Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

I used that line a couple weeks ago and the judge who wanted to get the particular case moving nearly bit my head off because I used the line in the context of explaining why our client wasn’t in court for a status hearing. Of course in this case I was correct, at least in my point maybe not my smugness.

The April ’08 ISBA “We password protect everything” Bar Journal had a short piece explaining the limits on a court’s authority when a case is merely set for status and a party has not properly motioned something up. In other words you’re in court only for a status hearing and then someone asks a court to make a substantive order or ruling. A court does NOT have authority to do this…two cases to cite: Felzak v Hruby, 367 Ill App 3d 695, 855 NE2d 202 (2d D 2006) and Ligon v Williams, 264 Ill App 3d 701, 637 NE2d 633 (1st D 2004).

Now sometimes everybody wants to do some things at a status and that’s fine. Just don’t get caught off guard.

Chicago Lawyer had an interesting piece on this subject in the September issue (unfortunately it’s not online). This issue is Rule 1.2(e) of the Illinois rules of professional conduct. Here’s the text of the Rule:

(e) A lawyer shall not present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges or professional disciplinary actions to obtain an advantage in a civil matter.

What’s funny if you read the article with the cases cited, each case includes a lawyer accusing another lawyer of wrong-doing and then threatening to file an ARDC complaint against him. And of course the lawyer making the ARDC threat is the person who in the end gets in trouble with the ARDC for violating 1.2(e).

Now there’s nothing wrong with filing an ARDC complaint against another lawyer and it happens with some frequency. Just don’t do it to “obtain an advantage in a civil matter.”

I’ve always practiced in “volume” law firms. I don’t say that as a criticism I simply mention it to explain that I’ve never worked in a big dollar trial practice where I think you essentially take the big money cases just about wherever you can find them because the potential payoff is worth the inconvenience. I’ve always worked in environments where you make your money by having a lot of say $2,500 to $10,000 cases going all the time.

In a volume practice you need to be careful not to take cases that waste a lot of travel time or to take cases at courthouses where you can’t schedule multiple cases on court dates to really get good value out of your court appearances. You make your $ in a volume practice by scheduling 3-5+ cases for every day you’re in court.

Because here’s the risk….all it takes is one case where there’s a lot junk and many, many court appearances at the inconvenient courthouse to be a huge drag on profitability. I have a case like that right now. We’ve had stupid problems with a Sheriff not properly returning an Affidavit for Service, a disagreement with the Court as to the definition of joint/several liability, an honest scrivener’s error that nonetheless required another court date to repair. Now this sort of thing would be a pain-in-the-butt regardless but if it’s at a courthouse where I have tons of other cases I can be scheduling other matters and making those mornings profitable. But when this is the lone case, then this turns into a big time waster and money loser.