What's the worst kind of litigation work? Forum

[Anonymous User]

New associate here. I got put in an aesbestos and toxic tort defense group. It is horrible because i am forced to work with insurance carriers and they are stingy. I come to work early and leave late but cant seem to meet my daily. Billing hours is like the worst.how can someone bill 8 to 9 hours a day? That is like a 10-12 hour work day if you have other meetings and no work already piled up.

I just started but I am already dreading it.

[Anonymous User]

I still think securities is the worst kind of litigation by far. However, insurance defense sounds pretty bad too. Sorry--hopefully you can get on something more interesting and less onerous soon.

[tyroneslothrop1]

Low-level insurance defense is probably the worst. Low pay for often long hours. Lawyers, because the work is not complex, are basically commodities to the insurance companies. There are plenty of mediocre lawyers who can't get other work willing to do this shit for 200 hundred dollars an hour. I work at a firm that does some of it.

[Anonymous User]

I guess liability firms that get paid primarily from insurance carriers are the worst.

I wish I could do prosecution work either in criminal law or civil government division.

[Anonymous User]

I work in house for an insurance company. There is some work that is sent your way that would be mundane, boring, horrible, ect. But there is also some pretty interesting, challenging, and fun work for litigators.

We utilize debt collection attorneys who have contracts with large national debt collection angencies and that appears to be the worst area of litigation in my opinion. Debt collection, on a contingency fee, hoping to get a judgment and then garnish? Debt collection is a tough gig anyway.

[A. Nony Mouse]

New associate here. I got put in an aesbestos and toxic tort defense group. It is horrible because i am forced to work with insurance carriers and they are stingy. I come to work early and leave late but cant seem to meet my daily. Billing hours is like the worst.how can someone bill 8 to 9 hours a day? That is like a 10-12 hour work day if you have other meetings and no work already piled up.

I just started but I am already dreading it.

is this the first time you've come across billing hours?

[dixiecupdrinking]

New associate here. I got put in an aesbestos and toxic tort defense group. It is horrible because i am forced to work with insurance carriers and they are stingy. I come to work early and leave late but cant seem to meet my daily. Billing hours is like the worst.how can someone bill 8 to 9 hours a day? That is like a 10-12 hour work day if you have other meetings and no work already piled up.

I just started but I am already dreading it.

is this the first time you've come across billing hours?

Yeah ... I bet there's a lot of uniquely shitty things about doing toxic tort defense but having to work 10-12 hour days is not one of them.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

My vote goes to creditor side BK work where the loans are residential mortgages. Not sure how much there is these days but if you thought insurance companies were cheap...

[Dr. Nefario]

It was my understanding that all litigation is the worst litigation.

[Abbie Doobie]

prob the kind where you don't have enough work to make your billable hours

[Anonymous User]

My vote goes to creditor side BK work where the loans are residential mortgages. Not sure how much there is these days but if you thought insurance companies were cheap...

Theres 1700 of these pending in DC

[homestyle28]

Defense side consumer rights litigation...not only do you have to deal with shitty, lying Plaintiff's lawyers, you have to deal with shitty, Lying, Plaintiff's lawyers who act like they're fighting for truth, justice, and the american way...

[NotMyRealName09]

I spent five years as a commercial litigator (with some white collar crim defense) at a large regional Michigan firm, then the last year at a small firm doing niche litigation, and I've concluded the "worst" litigation shit, as far as subject matter / prestige / grind is either insurance defense or collections in general.

BUT, as a caveat, I know two attorneys who specifically designed their career trajectory to do nothing but those. And ID can be broader than one might realize at first.

One was a peer of mine at the large firm. She was one year ahead of me, and she ended up leaving to go to an ID firm specifically because she hated litigating your run-of-the-mill commercial contract dispute between two business assholes trying to screw each other. She'd rather work defending cops who beat drunks (civil rights), or other personal injury type cases, a range of things. I guess she likes the grit of these sorts of cases - bad behavior, people getting severely hurt being stupid (or because of someone else's stupidity). So she wasn't pigenholed as ID, she liked it, chose to pursue it, and is now a partner at the ID firm she joined.

