How Million-Dollar Cases Are Actually Built

Million-dollar cases don’t just happen—they’re built.

In this episode of Trial & Error, Attorney Donte Mills breaks down what really separates a $50,000 case from a $2.5 million result. It’s not luck. It’s not just the injury. It’s strategy.

From the first 48 hours of a case to uncovering hidden insurance coverage, to building damages that actually move juries—this episode pulls back the curtain on how elite trial lawyers create leverage and force real outcomes.

If you’ve ever wondered why some cases settle for life-changing money while others fall flat, this is the playbook.

This isn’t theory. This is how cases are won.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Why most lawyers leave money on the table
• The critical mistakes made in the first 48 hours
• How to identify all available insurance coverage
• The difference between medical bills and real damages
• Why insurance companies pay more when trial is real

WHO THIS IS FOR

• Anyone injured in an accident
• Lawyers looking to level up their case strategy
• People who want to understand how the legal system really works

If you or someone you know has a serious injury case, choosing the right lawyer makes all the difference.

Follow, subscribe, and stay locked in—because we don’t just talk about law… we talk about winning.

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• Real-life decision making

Trial and Error with Donte Mills

Turn experience into advantage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Million dollar cases aren't just found. They're built. But not every attorney knows how to build them. So when you hear about a multi-million dollar case, we have a lot of them. But just understand it didn't just happen. It was built step by step by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. And if your lawyer isn't building your case, they're leaving money on the table. Trial and error, this is episode five. We're going to be talking about turning cases into million-dollar cases. I uh was speaking to someone uh before, um and they were asking about some of the verdicts that we got over the years. Uh and it always feels good when you walk out of the courtroom uh after a jury just told you that uh you have a seven-figure verdict, that your client is going to recover a substantial amount of money. But that doesn't mean that their case started out that way. I think most times juries get it right, but there's a difference when you talk about the value of a case, uh and the jury saying, Yes, this person uh should recover or not, that that can be maybe consistent. I think there's things that you can do, and we'll talk about that to make sure that you're holding the other person responsible. But a bigger part of that, and I think where the bigger gap is, and how effective an attorney is or not, especially when it comes to a particular case, a particular trial, is how they can convey the damages. Because if a jury doesn't feel the pain that someone went through, feel that experience that somebody had, they're not going to compensate them for it. I tell a jury all the time in jury selection, I say, you know, if uh my client uh could at the end of this, you know, come to you and I say on their behalf that if you believe the defendant was responsible for this accident, could you put my client back into the condition they were in before this accident happened? Can you take away the pain they went through, uh any broken bones or disformities, disabilities they may have? Can you remove that if you feel like the defendant actually caused this accident and it wasn't my client's fault? They would love to do that. My clients would love to do that. That's the preference, but it's impossible. Whether it's you know God's will or whoever you believe in as your higher power, it's impossible to take back someone's experience. They have to live with that, right? And they're gonna live with that most times the rest of their life. And I tell the jury that I'm gonna ask them at the end of the case to compensate my client with money and a lot of money based on what the experiences they went through. Now I'll tell you that generally I say that because I don't I'm not taking cases to trial that aren't worth a substantial amount of money. Um, so I know that when I do say that to a jury, I mean it. But I also say that I'm gonna show them why. Uh a reasonable amount would be a large amount, and it's my job to make the jury understand what my client went through, what experience they had that turns this from a small case to a big case. I talked to the jury also about um injuries, and I say, imagine two people where one person, you know, both people had the same exact injury, a broken finger. We'll use that because it's easy to talk about. Let's say two people had a broken finger, same finger, same fracture, same recovery. One person is a singer. I can't sing, but but so it's not me, it's somebody else. Uh one person with that broken finger is a singer. The other person with that broken finger is a piano player. They have the same exact injury. It could have been injured the same exact way. And yes, I'm gonna ask them to hold that person responsible, but I think you see where I'm going and you understand that the impact of a broken finger with a singer is going to be much different than the impact of a broken finger on a piano player. The singer can go about their business. Yes, it's this pain that they experience. Yes, there's difficulty that they may have through the surgical procedure or whatever it is. Um, there's gonna be some things that they can't do as far as maneuvering, they may not be able to carry things and do lift lift heavy things for a while. And that's significant. But a piano player, their career, their entire career may be over. Their way of feeding their family may be gone. Where a singer, they'll be able to continue to sing even with their broken finger, but a piano player, they may never be able to make money again playing the piano. And if they've dedicated their entire life to that, and that's