The Benefit of Negative Opinion

Abstract

As some of you have heard me say in the forensic seminars sponsored by the NSPE Continuing Education Division, there are a lot of days when I feel the best thing that I could do for clients is to tell them what a weak case they have, tell them about the problems they have with the case, and perhaps tell them that for all practical purposes they have no case at all. Of course, this hurts, but it does enable astute clients to negotiate and to come to some settlement before they go too far down the path of the judicial process. As the process of adjudication proceeds, with discovery and revelation, and depositions and discussions in the judges chamber and the presentation of testimony in court, it narrows the focus of the information upon which the decision making is ultimately done by the jurist(s), be it a judge or a lay jury. If the client attorneys go very far down that process of adjudication with a weak case they may have to settle on disadvantageous terms or incur the risk