People ask me what I do. If I am on an elevator, they say “what do you do for a living?” I say, “I beat up insurance companies for a living. What do you do?”

We Beat Up Insurance Companies

Working as a trial lawyer can be very difficult, it can be very hard, hours can be horrible time away from your family – heck, I lose a lot of weight when I try cases. What I’ve have tried to do through the years are to find certain things along the way that make my job easier as I get close to the actual opportunity that I am going to have to speak to a jury about a particular case. I spent ten years representing insurance companies and this is working with insurance executives to come to understand how they go about preparing their cases when they come up against a guy like me.

Lawsuits Treated Like Inventory

The very first thing that I noticed when I was working with insurance companies is that they treat most lawsuits, like they are inventory. That means that they don’t just have the case that the lawyer has filed against them, they have a whole bunch and they’re going to arrange those in an order in terms of their attention span according to the way that they think makes the most sense. What I try to do is to take full advantage of that. We try and take the case that is the most prepared and to force it through the system as much as we can. Because by setting the pace, we are picking the priorities, not the insurance company. We’re developing our information, our evidence on that is the timing will be on our side.

Prepare and Prepare Some More

The second thing that we do is – it’s so simple – we prepare and we prepare some more and you keep preparing. That means working with witnesses before they testify in a deposition, or sitting down with a homeowner to really understand what’s important to them as their case is about to go to trial, or working with experts and learning the scientific background of case, irrespective of what it might be about; if it has to do with engineering, or it has to do with medicine – anything. You have to become an expert in that area of expertise as well so that when you face off against their expert or face off against their lawyers you know exactly what you are doing.

Telling a Story

The most important thing – the last thing I would mention is telling the story. Lawyers have to be great storytellers. I’m from the state of Missouri, best storyteller in the world from Missouri- Mark Twain. What would Mark Twain tell me to do? I don’t know, but I’ll say this much we try and play in our ballpark. What I mean by that is, is that we are going to define what’s important. We’re going to develop a theme around what our client’s objectives are. And we are going to develop that in such a way that the jury- the jury is going to go back and deliberate and every one of those jurors is going to be talking about our theme. They’re going to be talking about your story, and that’s what makes it successful. I hope this video’s provided you additional information about the legal issues that you may be facing. If you or your lawyer would like to consult with us about your case or claim visit our website at www.CorlessBarfield.com or just give us a call. You take care of your family, I’ll take care of the insurance company.