taken away from them, there's value there. That, in my opinion, would be a million-dollar case. If I trained my entire life to be a piano player, and I'm playing at gigs, I'm making money, I'm traveling, I'm living my dream, I'm providing for my family. And somebody does something to me, something that could have been prevented. They did something they shouldn't have done or didn't do something they should have done, and now I can no longer play the piano. My life is completely different. That's a substantial injury. So, my job, when I go into trial, and it starts way before trial, but you prepare every case as if you're going to trial, because you're gonna end up having the same conversations with the other side's attorneys, with the adjusters, the insurance adjusters, with the judge that's assigned to your case. The conversation is gonna be the same throughout. And it's gonna be controlling that narrative so that you can maximize damages and say this person's life has been impacted to a degree that you cannot imagine. And because of that, I'm gonna ask you at the end of this case to compensate my client with a substantial amount of money. But that substantial amount of money is going to be fair and reasonable based on what they went through. And if I started that groundwork at the beginning of this case, if I looked at the three things that's associated with uh any singular case, as we'll talk to in a sec, we'll talk through in a second, then I've done my job. I've I've put my client in a position that I've uh understood what they went through and conveyed that to the people that's going to make a very, very important decision in their case. And that's how you get to seven figures. That's how you get a million-dollar verdict. So let's talk about, just break down the three things that go into every single case. There's three separate topics for every case that you talk about throughout. It's liability, damages, and available money. We'll start with available money, that's generally the insurance policy. I'm in a position that I don't prefer. Um, and very rarely will I sue someone directly. I think accidents happen, especially if you're talking about an accident or something that wasn't done intentionally. Accidents happen, that's what you have insurance for. And I strongly uh disagree that let's say you're driving, even if you're not paying attention, you cause an accident, it could be tragic. But I don't think you should lose your home for that. I wouldn't be the one lining up to just um go after somebody personally and try and take everything away from them because of an accident. Accidents happen. But that's why we have insurance, that's why we have the legal system. Because if it does happen, you are wrong, you are supposed to be held responsible. But for the most part, we're talking about insurance money. Um, money that you have through coverage, insurance coverage. So if somebody falls at your house or your business, it's covered by insurance. You're supposed to have a policy, and the size of that policy is going to dictate a lot the approach to a particular case. You do have to factor that in mind when you're building your case out because if the policy is small, there's some states that have a minimal policy in automobile cases, for example, of $15,000. It's floored, that's very small. If I have a case with an insurance policy of $15,000, I'm trying to get in there, convince the insurance adjuster immediately in the first couple of days, first couple of weeks, that this is a case that should be settled. And I'm trying to get them whatever medical records they need to get me that full policy, because what I don't want to do is spend all of that money going after that money. You have to understand it takes money to build up these cases. So if I'm buying medical, if I'm paying for medical records that for my client, if I'm bringing in a medical expert, if I'm hiring an accident reconstructionist, you know, if it's a car accident, if I'm going out sending an investigator to uh canvas the area for video and witness statements and and all of that, that's going to cost money and it's going to add up. It wouldn't be fair for me or right for me if I spend $10,000 doing that and it's only a $15,000 policy. Because that money has to be paid back. So what I'm doing is I'm taking that money away from my client. So one of the first steps I do when I look at a case or when we're doing an intake is I want to dig and find out what money is available. That includes me pulling the insurance policies of the person that was in the accident or the person that caused the accident, the person on the other side. I'm looking for automobile insurance policies, homeowner policies, umbrella policies. There's a lot of policies that can come into effect. A lot of people don't really know where to look. This came up the other day, too. I was talking about there was a case where there was an intentional act. Somebody got into a fight and they uh assaulted someone. Uh they were outside, outside of their home, they were just on the street, got into an altercation, they assaulted someone, and that person was looking to sue. And the lawyer I was talking to didn't know that homeowners insurance covers that. If you have homeowners insurance and you go out and get into a fight, and even if you hit somebody, for the most part, generally those homeowners insurance uh policies they cover that, even though it's an intentional act. And this lawyer tried to argue me down that that's not right, and I told him uh it is right, and in fact, I've recovered a lot of money from my clients over the years from homeowners insurance policies where they've assaulted someone. So this lawyer was obviously leaving money on the table. There were people who came to that lawyer asking for help, saying, I was assaulted somebody by someone and they told him, Oh, there's no money that you can get. Or may have found a smaller policy or something like that and didn't bother to go after the homeowner's insurance policy. Imagine that. Imagine the money they left on the table and the