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In World War II fighter pilots began talking of how becoming too focused on your target was a bad thing. A pilot that lost his awareness of everything going on around him, was likely to get shot down. While focused on the target, the target's wing man had a chance to shoot you first. The same happens to bikers and other people. Bikers can become so focused on a point in a turn they they collide with the point, rather than complete the turn. Its is called "Target Fixation."

I think this happens in general life as well. At times, especially when things are going wrong, we can get too focused on the problem. The focus on the problem becomes an obsession. Other parts of your life get neglected, the focus on the problem makes it larger than it may really really be. The "big picture" is lost and life become centered around the problem.

Bikers are told not to focus on the problem approaching, but to look past it to where they want to be. If they stay focused on the pothole or obstacle, they run a greater risk of hitting it than if the are looking where they want to be when they pass the obstacle. In life, this is like creating a positive self fulfilling prophesy. To see where you want to be when the problem is behind you, is to plan your path past the problem.

Pulling your eyes and mind off the problems you face and looking at where you want to arrive in life might actually get you there. Obsessing about the problem hasn't worked yet, so why not try it. This doesn't mean ignore the problem. It means seeing where you will be when you get around the problem.

Good luck.

The City of Dallas has unanimously passed a law that will charge an at fault, non-Dallas resident who causes an automobile accident with a “clean-up” fee. Let me restate what this means. When there is an accident there is often debris left behind such as broken parts, broken glass, oil and other automobile fluids. In some cases there may be blood or other organic matter left to be cleaned as well. Typically the clean up from an accident is done by the city fire department or police. The clean up requires man power, the use of city vehicles, brooms, gloves, etc.

At first blush, it makes sense that a city would want to be reimbursed for this clean-up. But, here is where my issues with this law begin. The law first targets non-Dallas drivers. This makes some sense, because non-Dallas drivers do not pay property taxes in Dallas. Although they do pay sales taxes, tolls, and generally bring revenue to the city. Discriminating on who pays a fine based on residence only just seems unfair. It would be akin to charging tolls only to non-Texas drivers.

The law also targets the at-fault driver. Determining who is at fault is often very difficult. Quite often the officers investigating accidents do not state who, in their opinion, is at fault. If the officer was not a witness to the accident, or does not have the required training and experience to be considered an expert in accident reconstruction or investigation, the officer’s opinion as to who was at fault is often not allowed as evidence in a trial regarding the accident.

This law will essentially require the officer to decide who is at fault (especially if a driver was not a Dallasite), and might even give motivation to find the non-Dallas resident at fault for the accident in a revenue grab by the city. When proposed, this one budget item was expected to bring in 1.1million dollars (per year I presume). City of Dallas Budgeting for Outcomes: FY 2008-09 Annual Budget p.16. http://www.dallascityhall.com/council_briefings/Briefings0808/Proposed_FY09_Budget_%20081108.pdf Typically, officers do not determine ultimate fault, just factors of causation.

My next issue with this law is that Dallas officers were among the first in the DFW Metroplex to stop responding to non injury accidents. For what seems like a decade to my memory, clients have complained of calling the Dallas police department about an accident and an officer not showing up at all. If the officer showed up, they often just tell the drivers to exchange information. I never liked the officers not showing up. However, I do not want officers showing up to see if one of the drivers was not from Dallas, and then doing an investigation in hopes of finding the non-Dallas driver at fault so that the city can collect a clean up fee.

I expect that most drivers charged the clean up fee will simply pay it. I am quite curious what will happen as non-Dallas drivers assessed the fee start to fight the fee. The obvious attack is to go after the qualifications of the officer’s training and the self serving determination of fault. A very aggressive attorney would also likely fight to transfer the venue of the court battle out of Dallas County, claiming a fair trial cannot be had in a county that would possibly benefit from the outcome. Will the costs of fighting these court battles in the courts of the surrounding counties overshadow the profit of charging the fee?

Next, what happens if the person assessed the fee cannot pay it? Your automobile insurance will likely not cover this fee. I have heard estimates of $200 to $954 dollars as potential costs for clean up. This is money the driver has to come up with out of their own pocket. Many will likely not be able to pay. Will the City of Dallas then charge them with additional fees or crimes? Will the city put them into collections?

