In this video, I'm going to share with you my overarching philosophy with trying to get
my clients cases settled and i'll be honest with you it's not like what you see on tv.
welcome to law venture my name is Jarrett Stone and I'm the owner of Stone Firm PLLC
and i literally just recorded a video before this video -- like i'm wearing the same thing
just recorded in particular a law school professor reached out to me after seeing one of my instagram
posts with a little bit of a story on how i was able to get a quick six-figure settlement
for my client and she wants kind of like the overarching philosophy and strategy that i
implement in my negotiation process and so i recorded the video so she could show her students
and i figure why not just share it with y'all as well and so before i air this little video
for you to see as well be sure to hit the like button be sure to subscribe to see future content
and be sure to leave any comments if you have any comments thoughts or concerns
down below with all that being said i hope you enjoy the video the quick background for me is
that i graduated i passed the bar i worked at a small law firm two lawyers i was immediately
the number two lawyer or the bottom rung lawyer however you want to look at it ended up getting
great experience and then taking that experience and ultimately going solo starting
stone firm pllc and then i've now been solo for oh time's been flying by i want to say like a
year and a half maybe more so clients have been coming in been you know reaching resolutions and
settlements for the client or clients plural clients there hasn't just been one client
and then during that process ended up reaching a six-figure settlement for one particular client
i thought that was an interesting story so i went i went to the old ig instagram and posted
the story um i say story i posted a post with the story in the caption if you're on instagram
you know exactly what i just said if you're not on instagram that's just right over you so professor
gossett ended up seeing the instagram post and the caption thought the story overall was interesting
reached out to me via dm to be able to kind of present to you what my negotiation philosophy
strategy and actual taking that you know abstract and putting it down to the concrete story um
experience was and so that's what i'm here to do i want to start with the moral of the story
which is probably a little bit backwards but i feel like if i go through the story itself
then there's going to be this huge buildup for a very basic moral of the story a very basic
message that you're gonna be like really that's what we're building up for but i can't stress
to you the importance of what i'm about to say moral of the story whenever you're practicing law
be kind it is so much easier said than done i promise you and we'll go through examples
but the here's kind of like my my big foundation that i'm about to lay to lead up to this story
my philosophy in general is that a negotiation in any type of settlement any type of case
that you have is supposed to be adversarial on paper at the end of the day every single case
is basically a problem that needs to be solved and fortunately you kind of have two sides that
can work on that problem and the way i view it is that whenever you're trying to settle
a case there are two solutions solution number one other side agrees to settling based on you
know terms that work for everyone solution number two if that doesn't work the jury's gonna get it
solved for you or maybe the judge depending on the situation the point is whenever you start
looking at this problem-solving process as like look either the person on the other side is going
to provide the solution or the jury's going to provide the solution either way we're going to
get to the solution that process really makes it a whole lot easier to where it allows you to kind
of ease up a little bit it makes things just really really more natural instead of like hey
i'm going to beat you over the head with all these amazing facts from my client
and i need you to agree that all my clients facts are amazing never going to happen and so
the story that we're talking about today involves the fact that i signed up a client it was a slip
and fall case she had pretty significant injuries from the slip and fall case but i also know that
in the state of texas slip and fall plaintiffs are kind of they have their backs against the wall
based on how texas law breaks out it's really favorable to the defense in most situations that
whenever you have a slip and fall case there's typically going to need a lawsuit's going to
need to be filed and that brings me a little bit of hesitation knowing that not taking the case
but being able to handle the case appropriately and this is something that i learned through
actually going solo which is that whenever i sign up clients my demographic has actually been really
fantastic they've been really easy going and i don't know that's just because my funneling
process or that's because of the people who are referring cases but i can tell you i want to say
99 of the time and the reason why i say that is i'm being a typical lawyer who wants to have
the one percent cop out 99 of the time clients whenever they are potential clients at this phase
whenever i'm on the phone talking about their case trying to get them you know to sign up basically
they explain to me that they don't want to have to go to a jury trial they won't they don't want to
have to go through the litigation process that's going to be way too much of an inconvenience
that's going to really burden them and their lives they just want the lawyer to take care of it
kind of behind the scenes pre-litigation so everything's resolved puts a bow on it and they
can walk away and i think we have an ethical and legal obligation to try and settle a case before a
lawsuit is filed and here's why because not only do people want to avoid the expenses and delays
but you kind of as the lawyer benefit from that at least at least in my situation and so
from a plaintiff's standpoint in my situation i charge for attorney's fees the routine one-third
of the overall settlement if i end up filing suit then my attorney's fees go up to the routine 40
because at that point i'm having to pull out more of the the big guns the legal guns
um and there's also going to be expenses that are going into litigation even if i file suit and then
immediately settle the case what's going to end up happening is the client's expenses are going to go
up at least 500 or 700 dollars because filing suit costs money getting the person served costs money
and so that's 700 bucks that the client may have wanted that's also i don't know