injustice they did for their client because they didn't know where to look. So the first thing you have to do when you are doing an intake, you you get the information about who the other side is and then you get your investigators to work. You have to find what money is available because, again, that's going to dictate your approach. If you see the policy is substantial, whether it's $500,000, a million dollars, five million dollars, it may could be an umbrella policy for $10 million. If you're talking about trucking accidents, they generally have larger policies than some umbrella policies. If it's a company or building that they fell at, uh most building policies are a million dollars, but some have that uh increased amount. You find that. Find the money, and that will dictate how you proceed with the rest of the case. And again, that's only fair for your client. I'm not in this business to make money for investigators or or or anyone else. Experts. I use them to enhance my case, not to take away from it. So I'm not gonna give all of that money to an investigator on a case and leave my client with nothing. That doesn't make any sense. It's also not fair to them. So that's the first step, finding out what's available so I can dictate or indicate what percentage of that I'm willing to spend to make sure that we have everything necessary for a case. There's even some law firms that just say, oh, you know, we're we're big, we can afford to spend money on every case. That's stupid, that makes no sense. You don't want to spend there's no reason to spend money on every case. You have to be selective. If your client isn't getting that individual assessment, you're doing something wrong. Yes, you could have billboards and do this and that, and and and and claim that you're just gonna put money into every single case that you have to make it bigger, but if there's no policy there to justify that, and you're taking that money away from your clients at the end, you're doing them a disservice. You're just making your um vendors rich. And that's not what this is supposed to be about. Yes, you keep good relationships because you want people that's gonna show up and do the right thing and top of the line folks, but not at the expense of your client. As an attorney, your client is your number one priority, you're their advocate, so everything you do should be to make their situation better, and spending all their money is not one way to do that. Um, you have to understand in personal injury cases, uh, the client, at least our clients, we don't ask them for any money out of pocket. They don't have to give us any money out of their pocket. Most times when they come to us, they're in a bad situation. A lot of them can't work because they're hurt or have injuries that you know they're limited they're limited with, or you know, there's there's gonna be an impact to them where the last thing they need to be doing is paying out of pocket to get justice. So we don't require that. We're gonna front everything. Um, if we believe in your case, if we take your case, um, then that means we're gonna do what's required to make sure we maximize it. And if it calls for spending money, we're gonna spend that money, but we add that to the claim. And when that money is paid out at the end, it covers those expenses. We're gonna be transparent and always tell you the truth, always be honest with that, because I think everybody deserves that. So, yes, we are going to front the money for the cost of the litigation, but that gets paid at the end from the settlement. So we're paying that first at the end, and then there's nothing left for the client, that's not a situation you want to end up in. So the three things that we talked about liability, damages, and money available, that's one of the first things you do. Find the money available because that's going to dictate how you approach the case. The other two things we can talk about. First one is liability, that's who's responsible for the accident. That's the one thing that as an attorney I don't really have control over. Um if somebody ran a red light, they ran a red light. I can't turn change that light to green, even if it's my client. Uh so how the accident happened is going to be set for the most part. I'm certainly not going to manufacture some nonsense story because it's not going to be believed. So I'm not going to approach a case that way, knowing that I'm I'm the narrative that I'm creating just doesn't line up with the facts because at the end it's going to come back to bite me. I'm not going to go through a case saying that my client had the right of way when I know they didn't. Where there could be a video out there that shows that my client didn't, that in fact my client ran the red light. Now, there's some avenues that you can argue about speed, and if somebody was doing something else that they shouldn't have been doing, yes, you can find ways to bring that out, and we'll talk about that in a second. But for the most part, liability or who's responsible for the accident is going to be set based on how the accident happened. Our job in that situation is to flush out the proof of that. So it doesn't come down to a he say she said. If it's a car accident case, I'm can't, like I said, I and I know the money is there. I'm sending out my investigators to Canvas for uh cameras, any witnesses that were there that can come in and verify yes, this car had the light, the green light. And then this car came from the side, was making a turn, and side-swiped them, or whatever it is. You want to find evidence that's gonna back up what happened, even if you are limited to actually what happened. As an attorney, you can go that extra mile, take that extra step, bringing the people you need necessary to back up that it happened that way. If you're talking about, let's say, a slip or fall or something in the in a store, you have to do, make sure you pull the cameras again, find witnesses. Um, any prior accidents, you got to pull the procedures for the place. If they have somebody that's uh their job it is, is