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Outnumbered, but not outdone: size may be mistaken for strength, but a small firm that rallies all hands to help its clients can prevail. Here, three trial attorneys tell how they overcome their seeming disadvantage to outshine larger defense law firms.

Article Excerpt
Recognize the strength of a team of one

MARY LOUISE KANDYBA

You are a sole practitioner or work in a small law firm. You litigate frequently, but the cases are often routine: You file the pleadings, answer written discovery, take the plaintiffs' and defendants' depositions, and try to settle the cases before you have to finance expert discovery.

Then one day you find yourself with a significant case against one--or more likely, several--large law firms. Instead of staying up nights trying to figure out how to compete with your opponent's manpower, money power, and paper power, develop a strategy that will give you the edge.

The labor shortage

Large law firms have lots of bodies. You don't. Since you can be in only one place at one time, you have to maximize the value of each day.

Beware of potential obstacles that large law firms might throw in your path to distract you from other preparations, waste your time, and increase their billable hours. Many firms love to answer multiple sets of written interrogatories; small-firm practitioners despise having to answer even one set. Most interrogatories are fairly standardized. Instead of trying to answer them all, answer one set well. One set answered thoroughly is better than multiple sets answered superficially. If there are nonstandard questions on a particular set of interrogatories, answer those questions only, and refer opposing counsel to the other interrogatories for answers to the other questions.

Schedule depositions intelligently. If you expect the depositions to be short and sweet, schedule several for one day, at one location. Your thoughts will flow better, and you could save on court-reporter expenses. Don't let large firms get away with scheduling multiple depositions at different locations on one day. They have the advantage of sending different attorneys, while you must try frantically to get to each one on time. If you see a potential conflict when deposition notices are issued, speak lap.

Use e-mail and fax for routine correspondence. It is less stressful for your support staff to fax one letter confirming a deposition to five people than it is to mail five separate letters. And e-mail is completely stressless for your support staff because they don't necessarily need to be involved. You will even save a few pennies on paper and postage.

Find out whether your court reporter is willing to wait to be paid until after the case has been resolved. Many court reporters who work for sole practitioners and small firms are happy to work on large cases because they can charge each firm involved in the litigation for copies of deposition transcripts. If the reporter is willing to accept a delayed payment from you in exchange for the work, he or she will have made more money in the end, and you will have alleviated at least some of the financial pressures associated with litigating against large firms that have unlimited expense budgets.

Pay attention to what your opponent does. A sole practitioner who was handling a case with a huge liability question ordered transcripts of only the most critical depositions. Then she noticed that defense counsel had ordered everything, even the depositions she had taken. The plaintiff attorney whispered to her court reporter that she wasn't going to request any more transcripts until she saw what the other lawyer did. After every deposition, regardless of who took it, the cooperative court reporter asked the large-firm lawyer if she wanted the written transcript. That lawyer invariably answered yes, which allowed the sole practitioner to obtain the transcript at the reduced price of the copy rather than the cost of an original.

Knowing it all

To compete...

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