seven ish percent of attorney's fees that the client also probably wanted i'll go ahead and tell
you that a lot of law firms like big law firms are pretty trigger happy with filing suit but
that's just a little bit of a disclaimer so in my situation i'm talking to this client
she says look i don't really want to file suit i said look it is my goal to try and
have a productive conversation with the adjuster ultimately hopefully get it settled without filing
suit but you have a slip and fall case and i explained i will do anything and everything i can
to try and get this case settled at a good value for you that you're going to be happy with
pre-suit but at this point all you need to do is go treat go get better we'll handle
the negotiations once you're done treating during that time i reach out to the insurance adjuster to
introduce myself she introduced herself and i was very upfront with her i said look client has some
pre-existing injuries um we're going to have to get that you know resolved i'm sure you're going
to see that in the medical records but client also suffered this this and that from the slip and fall
and as a result had to do x y and z and it's also being treated as well um and i was i was up front
i was also i'm sure i was cracking corny jokes at some point during it that she probably you know i
don't laughed and pity at me but uh i immediately whenever i called her i got the sense of like
hey there's tension here and so i need to diffuse the tension by being kind by being personable and
was able to do that and on that first phone call with her she was very upfront with me she said
which law firm do you work at and i told her and i was like this is my law firm stone firm pllc she
goes oh okay if you worked at this law firm this law firm or this law firm she went down an entire
list off the top of her head she goes i'm gonna be honest with you i've had terrible experiences with
them and their lawyers i would just say hey we're not gonna get this settled go ahead and file suit
let's just move forward with it but she said i really appreciate you being upfront about the
pre-existing and you know having this you know open conversation with me so let's see what we
can do let's see you know exactly how things are going to progress i said perfect i appreciate it
um in doing so she said hey can you maybe give me like a ballpark number of what you think this
case may end up settling at and in doing so keep in mind that i would prefer to get this
case settled before the end of the year and this was all happening i think maybe around october
time and she said the reason for that is you know taxes and we have to allocate money yada yada i
said okay sure and so in that moment i recognize okay she has a problem that goes beyond this case
maybe i can solve this problem for her in a way that allows the case to have an extra premium
extra value to the case and that way we're again problem solvers and trying to reach a resolution
the problem that we had on our end was you never really want to settle a case without the client
being you know basically completely healed up or they're at a new baseline because the last thing
you want to do is settle a case prematurely turns out there's like a setback or there's an issue
that pops up that they weren't aware of um and that requires more treatments and more treatments
mean more medical bills more medical bills means they need more money and so if you're already you
know if you've already settled the case signed the release then the other entrance and the
other side the other insurance company they're gonna wipe their hands clean say look there's no
more money you only get one bite at the apple so that's a wrinkle in the equation from my end and
a problem that we're going to have to address with the other side so the following week ended up kind
of getting a sense a little bit of what the what value would basically be enough for my client to
kind of walk away prematurely and that meant that there was going to need to be a premium added to
it i explained that to the adjuster the adjuster said okay that's fair so let's kind of ballpark
and shoot from the hip on these medical bills and what we think the treatment is going to be
ended up getting some reports from other doctors saying here's kind of what the future
plan would be for this particular patient my client sent that all to the adjuster
and had this like okay let's here's our problem let's it's presented let's figure out the solution
let's figure out the monetary value and so this was like a weekly check-in process of us going
back and forth trying to get certain documents and updating one another on where we could go and
during this entire time i wasn't all business and you know if you're a billable lawyer and i'm not
a billable lawyer if you're a billable lawyer then this is going to be like nails on a chalkboard to
you but whenever i would call this adjuster up i would also try and be personable i would try
and be kind and i would try and like incorporate information that i learned about her from previous
phone calls to where it's like hey you know i i remember you you're not just some you know
name or person i'm trying to check off when it comes to my phone call list today and in doing
so she definitely appreciated it i specifically remember the fact that in her neighborhood
i i think a kid went missing for like 48 hours and when she you know was on the phone with me
she's like sorry i haven't been able to really look at anything this you know neighborhood kid
went missing for 48 hours so we were looking for the kid i go hey look you don't have to like look
at this case for as long as you don't need to look at this case basically within reason obviously but
um come back to me when you know everything's together and you're caught up no rush you know
i'm sorry about the situation let me know if i can be of any assistance or anything like that
and she really appreciated that it wasn't me like no we gotta do this no you didn't do that
you told me last week you're gonna do x y and z i need this now it wasn't like that i was being an
actual kind human and again she appreciated that and then that ended up actually leading to her
reaching out and saying hey before you go like i have this other case and this case is crazy this
case is like worth many many millions and can you kind of give me your perspective from the
plaintiff's side the strengths and weaknesses so i can better evaluate maybe this this one particular
case i was like sure okay and then that led to another case and led to another case and the
sense i got was the case even though it's settled for eventually six figures was kind of like the
baby case in the situation compared to these other cases that she had and so i knew that she probably