to mop up, you have to take that person's deposition because you got to know the practice that they use. How are they notified that there's a wet floor? Is there a time frame that they must address that wet floor in? Because listen, even if we're talking about a slip and fall on a wet floor, if I spill my water and then a second later somebody comes by and slips, the owner of the establishment is not responsible for that because there's no expectation that they're just gonna be walking around catching water or like immediately wiping up the floor if somebody spills something on it. So in that situation, I have to prove that either I had to bring proof that that slippery condition existed for a certain period of time, and they knew about it and didn't address it, or that it existed for a per a certain period of time and they should have known about it. Those are the standards that we use when we talk about liability or who's responsible for these accidents. I said even earlier here, just because naturally this and that's how I think in these situations, you're looking for something that somebody did that they should not have done, or something they didn't do that they should have done. So if someone comes up and they mops, they they they mop the floor in the course of their procedure, but they didn't put wet signs down, then they leave the area. You come up not knowing that they just mopped because it's a wet floor that you can't really see. It's wet, there's no signs, there's no cones, and you slip, it's their responsibility. Because they mopped the floor and didn't notify the people around it that the floor was going to be wet and dangerous. That's an example of something they did they should not have done. Mopped the floor and left that wet condition without any notice or warning for anybody else. An example of something that you should have done and didn't, is if somebody spills something on the floor, say 10, 15 minutes go past, and somebody comes to you and says, Oh, uh, you know, in lane seven, I, you know, I spilled some, I dropped a thing of dish soap, it spilled, I apologize. If you go tell somebody at the at the the the location at say the supermarket or something, and they don't do anything about it, and somebody call comes and slips on that because they can't see that it's wet, that's their responsibility. They didn't go secure that area and make it reasonably safe when they should have. Or even if nobody tells them, but a half an hour goes by, an hour goes by, and that's that's that's slip, but that that that slippery condition still exists. Then you get to talking about things that they should have done that they did not do, and that's have some kind of process or procedure to make sure that their floors are safe. Because if you're operating a market, you understand that things may spill or drop, or or or that a specific area, say by the freezers or something, may be slippery, and people keep pulling things out of the freezer, some ice that melts and it's a recurrent condition, then you should have somebody on deck every now and again going to clean up that condition. You know a hazardous condition is being created over and over again. If you allow that to happen without putting the proper procedures in place, then you're going to be held responsible. And it's my job to dig and look for that stuff. I have to find out how often somebody cleans a specific area, how often they have issues with this area. And there's ways that you can look for that. I had a case, it was in a supermarket, I won't name the name, but somebody slipped and fell, had a really bad fall. Um, and had in that particular case, I think it was four surgical procedures. Um, just the way that she fell, the the the fracture had she was it was a really bad injury about four surgical procedures, and it was in the like freezer area, it was a walk in freezer where you can. Walk in and get things from that freezer area. And they put up a defense. They said, Listen, we didn't know it was hazardous. But I sent somebody out there and I had somebody, one of my investigators, go and look at not only that area, but I said, just take a look at that entire room. Just do a scan and see if there's anything out of place, anything that sticks out. And he noted that on the side of the room, not where she fell, but on the side, there was rust on the drain. That was the indication to me that there's consistently water in that area sitting. And I was able to use that because we had pictures of that. I brought in an expert to talk about, and once I saw those pictures, I sent that expert in to show that the slope of the floor, the way it drained, the water that was coming from uh one of the freezer lines was constantly dripping. And where it drained and the way it drained was just sitting on the floor was proof that this condition existed for a long time. It wasn't something that just happened, it was something that was happening over and over and over again, and we knew that because it created that rust. And I was able to recover for her a substantial verdict. Because it was clear we did that through the investigation. We made it clear that they were responsible for this. There were things that happened they could have prevented, and that's what our legal system is all about. I know that people hear about personal injury cases, uh, and they say, well, you know, I it's a scam, it's frivolous cases, and you know, people sue for nonsense, and any system that you have, there's going to be people who try and take advantage of the system. There's no way to avoid that. There is no perfect system because there's always going to be someone trying to take advantage of it. But just because you bring a lawsuit doesn't mean it's frivolous. Most people who bring lawsuits have legitimate cases. And the beauty of our legal system is just because I bring a lawsuit doesn't mean I'm right. If I bring the lawsuit, I have the burden of proof. I have to prove that the defendant did something they should not have done or didn't do something they should have done. I have to prove that. Not