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If it is too good to be true, it probably is. Remember that advice as you see opportunities come your way, especially if you didn't solicit the opportunity. When times get tough, the less honorable people turn to dishonest means of making cash. It is the perfect time for them to do so, since there are plenty of people urgently needing a break and desperate. The combination creates a pool of targets for greedy dishonest people to prey on.

Your email is likely getting hit now with various offers ranging from Nigerian money scams, to "let me show you how to work at home" scams. The quickest way to judge a scam is to trust your instincts and do some research. If it sounds too good, check it out first. Snopes.Com is a great place to verify the truth of internet email scams. If you can't find it there, cut a good section of the text from the email and put it in a search engine. You will likely find lots of people posting they received the same scam letter. Unfortunately, you often find where some were scammed as well.

Another test is to verify if the person "offering' you the opportunity wants money first. In general, you shouldn't have to pay to get a job, you shouldn't have to pay to be shown how to use ebay or craigslist, and you shouldn't have to give money for more money in return. Anytime you are supposed to send money, check out the story before you do it. The recipient will get your money and disappear, or worse yet get enough personal information to steal your identity and raid your accounts for all they can.

If you have checked it out yourself, and you are fairly sure it is legit, consider what you are risking before you do anything. If you are risking something you need (like a large sum of cash), consider consulting with an attorney or some other person trained to give professional advice. In tough times, the last thing you need is to give up next month's rent or mortgage payment, only to be ripped off and find yourself homeless.

If you are considering being a lawyer, eventually you wonder what the day-to-day life of the job is like, and if it is a fit for you. Just as everyone is different, every lawyer's experience is different. To be fair, the best I could do is tell you of my experience in the career, why I do it, and what it does for me.

Becoming a lawyer is a terrible ordeal for some. I didn't find the process of becoming a lawyer to be terribly troublesome. I enjoy learning, so the extra schooling was for the most part pleasurable. In Texas you have to go to law school to become licensed. That means first obtaining your undergraduate degree. So, finish high school with the best grades you can, then finish a degree with the best grades you can, and then take the LSAT.

The LSAT is a hard test to study for. It isn't a memorization test. It is a test of your mental processes. It gauges how you process and understand information. There are LSAT courses and training materials. Personally I found that the book I bought to "study" for the test really only helped me to reduce fear of the test by showing me what to expect. The materials did not teach me answers for the test. After the LSAT, it is time to find a law school to accept you based on your grades, undergraduate degree and LSAT score.

The first year of law school is the hardest. It is a change from the way you did courses in the past, and it is a birthing process for your brain. You are torn from the traditional school roles you know and forced into a new way of thinking and learning. If you survive the first semester, the rest is just a process.

After law school is the Bar Exam. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you take a bar exam prep course. It will refresh and focus your past learning towards passing the test. The test itself takes several days and is very stressful. Many do not pass the first attempt. I feel no shame in bragging that I passed on my first try. I know people who didn't, and others who never did.

After getting your license is the point that the reality of being a lawyer begins. You may be fortunate enough to have had good intern positions in school and have a job waiting for you when you graduate. In actuality, these lucky few are rare. Most people graduate and now must find or create a job. At this point dreams evaporate and reality takes hold. No matter what you wanted to do as a lawyer, you will likely do whatever first accepts you. Among my four best friends in law school, we each had a hard time finding work. One close friend sent out over 400 resumes in the first month after getting licensed. He had good grades, had been on law review, and had years of intern and clerking experience. Out of 400 resumes he got 400 rejection letters and not one interview. He ended up working at the place he had interned until he opened a solo practice in Austin. It took me over six months to secure my first job as a lawyer. I got it by desperately applying for everything, including paralegal positions. James "Jim" Stanley of Fort Worth gave me my first job. He was stunned that a new grad would be applying for a paralegal position and made an attorney position for me. I will forever be grateful to Jim for that. Another friend never got a job as a lawyer. He joined the peace corps, got released for medical reasons, and I believe he became a lobbyist (the last I heard). The fourth managed to secure a job with the state attorney general's office, but lost his license to practice law in a few years after that.

My first job lasted exactly one year. I was then again unemployed for months. I took to delivering pizza at night and trying to run a small office of my own. Fortunately, I found an employer. I earned a very low wage despite being a departmental supervising attorney. Three years later, that job ended and I was looking for work again. That period of unemployment lasted months. I ended up working as a technical writer while I kept searching for legal work. The next job was at a high volume firm with tremendous stress for productivity and very high case loads. That job lasted three years. I left to a smaller firm, and hated the next year of practice. I was embarrassed for whom I worked for and got out as soon as possible. The next job lasted five years before I decided to go solo. That job was the best of my career, aside from being solo. Being solo is a mixed bag of high stress, cash flow issues and other functions naturally arising from the business of practicing law.

