Dear big bad defense lawyer. Bring it on.

In this episode of the Velvet Hammer, Seattle trial lawyer Karen Koehler shares her experiences dealing with the big bad insurance defense lawyers.  From their pack mentality to the insufferable superiority complex, Karen is a street punk fighter ready to take on the challenge. 

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Transcript

So do you know what the difference is between an insurance defense lawyer from a small firm and an insurance defense lawyer who works for, you know, know, a top, a top 500 firm or giant conglomerate of a firm? Do you know what the difference is?

The difference is that the big law firm lawyer thinks that they are it.

They have the power. When they speak, everyone listens and has to bow down.

It's funny, actually, to mess with lawyers from big law firms. Now, I'm not saying this is true for all of them. I have had some great experiences with lawyers from big law firms. They've been great attorneys. They've been collegial and fair, even if tough litigators. And we've had a great time.

It's fun to go head-to-toe with a great lawyer. It is just fun. I mean, that's what we live for, right? You don't want to just go against someone that's not of your own class of fighter. I mean, not that I like watching fighting or anything, but I know that you have heavyweight, middleweight, lightweight.

You want to go against someone that's in your class in fighting so you can be evenly matched. I mean, that is thrilling.

It doesn't hurt if you go against someone that's really bad and you can walk all over them either, but it is more emotionally satisfying when they are really good.

But there are some generalized traits of big firm defense lawyers that are just so I want to say silly, but that would be not nice. I don't want to be not nice, let's say, unique to that ilk of a lawyer.

So I have two examples that I've been dealing with for the past many years of those type of instances. On the other hand, don't get me wrong, I have had some of the most. Unpleasant times in my career with lawyers from small firm or solos. Maybe not solos, but smaller firm defense lawyers that are just awful. But I'm going to talk about the big ones today, the big awful ones.

First of all, they travel in packs.

They have large packs s, and they have a pecking order definitely in place that they don't vary from whereas plaintiffs will give and take on that whole thing and will change and shift and be way more fluid. But they have very inflexible hierarchical structures and they travel in packs and the pack mentality rules. I mean, that's what's interesting about it.

The lead attorney tends to be just what you would think in a pack. And everyone else follows them and no one speaks out of turn. And they have this mission. And the number one quality that comes to mind when I think of that lawyer at the top of the pack on that case is so full of themselves, so condescending, so supercilious, so impressed with self importance of the firm that they work with, inherently thinking that they're better than anyone else. Always saying things like, well, you should be aware of that, or well, this is how it should be properly be done. Or so vested always in telling us how the gospel is according to them, only them to be interpreted and analyzed and manifested by them. They know, and we don't know, and they are always right. That is the formula for that.

Even when we don't want their input, they give it. Even when it's a minor issue, they give it always in the same supercilious, condescending tone for no other reason than to scratch their itch and need to be seen as being the dominant, correct big-city lawyer person.

It doesn't so much drive me nuts as it just makes me want to just okay, I can't say anything violent and that's. Only for illustrative. Like, I'm not a violent person, but in my mind, I am a violent person. Does that make sense?

I probably would never, ever pick up a gun and fire it under any circumstance. I do zap flies. I do have a bug zapper, but other than that, as a vegetarian, almost vegan, primarily,

I don't believe in any kind of physical violence. For myself, I can't do it, but in my mind, I like to watch John Wick movies and zombie apocalypse apocalyptic, shoot-them-up movies.

I like that kind of movie. So in my mind, I would like to John Wick that defense lawyer, but in person, I don't.

Most recently, Alysha was talking to me because we had gotten I had gotten, and I shared with my team a letter from a young lawyer in a big law firm who took issue with a blog post of mine. First of all, why are you reading it? Second of all, if you read it and it's about you, well, that's your own fault. And third, it's a blog post. It's not a legal pleading.

And he took issue with it and told me that I was unprofessional.

Now, he didn't tell that to my face. He didn't pick up the phone and say, Karen, why did you do that? That was unprofessional. That would be, in my book, a civil, appropriate way to address a dispute. In fact, our office is going through communication coaching right now, and according to our coach, the number one way to communicate in a potential conflict situation is not to email No, it is to talk in person, talk by video, or talk on the phone, in that order.

Those three steps were skipped here because true confrontation was not really on the mind of this young lawyer from a very big firm.

We call it the biggest firm in the world. It isn't, but it is one of the, if not the biggest firm in Washington state and is a national firm.

So instead of doing that, he decided to write me. Now, he didn't write me an email,

which you would think, why wouldn't he write you an email if he was going to write you? You know, he sent me an email, but. It was of a letter on his letterhead. In fact, he didn't send me the email. Oh yeah, he did. He sent me the email and attached a letter. Here's my letter. Basically. The letter, of course, was on his big, important firm stationery. Now, there's nothing wrong with sending a letter on stationery, but it's proving my point that there's something different between an attorney from a small, regular firm and then one from a behemoth firm that is this big, powerful firm.

Because by sending a letter criticizing another lawyer for being unprofessional for writing a blog on his firm stationery, that letter is invoking the power of his law firm to justify his doing so.

Me a street brawler. Again, I use these words and concepts not to say that I am a street brawler, but because in my mind it's like a street brawl, but in reality, it's just jostling, right? It's just verbal personality interaction.

Instead of jostling with me one on one, he wants to invoke the power of his law firm to elevate his status so that he feels he can dominate me and have the power to say something like that. I'm unprofessional for writing a blog post.

What happens when the big bad lawyer from the elite, quote-unquote, law firms tries punk moves is that it does nothing for someone like me other than elevate the response.

And it's not like that's a bad thing for me. I'm just going about my day, taking Nala for walks, working with teams on different cases, writing a brief, covering a motion here or there, arguing something, participating in that, participating in this, looking at documents, coming up with, and then a defense lawyer behaves badly.

I'm all over that.

You've just provided me with the opportunity to be Keanu Reeves.

Anyway, it isn't even a pet peeve of mine the way that defense lawyers from big law firms sometimes get so full of themselves and think that they can act with impunity because they are protected by the sanctity of the power of their giant law firm.

If you think I said this before if you think I care that you went to Yale or Harvard or the UW, I don't.

I am proud of going to law school that was built at an old out of an old department store and that we got from floor to floor by escalators. I don't care about any status that might come from going to law school. I don't care about any status that might be associated with coming from a big, elite, giant defense law firm.

I am a street punk fighter. Bring it on. Over and out.