did the right thing, neither of us would have a job. But having said that though, the offers to lawyers who try cases to law firms that have a history of trying cases, it's disproportionate to the lawyers who do not. It's commensurate with your skills, it's commensurate with your qualifications, it's commensurate with your track record of taking cases to the MAT Stan.

Stan Gipe:

It absolutely is because at some point in time, and every case, there will be an endpoint where the insurance company has offered as much as they're going to offer.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

And that insurance company, when they're looking at it, they're not looking at it based on this poor person, what do they deserve? They're looking at it on an actuarial standpoint. What are the possible outcomes?. Am I likely to have to pay a lot more?. And if they know they're not going to first that offer isn't their highest offer.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

Because they want to save their money. There's no reason to spend all that money if they can get you out of the water cheaper.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

And at the end of the day, when you're getting consulted from your attorney, and I've had clients say this from cases that we've picked up recently even, like call me and say, man, I couldn't figure out why the attorney was telling me this. It didn't even seem right. And it's because your attorney's scared of your claim.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. Scared of taking it to the MAT.

Stan Gipe:

The attorney-

Matt Dolman:

They're not confident in their case.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah. They're scared of the claim and it's not necessarily confident in the case. They're not confident in themselves.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

It's not the case. They're not confident in their own ability to get in front of a jury, try this case and show a jury what it's worth. Because you know what, no matter what you do in front of a jury, you may lose. It's like anything else, you're not going to win every case you try By any means.

Matt Dolman:

And we're not Cowboys. We're not taking case to trial unless, it's almost a last resort.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah. Oh the best case is the one you can get settled quickly and fairly for your client. That is the best case. If my client can come through the door in a month, I can turn around and put a check in their pocket that fairly compensates them for what happened. That's the absolute best case. Doesn't happen most of the time though.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. The cases we're trying are usually the most complicated, there's a question of who is liable in the accident or is a real question about damages. And we see completely different than the insurance company. They're going to see it as maybe a preexisting injury that was not truly exacerbated or aggravated by this accident. Or there's been recommendations for future medical care that the insurance company does not see. And they can have an expert that comes in and says not necessary.

Stan Gipe:

Absolutely. I would say one of the main driving catalysts for trials right now, the accident happened less than 15 miles an hour.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah.

Stan Gipe:

Okay. That's all the insurance company knows. That's all they're going to say. This is a low impact accident. I'm going to show the jury pictures, this property damage and convince them this person never could have been injured.

Matt Dolman:

No, those are no ones minor impacts soft tissue cases, missed cases. And insurance companies have specific units that try those cases over and over again. So it's lather, rinse, repeat. 78% of these cases end up in defense verdicts. They have the same formula they use over and over again. I mean being defense lawyer, and it's not taking a shot at defense lawyers. There's some very good ones out there, but it's a lot easier than being a plaintiff lawyer. You're throwing mud at them.

Stan Gipe:

I'm telling you, go back to third grade, man. Back when we were in the sandbox, it's always been easier to tear it down than it was to build it.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

As plaintiff attorneys, we got to build the case. We've got the burden of proof. We got to convince the jury we're right. The defense doesn't have to convince the jury that they're right. The defense doesn't have to convince the jury, even that we are wrong. All the defense has to do is get out there and say, convince a jury that you're not quite sure that we are right, because we carry the burden and that's what they do. Let's make the water muddy. Let's do this. Let's make it questionable. Look, I know this was a small impact, but 10 years ago, this lady treated for back pain. And really what we're dealing with is a reemergence of the 10 year old pain, unrelated to the recent auto accident.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. It's always unrelated.

Stan Gipe:

I can't tell you. In almost every CME case we're getting right now, it's a sprain strain type of injury where reasonable course of treatment would be three to four months of soft tissue treatment. Beyond that, there's no reason for additional treatment and any treatment pain or otherwise related information is unrelated to the accident at issue.

Matt Dolman:

Sure. See it over and over again.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah.

Matt Dolman:

It's the same tried and true formula. And they hire the same experts who will say the same things. And if they didn't, they wouldn't be hired by the insurance company.

Stan Gipe:

So let's take it through stage by stage. What happens? Someone comes in into the office. We get them to doctors. We get them set up. We document what's wrong. And once we get all that done, we do, what's going to send a demand to the insurance company. We believe this case is worth a lot of money. Please give us a lot of money for it. We send out that demand and the insurance company either says yes or no, or comes back with an offer. I can promise you when they're looking at that offer. When that very first stage they're looking at the nature of the impact, the nature of the client. Look is this a client with 20 felonies in the past. And they're looking at the nature of any potential preexisting injuries.

Matt Dolman:

And they're looking at who the lawyer is.

Stan Gipe:

Well, that's it. That's the other thing. They're looking at who's sending it because they put together the story with the preexisting injuries, all of this. And they go, they've either got a bad claim, an okay claim, or a good claim. And then they look and go, yeah but who's the attorney on it?

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. They're going to look at the track record of that attorney. Does the attorney have a history of leaving money on the table? Do they aggressively litigate their cases? Are they capable? Do they have the aptitude to take a case to trial on the financial resources? And they're going to plug in a tax ID number for the law firm as well. And what is their history?

