Dynamite dynamite dynamite. This is the lawyer, James, the dynamite audio program. It is the absolute best audio content by New York Business Attorney in both transactional and litigation practice areas. And it is helpful for all industries. Now here’s today’s episode. One more thing. Before we get started, you can reach me online by visiting my website, the lawyer james.com. The lawyer james.com. The lawyer james.com. You can call me at (212) 500-1891. That’s the office (212) 500-1891 (212) 500-1891. You can contact me by email at James at the lawyer. james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com or by text message at (917) 783-3153. Text message (917) 783-3153 that’s (917) 783-3153.
All right, today, I want to talk to you about, as part of the anatomy of a lawsuit series. I want to talk to you about litigation, risk litigation risk. It’s a very important part of the anatomy of a lawsuit series. Very, very important litigation risk, and it basically stands for the proposition that you can have the law on your side, the facts on your side, you could be complete, right. You think you have a slam dunk in litigation. You think that you’re going to win this business dispute. You’ve got everything going. You’ve got a good lawyer New York Business Attorney. You’ve got the facts, the right facts, a hundred percent. Nobody could every rule in your favor or rather nobody would ever rule against you. You’ve got the law there. It’s all cited and all ready to go and you present it. And guess what you lose. That’s what litigation risk is.
It’s a risk of loss and it’s borne by all parties to the litigation New York Business Attorney. It’s born by the plaintiff. It’s born by the defendant. Every party to a litigation has litigation risk. It’s very, very important to understand. It’s very, very important to know, and you have to respect it and understand it because if you don’t, you’re at a severe, significant and substantial disadvantage. I’m serious. This is big time stuff. And it’s very, very important. And litigation risk is a very, very big driver at settlements is very influential. And it’s a big reason why most of the cases settle because even if they think they have a slam dunk, they still could lose. And the risk of loss could potentially be bigger than the risk that they, uh, that a party would be in. If they settled. You know, when you, when you have settlement, you have certainty when you don’t have a settlement and you have litigation risks, you have uncertainty.
And that sometimes is on bearable for people. Now, there are other parties to a lawsuit who like the risk, who don’t care, who don’t care about the risk of loss, and they’d rather fight bet the farm, figure it out and just fight. You know, some, some parties care, other parties. Don’t and this is why it’s important to define your goals at the outset. What do you want here? Do you want to stay in Bob? Do you want to fight or do you want to just get this behind you, save money and have certainty and move on with your business? It all depends on your goal, but the, the, the important thing here is, is, is litigation risk. And why is there litigation risk? There is litigation risk because people, you know, the courts are controlled by people. Who’s making the decision here. If it’s a judge, then the judge, if it’s the jury, then it’s the jury.
So, but, but the bottom line, the common denominator here is that it’s all done by people. And guess what? People are not infallible. People do make mistakes. People do get it wrong. And while there is that appellate process in the, uh, in the other, in one of my other podcasts episodes that I talked about, it’s still controlled by people I’ve won at the trial level and then taking it up to an intermediate level appeal and one, and then when we’ve handed it over to another attorney to take it to the, to the top level at the appeals, then he lost. So it’s just a real, uh, potential. I hate to use this word crapshoot because I hate to use it because, you know, we want to win of course, but there’s the risk of loss, even if you’re right, that sometimes it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth.
And again, that’s why, uh, the majority of cases, at least in New York Business Attorney settle, and don’t see, uh, the inside of the courtroom. So I’ll give you, I’ll give you a couple of examples here. Now. It’s very common, at least in New York for, for judges to braid their attorneys in their courtroom. Sometimes not all of them. They don’t all do it all the time, but it’s happened before. So I was, I was in front of this one judge one time. And the way that the courtroom is set up is you have your, you know, the benches where people, the bench is probably the wrong word, the, the seats in the gallery, where the general public can sit and watch an attorney sit there. And it’s basically, you know, it’s open to the public and you sit there the rows of, of, um, of dentures, uh, now, and then there’s usually like a, I would say probably waist high wall between that and a set of tables.
