[cogman10]

$50k is going to be on the cheap side for any case that ultimately involves the court. Anytime a case goes to trial, you can easily be looking at $1M+.

There's a reason companies keep lawyers on staff. It's a whole lot cheaper to give a lawyer an annual salary than it is to hire out a lawfirm as the standard rates for law-firms are insanely high. On the low end, $150/hour. On the high end, $400. With things like 15 minute minimums (so that one draft response ends up costing $100).

Take a deposition for 3 hours, with 2 lawyers, that'll be $2400.

Not being able to afford a lawyer is no joke.

[freejazz]

In house counsel aren't doing trials

[cogman10]

Correct, they are handling everything up until the point where you start a trial (including finding the legal firm and spot checking their work).

[freejazz]

Doubt that. There's no point of bringing in a litigator on day 1 of a trial save for the fact they are probably a better public speaker. Whatever needed to get done needed to be done well before trial started.

[cogman10]

Sure there is, if you can send back a strong response to a challenge, a potential litigant may back down ultimately saving money.

On staff legal council is there to be able to make the call when a more expensive firm should be hired and brought in. There's a lot of BS lawsuits, however, that flow through. For example, every software company that gets big enough will likely get sued for some BS patent infringement. Having on staff legal will be able to make the call of "yeah, you should just give them $10k to go away". That's a lot cheaper than hiring a firm to come in and then tell you "Yeah, you should give them $10k to go away".

Particularly for a business, it takes years before any case gets close to going to trial. Plenty of time for your council to make the determination on when bigger guns should be brought in.

[freejazz]

>Sure there is, if you can send back a strong response to a challenge, a potential litigant may back down ultimately saving money.

Do you litigate? Hiring a new attorney to show up day of trial only communicates to the other side that it's clown-city.

>On staff legal council is there to be able to make the call when a more expensive firm should be hired and brought in. There's a lot of BS lawsuits, however, that flow through. For example, every software company that gets big enough will likely get sued for some BS patent infringement. Having on staff legal will be able to make the call of "yeah, you should just give them $10k to go away". That's a lot cheaper than hiring a firm to come in and then tell you "Yeah, you should give them $10k to go away".

Do you litigate? Do you know what's involved to actually get to a trial? Let alone the day of trial? In house is going to take depositions and brief summary judgment? In house is going to prepare the pre trial order? Get proposed jury instructions? Again, do you litigate?

>Particularly for a business, it takes years before any case gets close to going to trial. Plenty of time for your council to make the determination on when bigger guns should be brought in.

You said, in particular, "up until the point where you start a trial."

[cogman10]

> You said, in particular, "up until the point where you start a trial."

That was wrong of me to say.

My intent was more to communicate that there's a lot of legal work before a case gets close to going to trial or even discovery which an in-house attorney can and will handle. Including evaluating if a case needs the big guns called in.

No, I don't litigate.