Not all settlements are created equal — and the difference usually comes down to how hard the lawyer worked before the check ever arrived. In this video, Keith E. Galliher, Jr., founder and principal attorney of The Galliher Law Firm in Las Vegas, explains why he prepares every case as though it’s going to trial.
Galliher details the aggressive discovery that stands behind a strong result: depositions, requests for production, interrogatories, and the expert work needed to make a case truly trial-ready. He is blunt about lawyers who file a complaint and simply wait for an offer — and how that shortcut shortchanges the client. At The Galliher Law Firm, the work is done up front, so that any settlement reflects the real value of the case.
Transcript
Most cases settle. But you have to understand there’s a difference between settlements and settlements. The reason I say that is that whenever you take a personal injury case, you have to prepare the case in litigation as though it’s going to trial, which means you have to do all of the work. When we talk about discovery, we mean depositions, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions, interrogatories — those kinds of things to find out everything you need to find out about the other case. That has to be done, and you have to be aggressive in your discovery. You have to take any and all depositions — clients, the percipient witnesses to the event, doctors if necessary, experts if necessary — so that the case is ready to go to trial. That way, if you do all that work, the settlement, which happens before trial, is a reasonable settlement.
The problem with a lot of personal injury lawyers — who at least call themselves personal injury lawyers — is that they don’t do that work. They file a complaint and they sit there and wait for a check. Well, the problem is that if they haven’t adequately prepared their case and you’re the defense attorney, you know that. So when it comes time to settle that case, you’re not going to offer him a significant sum of money, because he hasn’t done the work. So who suffers is the client. They don’t know what the case is worth. The attorney is supposed to know what the case is worth, but the attorneys that don’t do that work right up front actually cheat their client, because their client does not get what they’re entitled to.