wanted this one to you know kind of go away and go away within this little time frame she wanted
and so that's more information that i'm kind of collecting you know passively through this process
and realizing okay she hasn't specifically told me this but this is another subtle problem that
she's having and a quick resolution with a premium is going to be that solution to the problem long
story short we end up getting the case settled for a premium to where my client was extremely happy
i walked through the pros and cons of prematurely settling with the client she saw the premium was
like yeah we gotta pull the trigger um on this one so we pulled the trigger client was ecstatic
we were able to get this good settlement within a very short amount of time and keep in mind
i was trying to be a kind human i was not trying to manipulate the situation by any means
i was actually very genuine in everything that i said and how i interacted with the adjuster
so just a quick tidbit you know don't just be like okay well jared said be kind so now i'm a lawyer
and i'm gonna you know be fake kind because that's that's not gonna work people are gonna see right
through that this particular example has actually done me really well throughout my practice i've
actually had adjusters you know at some point we settled the case and they're just like you know
you know you're really good at this right and honestly there's there is no secret sauce to it
i'm just like really kind and then that motivates them or maybe they feel bad about not being able
to get to a certain number that i need them to get up to and a lot of adjusters end up saying
let me let me go talk to my manager and see if i can get a little bit more money put on the case
literally just happened two days ago it's a weekend right now so yeah two or three days ago
so i was like look i'm gonna need a couple you know more i'd say like three thousand dollars more
and the guy's like okay i appreciate it let me let me go talk to my manager within 24 hours you know
the top limit became not the top limit they added more money to it and so the client ended up being
ecstatic about that again it's all about connection but here's probably the most
important part and if you're you know tuned out to this to this video i would tune back in right now
it is so hard so so hard to always be kind during you know this process this this adversarial
process because there are going to be so many situations where you want to just absolutely
obliterate demolish the other side because they're just not handling things appropriately or fairly i
have a case right now where there was or there is an umbrella policy of a million dollars and
this is a situation where i have a biker client and he ended up getting severely injured based
on a driver's negligence and in this situation and you'll for those that have like intern for a
plaintiff's law firm or maybe even the defense side you'll know exactly what i'm talking about
there's rfds you know your disclosures and those are statutory requirements on what you
need to provide and one of those requirements are is any and all applicable insurance policies
well they sense the liability policy they didn't send the one million dollar umbrella
policy until i specifically asked for it in an interrogatory so my concern in that situation
was well had you settle for the entire policy limits of liability insurance then i would have
been assuming that your disclosure responses were accurate and you know honest and i would
have settled it told the client hey we got the max amount of money that we could have gotten
this is fantastic but then it turns out once i ask for that additional information it's like okay now
there's this insurance policy that just happens to pop up in that situation i could have very easily
raised hell with that lawyer i presented this the concern with the lawyer i expressed the fact that
i didn't like it and at that point in time i i left it alone because there was no actual damage
that i could like present to the judge and i also have to potentially settle the case with
the client or with the other side and in doing so i can't have the negotiation deteriorate based on
me trying to you know hit at the other person with the club you can be kind while also being firm
there's this association with like oh he's kind and he's nice so as a result he's also a pushover
that's really not the case earlier i was telling you that there's a problem that
needs to be solved there's two solutions the other side either reaches that that solution
balances the scales or the jury's going to you know basically provide the solution and in that
situation i'm being kind but i'm also being firm like hey if you don't get to this point based on
how we're evaluating the case we're just going to go to trial we're just going to have the judge or
jury figure out what the value of this case is and you know take it out of both of our hands
in that situation i'm not bluffing i will happily go to trial because that value i'm looking at is
from what i'm seeing is a fair value so don't associate kindness with weakness because you can
still be very firm in the way you're practicing there was also that one time where right before
christmas like two days before christmas this adjuster gave me a call he introduced himself
he's like hey i'm so-and-so i'm here to talk about this case and my response was well mr
so-and-so before we start talking about this case i first want to get started by saying happy
holidays and merry christmas and his response was that's neither here nor their counselor
which isn't the biggest ray of sunshine moment like i mean talk about a little bit of a grinch
i very easily could have reciprocated that i don't know animosity i don't know the word to describe
that but i didn't i decided to honestly just like shake it off and try and be a little bit more
personable maybe kind of chip away at this dude's weirdness i don't know how to describe it
i don't know who responds that way and in doing so we were eventually able to get the case settled
had i reciprocated the anger or the weirdness that this guy had then
the conversation the negotiation the potential settlement could have gone south very quickly
that would have led to a lawsuit that would have slowed things down tremendously okay so that's
kind of the message be kind don't be a jerk don't overdo it with the adversarial process
i hope this puts things in perspective i don't want to just like peace out on you without
giving you the option to reach out to me because you don't have the option to do q a right now
so i'll put my contact information at the bottom of this video right here that way you can reach
out if you do have additional questions you have concerns thoughts or if you just want to say hi