At first glance the new law sounds appealing to a city trying to make its budget work, but the deeper you look into what this law means, the more problematic it becomes. In the end I think it s a bad law, and that it will cause more trouble than it seeks to correct.

News reports of the new law:
http://cbs11tv.com/local/city.of.Dallas.2.824890.html

http://www.nbc5i.com/newsarchive/17551317/detail.html

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7558191&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

If you are planning a fresh start in 2009, and that start includes being out of a marriage, there are some important dates for you to know.

Before I go on, for some readers this will sound like a terrible thing to discuss. For those not in a bad situation planning in advance for a divorce sounds wrong. Openly letting people know the dates they need to keep in mind sounds equally sad. However, the point of this post isn't to encourage a divorce, it is to let those who know a divorce is what they need, time to plan accordingly.

If you want a Texas divorce finalized before January 1, 2009, you have to have your petition filed before November 1, 2008. There is a sixty day waiting period, so any divorce filed after November first will automatically not be heard until 2009. If you want to be sure it is finished before January 1, 2009, then you should plan to file in advance. Allowing one week of preparation time for the attorney, and two weeks for court vacations or closings puts your deadline at October 11, 2008.

So, if you have already resolved yourself to a divorce, and you want it completed before January 1, 2009, I recommend you have retained your attorney and started the process before October 11, 2008.

A recent search query that brought someone to my blog was, “why do lawyers make me crazy?” It amused me, but it also brought up a good question as to why there are such strained relations between lawyers, clients and the people they oppose.

The most obvious reason lawyers make people crazy is that they, and the whole legal process, are expensive. Court costs for litigation can be as little as some $3,000.00, or over $10,000.00 for many simple civil actions. Uncontested divorces have only filing fees and possible process fees. Contested divorces can get really expensive. I’ve seen both sides combined spend over $30,000.00 before. Hourly rates for lawyers run from just under $600.00 per hour to upwards of $400.00 per hour or more. Every call, visit, letter, fax, email… anything that happens in an hourly fee case can cause the bill to go up. This constant drain of money is maddening to clients. Not many have spare cash to just throw away, and in a hotly contested case it seems like the lawyers always has a hand in your pocket. It’s because of this the old joke about, “It was so cold today, I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets” is funny. If you have an hourly based case, the best thing to do is to know how you are being billed, to track the communications you get and verify if the time charged is accurate, and to limit your contact with the lawyer to essential and brief communications.

Another reason lawyers make people crazy is because they don’t tell you what you want to hear. Everyone believes they are right. If you were to talk to a person who ran a red light and caused an accident, even they would have some excuse as to why it wasn’t really their fault something happened. Most legal actions aren’t black and white. There is a lot of grey in the law, especially civil law. As a result, clients who often think they have a “slam dunk” case are frustrated when their lawyer points out potential problems in the case. Things most people take for granted as proof of facts are not admissible in court for that purpose, so they get frustrated when the lawyer doesn’t agree. For example, just because you always wear your seatbelt, and your family always sees you wearing your seatbelt, doesn’t make it true that you had the seatbelt on when you were the only person in the car and an accident happened. You saying it does not prove it, and your family saying they always see you wearing it doesn’t mean you had it on then. It is proof of your habit, but not proof it was on at that moment. These rules of evidence and procedure frustrate clients. This different set of rules seems arbitrary and unfair, because it isn’t what you are used to. The lawyer takes the blame for your frustration, because the lawyer is the only real person you can focus your frustration on.

Another reason lawyers drive you crazy is because if you have a lawyer, odds are the other side has a lawyer. I once heard an example of what it is like stress wise being a lawyer. Doctors have a lot of stress, but some studies say lawyers have more stressful jobs than doctors. A doctor in surgery has a life in his or her hands. The doctor has a support staff of nurses and technology at his side to assist in the surgery. By comparison, a lawyer is usually standing alone in a court room. He is trying to save his case. However, right across the room from the lawyer is another, likely equally qualified lawyer, fighting to kill that case. Imagine if a surgeon was trying to save a life while another surgeon was standing right across the table trying to kill the patient! The problem for clients is that even if they like their lawyer, the lawyer on the other side is like a demon. The other lawyer is making work for your lawyer, raising your bill. The other lawyer is fighting to disprove everything you seek to prove, and the other lawyer is fighting to keep from you anything you want out of the case. So naturally, that other lawyer drives you crazy.

