Extract from Jeffrey Wolff’s article “How to Assess Case Facts to Evaluate Risk and Settlement Value”
Introduction: No Time Like the Present
A recurring nightmare for many legal professionals involved in civil litigation is cost control. Litigation has a tendency to consume a lot of people’s time, and that time is rarely cheap. Cutting corners isn’t an option, as the process requires thoroughness and comprehensiveness as a matter of course. Minor errors along the way have a tendency to snowball out of control surprisingly fast.
For any business operating in the United States, litigation is a fact of life. In the 2019 Litigation Trends report, Norton Rose Fulbright noted an expected year-over-year increase in expected litigation. In simple terms, corporate legal professionals shouldn’t expect a decrease in their workload any time soon.
In an earlier blog, we discussed the intricacies of Legal Hold. One of the key aspects of these is the starting point. According to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, parties are required to begin collecting evidence early in the process. The exact phrasing is “reasonably anticipated litigation”. This can mean a lot of things, but it certainly doesn’t mean: “start collecting evidence only when a complaint is filed.