Stan Gipe:

And they're likely to go, okay. So let's say we do tell this guy to pound sand, what's going to happen?

Matt Dolman:

What is the risk?

Stan Gipe:

Yeah.

Matt Dolman:

What's the worst case scenario?

Stan Gipe:

What's our downside? And that's where the attorney matters. Because if your attorney's never punched him, if your attorney doesn't sue them, there is no downside.

Matt Dolman:

Or if they sue them, but never are willing to try the case, just take it the mediation.

Stan Gipe:

That's a good point because that's the next step. So let's say you send out your demand, you get an offer back it's not a good offer and you have to go to lawsuit. That doesn't mean going to court. Just because your attorney files a lawsuit doesn't mean he's willing to go to court.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah.

Stan Gipe:

A lot of cases get filed. And I would say probably for every 50 lawsuits we filed may get one trial.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah. We file tons of lawsuits. I mean, we litigate, we have a very active litigation practice, but very few of these cases go to trial.

Stan Gipe:

Absolutely. But that's the next stage is filing the lawsuit, going into litigation. That's where you start the path towards trial. And that's where the rubber meets the road. We got to start spending more money. We got to retain experts. We got to do all this stuff. And as a consumer, you don't see that side of it. As a consumer, what you're going to see is here's the offer and here's what I think my case is worth. The attorney's probably not going to tell you, I'm a little scared of this insurance company and don't want to try it. So why don't you take that money? He's going to come up with some different explanation.

Matt Dolman:

Yeah, excuses.

Stan Gipe:

But it's not going to be that he doesn't want to take it to court. He's not going to say that.

Matt Dolman:

No, but excuses only serve the individual making them. And a lot of times it's very self-serving and they're leaving money on the table. Remember we're not cowboys. So we're not just going to try a case where our client has serious financial exposure and the juice isn't worth the squeeze. In other words, if our client's collectable and the offer is not so grossly disproportionate to reality, we might have a different consideration. And if our client is not collectable, they don't have the ability to ever pay anything out. They don't mind taking the risk that we have explained to them. And there's a real damage to go after.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah. Our clients, when they come through the door, most of them are just looking to be fairly compensated as quickly as possible.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

And we try to do that. We try to do it as best we can, as quick as we can, because nothing makes me happier than seeing a client be able to get the money quick, go on with their life because all right, you get an accident, you lose your job, you have all this stuff going on. Well, if you've got to go to trial, we got to take it to court. It's going to be a couple years before you get that money.

Matt Dolman:

Correct.

Stan Gipe:

Okay. Who's paying your bills in the meantime, who's doing all this stuff. I mean, we do it. People have to do it, but man, how much better off would it be for that person if three months after the accident we could put a check in their pocket, they're not suffering for two years while they wait out?

Matt Dolman:

Exactly.

Stan Gipe:

Okay. And that's the difference. When you have a board certified civil trial attorney, you don't always have to push it out two years. You don't have to drag it out that far because the insurance company see them thinking, we know these guys will do it.

Matt Dolman:

And we can't make any guarantees. Every case is different. Every case has its own criteria. What I can assure you is if you look at hundreds of cases, you take a large sample size. The offers are going to be better with a law firm that has a history of litigating cases with a lawyer that has a history of trying cases.

Stan Gipe:

Absolutely. And just so you know, the bar makes it illegal for us to say that we are better than another attorney. So you won't hear us say we are better. And it's also illegal for us to promise any specific result. If those things weren't illegal, we probably would be able to say a lot more and probably would say more, but we can't. Our hands are tied.

Matt Dolman:

Now I'll just leave it, to you got to be careful in the lawyer, a law firm, you pick and you want to pick a firm and a lawyer or lawyers that have a history and a track record of litigating cases successfully before the local courts.

Stan Gipe:

And I will tell you, even if you've made a decision, you've gone with an attorney that's not board certified and you think it may be time to switch, you can always do that. You can always call us for a consultation. If you're worried that you may not have an attorney that's board certified, or you feel like the attorney you got just doesn't want to take the case to trial, dragging the feet, doesn't want to be aggressive with this. Look, feel free. Give us a call. We'll do a consult. We can't give you legal advice when you're represented by someone else. But we can give you a consult about the claim. A lot of times people may find after a consult that the attorney they've got is doing the same thing most all attorneys would do. They just didn't understand why.

Matt Dolman:

We've done that many times. You send a case back to the attorney and say, there's nothing wrong with what they're doing.

Stan Gipe:

Yeah, absolutely. So you can consult with us at any time, board certified civil trial attorney. There's not a lot of us sitting around, but we're at your disposal. So if you need us for anything at any time.

Matt Dolman:

Yep. If you need to get ahold of us phone number's 833-55-crash-24-7. You can always drop us a line. You can email me at matt, M-A-T-T @dolmanlaw.com. D like in David O-L-M-A-Nlaw.com and that's also our website, dolmanlaw.com. It's been another outstanding episode with you Stan of the Dolman Law Group Podcast. Thank you very much. And have a blessed day.

Stan Gipe:

Always enjoy it.

Matt Dolman:

Yes, sir.

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