The other guy was at my (now former) small firm job, who focused almost exclusively on collections. He loved it because it wasn't too demanding or difficult, it allowed him to work 9-5:30 five days a week, and nothing more was really expected of him. He was a good attorney, but liked his stable place in the world. Granted, his collection work wasn't your typical contingency type stuff, but rather chasing people who owed our clients money or, sometimes, chasing former clients who owed the firm money. To me, it looked like shit, drudgery, uninteresting work, with one exception - there is something special about locating and collecting on someone's assets that they tried to hide. I did a little asset chasing myself at my large firm (suing over heavy equipment financing agreements and seeking to recover the collateral), and I actually really enjoyed the one time we found the equipment based on a tip, engaged the local sheriff to cut locks and open a garage, and then they went in and took it. That was cool. Or the time I found a guy's two rental properties that he owned free and clear and slapped liens on and threatened to garnish his rental income - he paid up fast once we found those.

So yeah, ID and collections are the easy answer as to the "worst", but everyone is different, and for some people, these practices can be all they ever wanted to do in life. If you can, get some exposure to these just so you get a sense of what is involved. It's always good to be able to speak sensibly to a client who asks "ok once we get a judgment, then how do I get my money?"

[Nebby]

It was my understanding that all litigation is the worst litigation.

Naw bro some of us get to save forests from assholes and punish powerplant for violating its emission limitations

[NotMyRealName09]

Defense side consumer rights litigation...not only do you have to deal with shitty, lying Plaintiff's lawyers, you have to deal with shitty, Lying, Plaintiff's lawyers who act like they're fighting for truth, justice, and the american way...

Oh this too. I did some lemon law defense work - analogous to ID in some ways, except your client may be the manufacturer, but the hoops, admin hassles, low rates, and pain in my asshole nit picks about how to bill makes it terrible. But here too, one might find some joy when you prevail against such scumbags and expose them. But more often than not, you're just negotiating a settlement even though you know these fucks are either liars or know the system and are gaming it adroitly.

[Actus Reus]

Why aren't you billing those meetings?

[newlawgrad]

Sort of surprised not to see consumer credit and the like - TCPA, FDCPA, FCRA, etc. those are really really bad.

[lavarman84]

Defense side consumer rights litigation...not only do you have to deal with shitty, lying Plaintiff's lawyers, you have to deal with shitty, Lying, Plaintiff's lawyers who act like they're fighting for truth, justice, and the american way...

And I'm sure there are plaintiff's lawyers who think of you guys as scumbag defense lawyers trying to use your wealth to game the system to prevent justice being done.

[sublime]

Defense side consumer rights litigation...not only do you have to deal with shitty, lying Plaintiff's lawyers, you have to deal with shitty, Lying, Plaintiff's lawyers who act like they're fighting for truth, justice, and the american way...

And I'm sure there are plaintiff's lawyers who think of you guys as scumbag defense lawyers trying to use your wealth to game the system to prevent justice being done.

And if there were no shady plaintiff's lawyers, we may not have jobs. We aren't worth much when there isn't a possibly frivolous class action to MTD, bicker about discovery, or MSJ on.

[Sgtpeppernyc]

Defense side consumer rights litigation...not only do you have to deal with shitty, lying Plaintiff's lawyers, you have to deal with shitty, Lying, Plaintiff's lawyers who act like they're fighting for truth, justice, and the american way...

And I'm sure there are plaintiff's lawyers who think of you guys as scumbag defense lawyers trying to use your wealth to game the system to prevent justice being done.

And if there were no shady plaintiff's lawyers, we may not have jobs. We aren't worth much when there isn't a possibly frivolous class action to MTD, bicker about discovery, or MSJ on.

I left this exact practice (defense-side consumer class actions, mostly under state UDAP statutes) because it just felt so pointless. Plaintiffs lawyer finds something marginally actionable (that no consumer cares about), puts up a fuss, you file a motion to dismiss that has the same 4-5 points (failure to state a claim, no standing for injunction, etc.), it settles for $50k, and then you're done. The most obnoxious part was partners trying to juice the bill because they knew the case would end so soon - while the plaintiffs side lawyers were total ambulance chasers, I didn't find the defense-side to be much cleaner.

That said, the absolute worst was being on a doc review team for a massive securities class action. A few hours of doc review a day can be relaxing. 8-12 hours a day for a month is hell.