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Reducing your client's litigation costs should be one of your primary goals if you want repeat business and referrals. Planning ahead and maintaining good communication with your client are key.

Establishing your overall case strategy early on lays the necessary foundation for efficient and cost-effective lawyering. First, conduct a thorough pre-filing investigation, making as much use as possible of your client's staff resources and prior investigations already conducted by your client. Do not ask your client to pay you and your staff to re-do work their staff has already done. Letting your client know that you are looking out for their bottom line will be appreciated and is a mark of your professionalism, for which they will be grateful. For example, it may be more cost-effective for your client if an adjuster on their staff handled "non-lawyer" tasks such as ordering and obtaining items in investigation, and conducting negotiations, thus freeing outside counsel to devote time and energy to the legal work of preparing pleadings and interrogatories, appearing at trials and motions, and taking or defending depositions.

Next, use the relevant jury instructions to quickly identify what you will need to prove at trial (or prevent the plaintiff from proving). Determine whether you have the evidence you need to reach that goal. Based on your overall strategy, take the time to develop a discovery plan. Creating a roadmap for discovery will prevent redundancies as well as missed deadlines and last minute panics. Use form-interrogatories and well-crafted specially-prepared interrogatories that will withstand the inevitable objections from opposing counsel. Asking clear and concise questions in your interrogatories as well as in your requests for documents will reduce wrangling with opposing counsel and may help reduce the number and length of expensive depositions. Your discovery plan should include requests for admissions, which of all discovery devices have the most potential for saving money, time and effort, if used correctly. Once a fact is admitted, it is conclusively established. (CCP section 2033.410(a); Murillo v. Sup. Ct. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4^th 730.) Admissions are fertile for impeachment since they cannot by easily explained away. They may also give you ammunition to prevail on a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication.

Depositions and expert witnesses are expensive. Use the responses to written discovery to assess which parties or witnesses are worth your client's money to depose. Plan lines of questioning or defense ahead of time, based on the written discovery. Select expert witnesses carefully, based on experience and cost. Consider whether the cost to procure expert testimony is really justified in light of the complexity of the case and the strength of the other, less expensive, evidence.

Use your overall plan to identify your goals before engaging in motion practice. Consider foregoing motions to dismiss, which are expensive, reveal your strategy, and will most likely result in no more than an amended complaint which your client will need to answer. When do file or reply to a motion, save costs and impress the court by presenting only your best arguments.

Bear in mind than an unprofessional or overly combative relationship with opposing counsel nearly always results in much higher litigation costs for your client, not to mention stress for you and erosion of your most valuable asset - your reputation.

Consider using mediation or Alternative Dispute Resolution, each of which typically produce lower legal fees and are decided in a much shorter time.

When choosing a court, where possible, consider that trying a case in federal court may be more expensive due to costly summary-judgment motions and the cost of defending against motions to disqualify your experts.

Finally, at the outset, communicate with your client. Ask questions about their past cases, including facts, experts, jurisdiction, legal theories and outcomes. They may already have encountered the issue at hand in another case. Be certain that your client is on board with your strategy before you invest time, energy and billable hours into it. Stay in communication with your client throughout the process, keep them apprised of costs as well as cost-saving measures you are taking.

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