beyond a reasonable doubt, it's a different standard, it's a lower standard in civil court. It's more likely than not. It's more likely than not that they knew this wet condition existed and should have taken steps to fix it. And if they did, my client would not have slipped because that area wouldn't have been wet and she wouldn't have sustained this injury. That's the natural progression in our legal system when you talk about civil cases. We had the right to bring civil cases. If somebody causes you to be hurt, you have the right to sue them. And what's the other alternative? This isn't the wild, wild west where I guess you're like meeting people under the clock tower at noon for a shootout because you think they did something wrong to you. It's not how it works. In our system, you bring a lawsuit. But just because you bring a lawsuit doesn't mean you're right. The other side has the ability and the right to defend that lawsuit. But listen to this, just because they defend a lawsuit doesn't mean they didn't do anything wrong. There's people who take advantage of the system that way too, or at least try to. So just because someone brings a lawsuit doesn't make them right, but just because somebody defends that lawsuit doesn't make them right either. Doesn't mean they didn't do anything wrong. So part of our job, and we talk about control of the narrative, is when we come in, first thing we're doing is letting the client know that you're not doing anything wrong by suing. This is something that was done to you. You have to put your client at ease first. Because a lot of people sit there, I'm not litigious, I don't like to sue, and meanwhile, they can't work and they've lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars or thousands of dollars, and the injury that they sustain is going to impact them the rest of their life. And they feel bad suing. That's not right. That's what our legal system calls for, and that's why we have a jury that decides whether you are right or not. So the first step is convincing your client that it's okay. If somebody ran a red light and hit you, you can sue them. There's nothing wrong with that. If somebody had a property and they they knew that their the the area outside of their property, the sidewalk right there was all broken up, they don't get a free accident. They don't get to not fix their property on the hopes that nobody falls, and if they do, they get a you know, the building owner gets to pass. Because nobody ever fell there before, so they thought maybe it would it wasn't that dangerous. No, there's regulations that they have to follow. And if they don't follow those regulations, they should be held responsible. And again, think back, most of the time it's their insurance company paying that anyway. You're not going after them personally most times, but they still should be held responsible because of the pain, the issues, the damages they cause to the person who otherwise would not have had to experience that. So that's the liability portion. Who's at fault for the accident? And making sure that you go above and beyond to dot those I's and cross those T's because you don't want to leave it there. You don't want to leave it to chance, you don't want to leave it to you know, your client coming and saying, Oh no, I had the green light, and the person after the accident came out of the car and told me that you know it was their fault and they're sorry, and then you're in court trying to put that statement forward, and then the other person comes out and said, I never said that. In fact, she came and told me she was sorry. And now who's the jury gonna believe if you don't have any additional information to back that up? That's why sometimes it takes hiring an accident reconstruction is to say the way the damage is, you can tell who was speeding or who had the right, you know, who who initiated the contact. There's a lot of things that you can do to lock those claims in, but that's what that liability portion is about. Who's responsible for causing the accident? And then making sure that a jury, um, a judge, opposing counsel, your client understands that it's if it's the other person's fault, they should be held responsible. And then the last thing is damages. Um damages is a linchpin, all three are equally important. The amount of money available, liability, or who caused the accident, and then what the result of that accident was. You'd be surprised, and a lot of people, again, you think, oh, frivolous cases, and that's what I hear. You hear about that because 99.9% of the cases are fair and reasonable, and you just never hear about them. But you hear about that 0.1% that just is an extreme. And that's the one that makes the newspapers, that's the one that people talk about on social media, that's the one people talk about that's your job. Oh, did you hear, did you see that verdict of such and such? That was ridiculous. The one you hear all the time is that there remember that McDonald's coffee case where the the lady spilled the coffee on her lap from McDonald's and got millions of dollars. Well, one, it's not true. That's not how that case ended. Um, it wasn't, that wasn't a million-dollar result. And I'm not saying it wasn't justified. I don't know the damages of that case enough. I didn't work that case up to know what the proper result would be, but I know that in the stories people tell it's exaggerated. But those are few and far between. Most cases you never hear about because the right thing happens. People get hurt. Our job is to outline what those injuries are, and a jury compensates them fairly and reasonably. I think fair and reasonable is probably the two words that jurors hear from me the most during any of my damages trials. And I tell you, no one hates frivolous cases more than me because it makes my job harder. Now, when I go into court, I have the responsibility of convincing a jury that not all cases are BS. That most cases are not. But that's an additional hurdle I have because again, those are the only cases you hear about. But once I explain to them