The mandatory settlement conference (MSC) is your next to last chance at a formal settlement negotiation (you might get ordered to a day of the trial settlement conference.) The Court usually schedules the MSC to occur about three weeks before trial. This means that sometimes costly expert depositions will still not have been taken, which is a smaller case that can make...
Continue ReadingYou’re riding along, feeling great, and all of a sudden a car pulls out from a parking place in front of you and knocks you over. You’re hurt. Badly. What do you do? First of all, take care of yourself. Summon an ambulance and go to the ER or urgent care. Also, make sure the police come to the...
Continue ReadingI represent people severely injured in accidents. My core mission is to get them as much money as possible to help compensate for their loss. But along the way, I develop relationships with my clients. Sometimes the relationship remains very businesslike– “get my case settled for fair value as fast as possible.” I try to do this. Unfortunately, the...
Continue ReadingSuppose you suffered injuries in an accident that was someone else’s fault. In that case, you might be wondering how you will cover your medical expenses before your personal injury case settles. It is actually fairly common for providers to give medical treatment pursuant to a lien. This means that they provide treatment, and you promise to pay them...
Continue ReadingI recently presented at a local law school about a great program run by the Diversity Committee of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers’ Association (SFTLA) aimed at bringing diverse young lawyers into the plaintiff bar. I was speaking to students who were mostly in the 22-26 age range. One of them asked me about the effect of “tort reform”...
Continue ReadingIt was just another Saturday at the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Lawyer Advice and Referral Clinic (LARC) in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. I’ve been volunteering at LARC for 21 years. I call it “bite size pro bono” because you don’t take on clients for representation– you simply try to answer their questions or refer them to...
Continue ReadingPlaintiff Magazine Article How To Decide Whether To Take On These Challenging Cases, And A Game Plan For When You Do If your practice is like mine, you get calls from prospective clients who have been assaulted by someone. If it’s simply a case of “some guy attacked me in the street,” the case probably has no recoverable damages. I do not spend much...
Continue ReadingBy Chuck Geerhart One of the most common calls we receive at the Law Office of Chuck Geerhart is about assault. Often, a person has been suddenly assaulted in the street. Or by someone in the home. Or by a landlord, a bar bouncer, or another bar patron. Are these types of cases worth pursuing? The answer is, “It...
Continue ReadingMost people have heard of the sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America. Those cases involve negligent failure by the organization to detect aberrant behavior by priests or scoutmasters. On a negligence theory, the plaintiff has to show facts that would place a reasonable employer on notice that it has a situation that...
Continue ReadingIn days of old, people found lawyers through family or friends, by word of mouth. In the internet age, when people are hurt by someone else, they head for the internet. This can be a very bad way to find a lawyer. Sure, there are some fine lawyers, including us, with websites findable on the net. But how do...
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