Lawyers essentially get the worst parts of every type of practice. They cannot promise their customers things that might not come true like a hygiene product might. Lawyers cannot give guarantees or warranties like a manufacturer. Lawyers cannot coddle their clients like a customer service desk. Lawyers cannot “rush” a job like a tradesman. Lawyers should provide quality customer service, but their hands are tied in those areas. Clients are accustomed to the services these business provide, and when they don’t get it they are frustrated.

With all that said, I’m pleased that most of my clients have all been happy with the services I provided. The best thing a lawyer can do is to keep expenses at a minimum, give good advice, be timely, answer questions in an honest and informative way, and do the best you can for the client. If a lawyer does this right, the client will be happy in the end, because the client understood the process and how things got to the end.

Trust is the number one factor in any relationship. Most of the medical providers I have worked with have stories of being mistreated by lawyers. They complain of lawyers that lied about settlements, did not honor their letters of protection, asked for outrageous reductions, etc. Sometimes the provider has been burned enough that they refuse to work personal injury cases ever again. I get angry with the lawyers that have done these things, they hurt our profession.

I have been very fortunate to have several very close, trusting relationships with my providers. They often become so trusting that they stop wanting the usual paper trail of documentation, but I provide it anyway. I do things by the book all the time.

If you are a medical provider that has patients injured by third parties, your patients will likely want an attorney. You could leave the entire legal aspect of the patient’s injury up to the patient. I would suggest that doing so is bad for the patient and you. If the patient seeks a lawyer without guidance, there is a strong chance they could end up with one of the lawyers you don’t want to deal with. The average person does not know any lawyers. If they need one, they can only find out about lawyers through radio ads, television and friends. Let’s face it, people are busy. When a busy person is injured the last thing on their mind is how to shop for the “right” attorney. A better practice is to have a list of attorneys you have worked with and trust. To protect yourself, you should be sure to place a disclaimer on the list stating you are not making any statements as to the qualifications of any one lawyer over another, that the list is simply provided as a courtesy to patients. This way you increase the odds of having attorneys involved that you like, as opposed to those you don’t know or don’t like.

In dealing with attorneys, don’t ever pre-agree to a reduction or make a sweeping statement of how much you would be willing to reduce in general. Such statements set you up for a host of problems. If you pre-agree to reductions then your charged bill is overinflated from the start. Reductions, when necessary are a case by case analysis determined by the total billing and the final offer or jury award. Don’t feel bad about asking the lawyer to give you details about requested reductions. You should be able to find out what the total offer was, if there was PIP or other insurance, what the total bills were, who has reduced and such. The lawyer cannot tell you what the client is getting due to confidentiality, but if you have every number except the patient/client’s number it is easy to figure out what is happening. The important thing about reduction requests is that they be fair. Every person in the case has a vested interest in the outcome. The attorney has worked to settle it, the doctors provided valuable services, the health insurance company’s have contractual rights, and the patient/client suffered an injury. No person should be asked to suffer a disproportionate share.

There are firms out there who ask for a 50% reduction of almost every case, no matter what. I personally find this kind of request insulting. The firms that get away with it do so because they have the largest market share of clients. They can essentially force a provider to accept a huge reduction because they have the threat of not sending cases to that provider ever again. This is not a friendly business relationship of mutual trust. These firms have made the decision that business is business, and honesty, integrity and friendship have nothing to do with business.

I prefer to enjoy my relationships with the providers I work with. I enjoy having lunch with them occasionally, in letting them know the status of cases, and in getting them as much value on a case as possible, just as I try to get the best value for my client. I wish I could say I never had to seek a reduction, but it happens. When it does, I present the provider with every total except the client’s take-home. I ask only for the reduction I need to meet the client’s desired outcome and still pay all the other bills, expenses and fees. I never ask for a reduction unless I have already reduced my expected fee.

If you are a medical provider looking to establish new relationships with an honest hard working lawyer, give me a call. I’d love to come see your office, maybe have lunch, and see if we have a match of ethics, desire and drive to provide service to our mutual customer.