that people, accidents do happen, but that doesn't make it okay. That if someone causes you to be hurt, they should be held responsible. And if you can show what the impact of that injury was, you're entitled, not you should get, not you could get, you're entitled to recovery for that. The judge at the end of the case, when he gives the jury the instructions, the judge outlines what someone could recover for: lost earnings, pain and suffering, medical expenses, um, if you provide uh money for your children, services for your children, if you're taking care of somebody and you can't do it, if you have to hire somebody to take care of you, life care expenses, there's a list of things that you are entitled to recover for if you show that those things exist. And that's fair and reasonable. That's what I asked for. But again, my job is to show why fair and reasonable equals a large money, a large amount of money if that is in fact the case. That starts from the beginning. I think that starts with probably the first or second conversation with your client when you ask them what's happening, and they and they respond because ultimately most people do, with, oh, it's not that bad. I just can't, you know, uh move my arm this way, or oh, yeah, you know, it's not it's it's not really that bad. It's just when I wake up, I have to go through this routine for an hour trying to stretch myself out and do this and that, and if and if I'm on my feet for more than two hours and I feel pain the entire next day. And I have to say, wait, what are you talking about? What do you mean it's not that bad? That's not normal. We're not required to accept things that's not normal if someone caused that to happen to us. So one of the first conversations I have with my client is we're not doing that. We're not here to minimize your experience. That's not beneficial to anybody. Because you're gonna convince yourself that this isn't a big deal. So when you go talk to your doctor and they ask you, are you in pain or what's going on? you're gonna say, Oh, it's not that bad. And then they're not gonna give you the treatment that you need, and you're not gonna get better. That's more important than a lawsuit. But that comes with controlling the narrative and framing their mind, not to try and minimize. We're humans, we're the best. We're it's phenomenal at adapting to situations. I've had clients lose an arm, lose a leg, whatever it is, and a year, a year and a half, two years later, I'm interacting with them, and they just have a whole, you wouldn't even you wouldn't know if you see it, but they're operating in an entirely different way than they lived their lives. But it doesn't mean that they're not operating in an entirely different way that they used to live their life, and they shouldn't be compensated for that. Just because you can make the most out of a situation doesn't mean you didn't go through anything. That's not how it works. When I'm talking to my jury or a judge or opposing counsel, I'm comparing how my client is now and how they were right at the axe after the accident, the pain they went through, the surgical procedures, the pain from that, the restrictions they had that lasted up until today. I'm comparing all of that to the second before this accident happened. And I'm telling the jury that I promise you, if my client can go back to the second before this accident happened, they would. No brainer. I have yet to speak to a client on a million-dollar case because if it's a million-dollar case, that means it's a substantial significant injury. I have yet to speak to a client on a million-dollar case where they said I wouldn't prefer to go back to the second before this accident happened. Because I was able to live my life the way I wanted to. I didn't have these restrictions imposed on me. I didn't have to go through those procedures. I didn't have to spend months laying in bed not able to move. I didn't have to spend years not able to get out of bed without feeling significant pain. That's serious. And it starts with convincing your client not to minimize that. I jump in, oh, we're not here, we're not if I hear, oh, it's not that bad, I'm cutting you off. I just want you to describe to me what you're going through. The same way I need you to describe it to a doctor so they can fully assess what's going on with you. And if you give your doctor that description and they're able to make you better, that's best case scenario. The main priority of every client in these cases should be to get back to as close to 100% as possible. A lot of cases they never will be. You never get back to 100% if you have that impairment. But the goal is to get back to as close to 100% as possible. So if that means you tell your doctor, here's how I'm really feeling, and they say, Well, that's gonna require surgery, I suggest you get it. Not because I'm a medical doctor, but I suggest you listen to your doctor. I definitely don't suggest you listen to a lawyer. If your lawyer's giving you medical advice, go to a different lawyer. I can't tell you how to treat your injury, I can just tell you to make sure you do. And that you listen to a doctor. If you don't trust your doctor's opinion, go to a different one. Just like if you don't trust your lawyer's opinion, go to a different one. You can always switch lawyers. You can always switch doctors. But in those situations where we're talking about damages, it's important for you to be comfortable with your doctor so that you can express to your doctor everything that you're going through and you can be treated accordingly. Because a lot of times what happens is you have clients and you know that they they get in a mindset of minimizing their injury, and they say, Well, I'm not gonna do this, do that. And you say, Okay, we'll resolve your case. You settle the case, and then a year later they're like, Listen, I can't, I can't take this pain anymore. I'm in pain every day. I'm gonna actually go ahead and get that surgery. And I say, Unfortunately, we already settled your case. We can't go back on that settlement. We can't, once