Lawsuit Abuse in USA

Executive Summary – Most of you know that lawyers are abusing the legal process in the USA and have been doing so for many years. In years past it was mostly large conglomerates crushing small businesses by abuse of process. Essentially they would file lawsuits often based on no law. They got away with it because they had large law firms behind them and spent a lot of money. Now little people are learning how to abuse the law suit game. They target small businesses.

Targeting large businesses would be more lucrative but they defend themselves very well and the chances of success are very small. Crooked lawyers have little reservation about suing small business owners because it is most unlikely that they could ever mount a serious counter attack. They also do not have the funds to defend themselves against an abusive lawsuit. These lawsuits can cost over $100,000 in the first year alone. The crooked lawyer will usually work on contingency. The plan is to take away the business, house and other assets of the small business owner. Most of these small business owners have no knowledge of the legal process and do not believe what is happening to them until it is too late and they are drowning in legal bills.

A New Movement – There is a movement dedicated to bringing these abuses to an end. Their website is here:

http://facesoflawsuitabuse.org/

They mostly illustrate the problems and offer no hands on practical solutions. They are trying to correct the problem through education leading to legal changes. Good luck with that. The legislators and judges are all lawyers. I hope it works but in the past efforts like this has failed for the most part. When the insurance industry and their big money went after the lawyers that worked. Doing it without big money in my mind is not going to work.

How These Lawyers Find Victims – Well it is said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The first step is to make yourself less of a target. Before any crooked lawyer launches an attack he is going to do a asset check on you and your business. He will look for real estate equity commercial or private. Even if your business is incorporated he will pierce the corporate veil which is not that hard to do with small family businesses. He will research bank balances commercial and private using corrupt private detectives who advertise such services on the internet. Next he will look for cars, planes, boats with equity. They will also look for stock brokerage accounts. If he sees enough assets he will consider it to be worth his time. The idea is to file a trumped up lawsuit. Next he runs up the legal bills on you with all sorts of discovery motions, writs, appeals, depositions of numerous witnesses, numerous overly broad subpoenas, amended complaints and the list goes on and on. The idea is not to win at trial. He wants to make the lawsuit so painful to victim economically that he caves in. He lets them have his business and cars because he can't continue to pay for the lawyers to defend him.

Victims Common Mistakes - Most victims make the mistake of using the small corner law firm. What they should do is march right down to a big law firm and hire them but this appears too expensive so they think the cheaper route will work. By big I would say at least 80 lawyers, a firm with 300 lawyers is better. The big law firm is actually more cost effective in a case like this. You will need to go after the lawyer and his client with your own complaints. A small law firm is going to be reluctant to push this hard. They are afraid of the lawyer suing them in return. What the victims don't know is the lawyer suing them has done this numerous times previously and has all his abusive filings in his computer and starts the paper war. Your lawyer not familiar with such abuse acts like any normal lawyer and responds and proceeds through the case. This costs big money since it is designed to do so. A large law firm would in turn bombard the lawyer with their own paperwork burying the lawyer with their own abusive filings. They did not get to be big by playing nice. They then would develop a case against the lawyer and add him into the complaint. This means there is a conflict of interest between him and his client. He will have the client sign off on the conflict issues and stay on as the lawyer. This is because he is sleazy and that is what sleazy lawyers will do. The client is not smart enough to see what is coming. Now your big law firm will start filing bar complaints and this will force the lawyer to not represent the client. Well now someone has to pay to represent the client and who will that be. If the abusive lawyer does nothing then the client loses the case and his prospects of losing increase massively. On top of all this the abusive lawyer must notify his malpractice insurance carrier of the case and they will review it and not want him to continue representing the client due to a conflict of interest. They will want to settle out of it if they see a big law firm chasing the abusive lawyer on a trumped up case. Now your cash register rings and the abusive lawyer loses his prospects for malpractice insurance in the future. He then still has to deal with the bar investigation of the case. Once a bar complaint gets filed every piece of paper in the case must be sent to the bar for investigation. The best thing for you to do is search with the help of a private detective for any other cases this lawyer filed in the last two years anywhere in USA. Get copies of these cases and read them. If you see any familiarity send them to bar. They will lick their chops as they proceed to disbar this lawyer. You must hand it to them on a silver platter or they will be too busy to dig deep. This research can of course be added into your defense in the civil case as well. Another nice touch is to file complaints with the district attorney or states attorney for fraud, embezzlement, extortion etc. This has a slim chance of flying because the one suing you just says he does not understand the law and his attorney said it was ok. If there has been a number of such cases by the person then the prosecutor may indeed file on him criminally. Again important to do your research and see what other cases this person has filed in the last two years. If he was successful in the past your can file against him civilly.

Protection – The best thing is to have your money offshore out of the reach of the courts the crooked lawyer will use. This is what we do. There are number of jurisdictions and structures to use that are most effective. The big difference is that when you are being targeted you will fail the asset check the abusive lawyer will do before attacking you. If he cannot see the asset, then to him it is not there. This is the best result. You are a target unworthy of time consuming and expensive litigation. There are ways to shelter real estate as well. This is a complex area and if you have concerns give us a call. Everyone has different circumstances that needs to be looked at carefully before a structure and jurisdiction is decided upon. Rest assured there are extremely effective solutions available that are cost effective.