January 17, 2012 - Sponsor, Palm Beach County Bar Association, Solo & Small Firm Practitioners Committee Lunch & Learn Series, What You Need & Don't Need to Run Your Practice

~  Anonymous Mother          

One of our clients needed to determine if the defendant driver's parents had knowledge of their son's extensive drug and alcohol use. The defendant had a lengthy history of DUIs and was driving a late model luxury car registered to his father when he rear-ended the plaintiff at high speed exiting I-95. Establishing the father's knowledge of his son's addiction history was critical to adding him as a defendant to the suit.

The defendant had appeared in court numerous times, and it seemed obvious that the father knew about his son's addictive behavior; however, establishing that with evidence was another matter. In his deposition the father denied knowing the extent of his son's addiction and behavior. Our task was to prove otherwise.  

Preparing for successful litigation requires instinct and experience. It also involves quite a bit of "heavy lifting." That is, digging through the sometimes thousands of irrelevant scraps of information looking for the critical facts you need to help win your case, or conducting thorough background research to prevent unpleasant "surprises" about a witness or an expert. And if you want to identify possible impeachment issues early, or establish a history of previous litigation, you're looking at even more hours of research, referencing, and review.

Often in litigation, it is imperative to document specific facts with records or reports maintained by businesses, medical facilities, municipalities, and courthouses. Courthouse research is painstaking work. It should be done in person and should include all counties in which the subject has lived. Do you have the time to go to the applicable courthouse to pull and review court files? Is that really the best use of your time? It can be difficult to balance your need for information with the constraints of time, energy and resources, but the right information and documentation can make all the difference in whether you win or lose. What can you do?