My experience has not required tracking billable hours very often. I must admit I personally find a billable hours requirement to be very demeaning. In these positions you are not told how many hours to work, you are told how many hours a month you must bill. However long you have to work to make that billable hour requirement is your problem. These attorneys typically get paid very well, but suffer from extremely long hours, stress and burnout. I imagine their personal lives suffer a terrible toll as well. While I have been fortunate to usually only work five day weeks, these lawyers often work six or seven day weeks in an effort to meet their billable hour requirements.

Socially, being a lawyer really has very little effect. Your friends will not be impressed or repulsed by your career choice. Members of the opposite sex will not find your career choice to be an incentive to date you (In fact I have laughed when I hear of ladies who absolutely refuse to EVER date a lawyer again). Your degree does not automatically open doors to other career choices for you, nor does it guarantee a successful life. Face it, being a lawyer is job. It isn't glamorous, it is not adventurous, and if you really try to talk to non-lawyers about what you do, they will be disappointed that it wasn't like the TV shows and lose interest fast.

However, being a lawyer isn't all bad. You will feel a personal sense of accomplishment. If you fix things for a client you genuinely feel like you have helped another person. You will see all of life with new eyes, being able to critically analyze almost everything around you. You may get bored with some tasks, but there is always something interesting just a phone call or a page turn away. You will have a job that you can do well after retirement age has passed (which you'd better do, since most lawyers are not offered retirement plans through their jobs). On average you will earn a better wage than your peers in non-professional fields.

In summation, being a lawyer is not what you might expect. It takes a lot from you to get to the point of being a practicing lawyer. It will take a lot from you to practice law. You will not have job security. You will not have immense possibilities or choices laid at your feet. But, if you enjoy fixing problems, if you enjoy mental battles, if you enjoy analyzing people and situations, you will be relatively happy with what you do. The rest is just like any other job. You will hate the time it takes from your home life, you will hate how work affects your moods, you will always wish for more money and less hours. Being a lawyer is just another job. Albeit, an expensive and difficult job to get. However, if it is the job you think you want, you should go for it. Just like anything else in life, getting what you want takes effort and sacrifice. Only you can decide if the effort and sacrifice is worth what you will get out of it.

An interesting search string to the blog sought to know, "What types of car wrecks are most likely to go to trial". I haven't addressed what makes cases go to trial before and so, here we go. There are basically two reasons cases go to trial, first, because of an inability to compromise, second because of problems with the facts.

For a case to settle without a trial, the parties on both sides must be able to find a compromise. It is often said that when a case settles, neither side got exactly what they wanted, but the both got something they can live with. Settlement is a balancing act between risk and certainty. The one who is giving up something, usually money, will only settle if they think they could lose more in trial. The one receiving something will only settle if they think they could do worse at trial. Both have to make a business decision. Both have to calculate their costs of litigation, the time it could take to finish litigation, and what the possible outcome of the litigation could be. To do this calculation they need quality information from their attorney of the facts that would be presented to the court, how the law would apply to those facts, and how juries have reacted to similar fact scenarios. In Texas there are statistics published that tell you the outcome of all the civil litigation cases that get filed. This publication is called the "Blue Sheets". By scanning the blue sheets you can get a feel for how some juries have responded to cases like the one being considered. It is important in doing that kind of analysis to take a broad look. If you only look for the verdicts in your favor you get a skewed picture. The last time I looked closely at these statistics, in car wreck litigation some 63% of the people filing suit lost, or got less than their medical bills awarded. That meant only 34% got more than their medical bills on a typical accident. Now, this statistic has to be broken down as well, as it changes depending on whether it was a rear end collision, an intersection collision and other factors. Once the client and the attorney have a well developed case, negotiations have drawn near to and end, and it is fairly certain what types of information will be necessary at trial, the attorney can advise the client of the potential costs, the strong and weak points of their case, and the possible jury verdicts. It won't be a precise number, it will be a ranged number. If the offers on the table are inside that range, the claimant runs the risk of getting less at court and will usually settle. If the defendant looks at the numbers and sees that they have a strong risk of paying more after trial, they will offer more to settle. All of this breaks down when people stop making a business decision and decide to go to trial solely on principal. A case fought on principle will usually end in a winner takes all decision in a trial. If the sides cannot compromise, they cannot settle and a jury or judge will decide the case for them. That is why I list a lack of compromise as the first reason cases go to trial.