the case is settled, you can't go back to the insurance company or or whoever it is and say, uh, oh hey, by the way, now they need a certain surgical procedure, now they're gonna go forward with it. They realize they don't want to live their life this way forever. Um, so they're gonna go forward with the surgical procedure that they talked about before. They're gonna say, well, it's too bad. Because I paid them out before they had surgery. Um, so they they settled, they signed a release. I have nothing to do with that, and they're gonna be right. Once the case is settled, the release is signed, even if you get a verdict or whatever it is, it's done. You can't go back even if you need additional treatment. That's why it's important to be honest and up front with your doctors so that you can address that. The sooner you treat something, the more likely you are to recover, and the more likely that treatment is to take to have an impact. If you have a torn rotator cuff and you're just walking around with a shore surgery, uh shoulder and a shoulder that's in pain constantly, you can't lift it above your your your shoulder, you know, you can't lift your arm up, you can't carry anything, but you're like, you know what, it's not that bad. I just put a little icy hot, you know, I do the ice on it, and and I go to therapy, um and I'm okay. And you operate that way, and you tell your doctor, well, I'm okay, it's not that bad, they're gonna say, okay, well, just continue with physical therapy. Your prognosis is physical therapy. We, at my office, we're gonna get all of the medical records, which is what we do. We have the conversations with the providers. We don't direct your medical treatment, we get the roadmap from your doctors. And if we get those medical records and it says, Oh, this person's pain, the complaints in there is not that bad. Uh, they can, you know, activities that they can get by. Uh, they don't want any further treatment, we're just gonna uh allow them to continue physical therapy, that's what we have to go off of. So, even me trying to control the narrative, yes, I'm gonna have a conversation with my client and really try and delve into what's going on with them, but it starts with the doctor. Because the medical records have to match the story I'm telling. I can't go into court and say, listen, my client is in horrible shape, uh, in pain every day, can't do this, can't do that, can't do that. And then they look at the medical records and it says, Oh, it's not that bad. Has them been for treatment in six months. Hasn't followed up with you know my recommendation for surgery. So damage is inclusive of all of that. And that's really what separates these lawyers because some just say, okay, you go to the doctor and then we'll get the records and just without having conversation or flushing it out, they close your case out. Meanwhile, they don't even understand the impact it's having on you. Those are the conversations that need to be built into building a million-dollar case. Injuries are very important, damages are very important, obviously, because you're gonna be compensated as a result of what you experienced from your incident, and part of that is gonna be medical records, but ultimately I have to show a jury, going back to what we talked about a little bit ago, that you are that piano player with the broken finger, not the singer with the broken finger. And that's my job to flush that out when it comes to presenting that to an insurance adjuster, a defense attorney, a judge, a jury. It's my job to present that. And if I do my job correctly, um then that's how million dollar verdicts happen. If I don't, then you leave money on the table. And I think we owe it to our clients to do that, and that's also when you know when to push for a trial or as opposed to resolution, a settlement. A lot of times in these cases, um, and I'll tell you 99%, I think we talked about this before, 99% of attorneys never try a case because 99% of cases are not tried. So I think the numbers bear out that you don't need every attorney to try cases. Well, not every attorney could, um, but there's just the numbers are what they are. Most cases settle. 99% of cases settle. It would be impossible to try every case, it's just you know, it takes too long, the backlog in court would be uh horrific. Uh, it already is, uh, even with that small percentage of cases that are tried, uh, you know, getting injuries for all those cases, it would just be impossible. So I think our system works in that it does allow for resolution. And generally, when you have resolution, how do you know when to settle? I get that question a lot. Here's how we factor our numbers, or here's how we get our numbers. I'm really giving you some secrets here. We look at the injury you have and how the incident happened from the injury and your treatment, we look at past cases with similar injuries. There's nothing new under the sun, there's been A lot of cases, a lot of history. We look at past cases for the injury that you sustained. That gives us a range for what those cases pay out on. So I'm just going to use this as an example. We're talking about, let's say, a surgical case, let's say a fracture with open reduction internal fixation. That's a surgical procedure where they had to go in and place like a plate and a screw or something like that. That range for those cases, let's say it's between a half a million and 750,000. When we look at similar injuries, the history of similar injuries for that, let's say that's the range, 500 to 750,000. Once we have that range, we look at liability in your case. And if your case is a slam dunk, right, say a hit in the rear where that person was clearly at fault, you were stopped at a light, they just weren't paying attention and ran into the back of your car. It's probably the easiest case that you can have. If that's the case, then a settlement value would be the top of that range for that injury. So if the range is $500,000 to $750,000 and it's a slam dunk case, I'm telling them I need the top of that range. If the case is