← Back to context

Comment by dolebirchwood

10 hours ago

90% of litigation is pressuring a settlement.

> 90% of litigation is pressuring a settlement.

90% of legal work where there is a plaintiff and defendant is pressuring a settlement. My wife, an attorney, does not consider that to be "litigation".

  • As a former litigator, I would consider that to be litigation the moment a complaint is filed in court, regardless of whether the dispute is settled without trial.

    But, for your sake, it's probably best that you accept your wife's definition.

And most of the leverage you have in negotiating a settlement is by referencing prior case law. If something is novel, there's too much variance to get a good settlement.

  • No, most of the leverage you have is how much time and money is on your side vs. the opposing party.

    • Money doesn't mean anything if you don't have a case to begin with. More money/time just makes the lawyers win because they end up siphoning most of the settlement. And more money with crappy lawyers will always lose to less money on smart lawyers who are able to use AI to find 100 examples of prior cases going your way. That's the whole point of AI disrupting the field.