And that wall is waist high so that people in the back and see in the front, but there’s a, there’s a little door that you walk through and that that’s the, I, you know, I’m embarrassed. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years. I don’t know the terminology, but you walk in through the door and that half door, whatever it is at New York Business Attorney. And you sit at the tables, there’s a, there’s a plaintiff’s side and there’s a defendant side. Sometimes they’re labeled, sometimes they aren’t. And the reason why plaintiff’s sits on one side and defendant sits on the other is because it makes it easier for the judge to know which side, uh, of the, of the lawsuit, what side of the V we say, what side of the V like the letter V we were on. And, and then there is, uh, some space and then usually a desk where the court reporter sits.
And then, uh, to the right there is the jury box where the jury sets, and then there’s the, the, the judge sits on the bench. It’s, it’s an elevated desk that kind of looks over and presides over the whole courtroom. And, uh, that’s where they wear their robes. And then behind that is the chambers where the, or can be the chambers where the judge sits at his desk in private. And sometimes we have meetings and chambers. Sometimes we have oral argument and chambers. Sometimes we do sort of sidebar stuff. I’m sure you’ve seen that in the movies and on TV shows. And then we have the formal argument where we stand at the tables and we are at the podium depending on the courtroom. And we address the court like that. Now, the reason why I gave you that whole background is I wanted to paint a picture of the judges.
You know, sometimes they come down and sit with us common folk and across from the table, other times they preside over over the, uh, the issues in the courtroom, in their, in their robe. Sometimes they, they sit in the back and invite you back into their desk. It’s, it’s kind of loosey goosey, and it really just depends on what the judge wants to do. So one time we were in there for a conference and typically the judge doesn’t run the conference. Typically it’s a court attorney that runs the conference between the parties and it’s just a status update or whatever it is. But this judge, he was in only got down from the bench and, and had his off. He was just sitting at one of the, at one of the tables and was running the conference. And so I sat at the conference and I, as my adversary attorney was, was next to me and the judge was across and it’s just like sitting, you know, we could reach across and touch each other.
If we wanted to, it, wasn’t a very, very big distance between us. And he said to me, counsel, what section are you seeking relief under? And I told him two sections and he got annoyed. And the courtroom was pretty full packed with a bunch of people behind me. And he said, counselor, what section are you seeking relief under? And I told him again, and he got just more frustrated. And then he opened up his rule book, which was next to him, open it up in his paperback, open it up as big thick paper. You open it up and slammed it on the desk in front of me and said, read that section and then tell me what section you are seeking relief under. So I read the section. I said, judge, I, you know, I don’t know how to say this, but this, I don’t know.
I don’t understand what this section has to do with my lawsuit. He was, let me look at that. And he goes, Oh, I showed you the wrong section. So the reason why I tell that story and I can’t do anything right. I have to respect the judge and the bench and the court. And, you know, we just continued on. But the reason why I say that is because the judge got it wrong there. And he thought he was right. And he was all high and mighty and started kicking and screaming, but he was wrong. And so if they’re wrong, just like any of us can be wrong at, at that level, just, you know, they can be wrong at any other level as well. How you do anything, how you do anything is how you do everything. And, um, I’ll just leave you with another sentiment and thought so, so I was talking to an attorney in Texas that represented this very wealthy family. And I was doing some work for the family in New York Business Attorney. And he said, you know, James, this is what he said. He said, you know, James, I can lose, I can lose the case, just like anybody else can, I can lose a case just like the best of them. And that is due to litigation risks.
You can reach me online by visiting my website, the lawyer, james.com, the lawyer, james.com. The lawyer james.com. You can call me at two one two five zero one eight nine one. That’s the office (212) 500-1891 (212) 500-1891. You can contact me by email at James at the lawyer, james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com or by text message at (917) 783-3153. Text message. (917) 783-3153 that’s (917) 783-3153.