questionable, is liability is questionable. Let's say it's a T-bone, you know, at a four-way intersection where who had the stop sign, you know, it may be questionable. I can pull some evidence to show more likely than not it was my client had the right away, or that the other person was speeding and me that they did have the right of way. You know, let's say it's questionable, then I'm gonna be probably asking for something on the lower end of that range. If it's 500 to 750,000, I may be on the lower end of that range if it's really questionable, because I don't want to, I wanna I want to alleviate the risk or remove the risk from my client. So if there's a chance that I could lose and I have to make that assessment, then I'm gonna lower my demand for settlement because I want your case to settle. I would rather maximize a settlement than try to be a hero, even though I'm very good at what I do. I'm a phenomenal trial lawyer. I would rather maximize a settlement than try to be a hero and go get a large number at trial if there's a chance that you walk away with nothing. Because I think that would be doing a disservice for you. If there's a 50-50 chance you win, but I can settle the case probably for a little below what you could get at trial. I'm gonna recommend that you that we take that settlement. Because why would I risk you losing everything and having this injury that impacted your life and you get nothing? I'm gonna turn my attention to try and maximize that recovery and take away any risk that you have. I will try a case if they're offering something that's nowhere near what that range should be. There's times where that happened. You know, the range could be 500,000 or 750,000, liability is questionable, so they say we're offering 75,000 or 50,000 or 100,000. And I say, Oh no, that doesn't make any sense. We're not taking nothing like that. If you get to this range, we can talk. And it's my job to convince them that they're exposed, that they may have to pay. If we go to trial, you might have to pay a lot more. Because I know I'm gonna be able to convince a jury that my client was right. My job is to convince them the other side of that and get them to a position where they're paying within the right of the appropriate range. A lot of attorneys get lowballed. The number one reason most attorneys get lowball is because the other side knows they're not gonna try the case. If you have an attorney that never tries the case, then the risk for the insurance company is much lower. Because they're like, listen, we'll offer something, and ultimately they're gonna settle anyway. I've never seen this dude on trial. I know they're not gonna push the case to trial, they're just gonna try and push me to settle, man. Take the highest number I give them. So I'm gonna give them a lowball number. They have no choice but to take it. The choice is either to uh settle or bring in somebody like me to try the case, which a lot of attorneys do. There's a lot of law firms that don't have a trial lawyer in their building. Um, so they'll reach out to a trial lawyer and say, hey, I have this case that we just can't settle, uh, and I really believe in this one. Can you come and try this for me? And if I see value in the case, if I believe in the case, I will. I'll get the case file, I'll read through it because you know this usually happens when the trial is coming up, and I go and I try the case. But most attorneys don't do that, so insurance companies will lowball them because they they don't have the ability to force them uh to avert it and to force that exposure or potential for exposure on them. That's something that separates attorneys. Well they'll look at me or my firm and they'll say, Listen, well, we know that you'll try the case if you think we're lowballing you, so uh let's minimize our risk. We're gonna minimize our risk too, because no insurance company wants to get hit. You know, the range of a case is 500 to 750,000. I know uh, you know, I'm gonna get uh probably more than that because that's the settlement range. You know, verdict range is much higher generally. Then they'll say, All right, all right, well we'll come within that range because you probably will get over that range if you go to trial. And then you get into that negotiation position of both sides wanting to remove the risk and figuring out what that sweet spot is where I'm maximizing what I can recover for my client, and they're trying to pay as little as possible. That's just the reality of it. I don't think there's anything wrong with either side, that's what we're supposed to be doing. My job is to advocate for my client. If I know what they went through and the impact that the incident had on them, I'm gonna be trying to maximize what they can recover to compensate for them, to compensate them for that. But at the same time, if I'm the insurance company, I'm trying to pay as little out as possible, right? It's a business. So they're gonna do everything in their power to minimize the injury, to say, oh, they're not really hurt, oh, they're faking, they're malingering. Um, they had this injury from something else, it wasn't our fault. They're gonna throw everything at the wall and hope it sticks too. That's the beauty of a jury. If you get there, the jury has to decide right or wrong, fair and reasonable amounts. That's for the jury to decide. And that is the beauty of our system. But it starts with an attorney building up that case, finding the policies or finding the money, recognizing liability or who's responsible and doing everything you can to back that up. And then making sure you flush out the damages, having that early conversation with your clients so they're open and honest about everything they're going through, not just with you, but with their doctors. All of that comes together to build a seven-figure case. So when you talk about pushing value, understand it doesn't just happen. It's built step by step by someone who knows what they're doing. And that's what we're talking about. Thank you for joining us for another episode. We'll see you next time.