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Like all new lawyers, I knew nothing at the time about trial.
So to develop my own trial skills, I started by asking the other lawyers in my law firm to give me their worst cases for trial.
I wanted the cases no one else wanted - the "stinkers." Taking these cases to trial was a win-win. I wanted trial experience - and fast. I wanted the cases everyone expected I would lose because if (and when) I did lose, everyone was expecting it anyways. But when I won, I was a hero. For the clients, it was especially beneficial because the insurance companies weren't offering them anything to settle their cases anyway.
Soon after I started my aggressive campaign looking for trial experience, I recovered my first million-dollar verdict. I was 28. The offer from Allstate was $10,000. The jury returned $1,060,000. The state's legal newspaper ran the trial verdict as a front page story. And a funny thing happened.
I started getting referrals from lawyers from all over the state. Lawyers were coming out of the woodwork to refer me these soft tissue and whiplash injury cases. Today I receive referrals from lawyers all over Michigan. Many are wrongful death automobile accidents and serious truck accident cases. But I wouldn't be getting these cases if I hadn't been so willing to take the tough early cases to trial and risk getting my head kicked in repeatedly.
These experiences taught me that if you're a successful trial lawyer, and if you've proven you can get results even on tough cases, then you have something that very few other lawyers have.
You have something that makes you different from all the other lawyers.
If one day my children should join me in my law practice, and ask me how they can distinguish themselves, I'll tell them: LEARN to be a trial lawyer.
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