The second reason cases go to trial is if there is a problem in the facts. Not every case is clear cut. A swearing match case is a classic example of a case that could go to trial. If the only people present at an incident are the plaintiff and the defendant, with no witnesses, and both the plaintiff and defendant tell completely opposite stories, the case will likely end up in court. By example, imagine a country intersection controlled by a traffic light. It is mid day, there is nobody around to see the accident and two cars strike each other. Car number one swears they had a green light. Car number two swears they had a green light. The light has been tested and is working properly. An accident constructionist will not prove who had the green light. The mechanics of the accident would be the same either way. There is nobody to break the tie in the swearing match of who had the green light. Both are claiming against each other, both are injured, both have insurance companies denying the others’ claims. That case is going to trial. The only way to break the tie is to go have a jury decide who they trust more, and award everything to that person.

It’s always awkward when you have the first meeting with a person consulting you for the loss of a loved one. That awkwardness comes from trying to balance between your human compassion for the person who is suffering, trying to focus on the job at hand, and personal excitement at a truly meaningful case.

In personal injury law, the most highly coveted cases are wrongful death cases. Not only are the interesting, but you have a potential of making a considerable fee. You also have the chance to do something truly helpful for a client. So when a lawyer gets a call for a wrongful death claim they get quiet excited. That excitement is inappropriate to display though. If a lawyer shows too much excitement they sound like a greedy vulture. Facts that might be great for a case are terrible for a client to hear.

At the same time, you aren’t being hired to be a shoulder. The client is looking for competent, honest, dependable representation to deal with an overwhelming tragedy in their life. They don’t need you to cry with them or for them. They don’t want you to be a sympathizer, they want you to take care of something for them in the best possible way.

I know lawyers who refuse to express condolences at all, saying they weren’t hired to do that. I know lawyers who hide information to protect their clients from painful facts. I know lawyers who have not gone into certain subjects for fear of causing emotional distress for the survivors. I think the better course is to adopt a mindset I imagine doctors learn when dealing with the terminally ill.

I have seen reports where schools try to teach student doctors how to deal with terminal care. You can’t coddle them, you can’t give them artificial hope, but you can be compassionate. In my practice I consider how well my client is doing as a factor in what subjects to inquire about, and when to inquire. Some are ready more than others to deal with difficult issues and facts.

I have no problem expressing sympathy, but I also understand once is enough. I have been hired to do a job to the best of my ability. So I focus on being sensitive to how information might hurt, but stay honest when letting them know. Then I focus on doing my job. The best thing I can do for my client in these circumstances is to get the best possible result, and let them sort out their own lives. If I’m asked about life decisions, where I feel competent to answer I will. Where I do not, I will suggest sources that could be helpful with their need. In the end, nothing I do will ever replace the loved one. It isn’t about the money. It’s about making the best of a terrible circumstance for those left behind.

An odd statistic for this blog is that the number one searched entry is for LOP's (Letters of Protection). I've defined them previously so I won't go into that again. What puzzles me is how many people seem to be trying to understand what they are. The statistics will let me see the search terms used to find my site, but that doesn't tell me why they are looking. Are these people trying to understand what an LOP is? Are these lawyers and doctors looking for information on LOPs?

If a person doesn't have an attorney, I don't see how they could get an LOP. An LOP is created by a lawyer to the doctor. If they have an attorney, I would hope their attorney had explained what an LOP was to the client's satisfaction. It has crossed my mind these could be people trying to find a way to pay for medical care and they heard about an LOP, but don't have an attorney. However, how did these people hear about an LOP? Did the provider mention it, a friend, a neighbor?

If these are doctors looking for information on LOP's, are they trying to decide to accept them or not? Are they having difficulty with LOP's that attorney's aren't honoring? Are they looking for reputable attorneys to work with who give LOP's?

I have a lot of curiosity as to why the term is the most searched part of the blog. Questions I can't answer without feedback from those searching. If you came here on a search about LOP's, please drop me a comment or an email so I can understand what you are looking for. That way I can better tailor the information to meet the needs of those searching the site.

Perhaps what is really happening is that people are coming to learn about LOP's because their lawyer isn't explaining things well. I used to think lawyers were by nature effective communicators, experience and anecdotes from people I meet tell me otherwise. Apparently there are a lot of lawyers out there who want to be able to communicate well with their clients but there is a disconnect between what is being said and what is understood. The client is not understanding what was said, or the lawyer assumes the client already knows what is being talked about. Effective communication requires making sure that the question sought is understood, and the answer given must complete and in a form the seeker understands. Unless both the lawyer and client openly and honestly ask each other that they are understood, the information may never be conveyed at all.