[downandout]

While not all cases go to trial, it is important to know what your chances would be at trial with that particular firm. This is the same metric that the other side will primarily look at when considering the terms of any settlement.

Therefore, I disagree that this post "becomes bullshit" merely because it relies on trial outcomes.

[busterarm]

Having spent the last 12 years of my life wrapped up in a civil trial related to estate law and learned a ton along the way about how lawyers have failed me, I would much rather have known how often a firm's cases go to trial and if not, which way the case went.

It will take _years_ before your case actually goes to trial and you will meet plenty of lawyers along the way if you aren't careful who will happily fuck off with your money. And you'll have to sue them separately to deal with that, if you even have the energy to spare.

Good luck having a full-time job through that mess.

[libertymcateer]

> While not all cases go to trial, it is important to know what your chances would be at trial with that particular firm.

Read above to my last reply.

This is really a poor way to think about law firms.

Is the firm a toxic tort firm? Is it an appellate advocacy firm? Is it maritime law? Is it an intellectual property dispute? A business dispute?

Win percentages are totally meaningless without more information, including client-positive settlement rates.

This metric is totally useless.

[downandout]

>This metric is totally useless.

You honestly believe that an opponent won't take a 90%+ trial win rate into consideration when considering a settlement? All you hear from lawyers pretrial is "our chances at trial are X" and then based on whether X is high or low, they'll make a decision to go to trial or settle.

[rrr298]

"88% trials and arbitrations won": on the front page of Quinn Emanuel's website.

http://www.quinnemanuel.com/#4

[libertymcateer]

> You honestly believe that an opponent won't take a 90%+ trial win rate into consideration when considering a settlement?

First, I'm a 7th year corporate lawyer.

Second, of course I would look at it. However, it would not be dispositive and I would likely discount it super, super highly. I have vastly superior data about the winnability of my case as a result of being the attorney on the case than I would knowing the 'win' ratio of my opponents law firm - which is almost totally irrelevant to the case at hand. Ceteris paribus, bad lawyering loses more cases than good lawyering wins cases. This in mind, the thing to know is whether or not your opponent is a bozo or competent. Regardless of your opponent's competence, you act as if he is at least as smart as you and I would litigate as hard against Ted Olsen as I would someone no one has ever heard of. The controlling factors come down to your client's budget, your opponents budget, the animus they have toward each other and, lastly, the facts.

Additionally, channel checks that I perform on opposition attorneys are far, far more sophisticated than algorithmically computed win rates. Maybe I'd use it as a data point, but the frank reality is that I have far better means at my disposal for judging the merits of a case and the efficacy of my litigation opponents including google, the phone on my desk and my judgment. Law is a very close-knit and reputationally driven profession. I do channel checks on opposing counsel frequently. It is an extraordinarily rare situation where I cannot get a second opinion, from someone who's judgment I trust, on another law firm or another lawyer when I really need one.

Finally, what is missing from this whole consideration is that law suits are not fair fights and they are highly fact and context dependent. Not every game has the same rules, the rules and the facts may be skewed. Does it matter if a particular NFL team is last in the league if they are going to be playing a HS JV team in freeze-tag? Accordingly, it is not like the win ratio of a poker player or a football team. The case itself very often is going to have a huge skew in favor of one opponent or another. If I had a winning case and you told me that my opponents were Abraham Lincoln's Zombie and Scalia's ghost, I'd still fight it.

Let's make an analogy: Let's look at batting averages as a predictor of general sports ability. But instead of confining the batting averages to major league players and major league pitchers, let's make it the life-time batting average of every American over the age of 18, for every game of stick-ball, alley-ball and beer league softball they have ever played in their lives, referreed or not, as a predictor of their ability to play "sports" generally, regardless of their age.

I think that is a fairer analogy to the 'win' ratio for trial dispositions.

[rrr298]

Do they mention win percentages? I read the post to suggest that ratios/percentages were too simplistic a measure