The Decision to Litigate and the Adversary System :: Litigation Adversary System Court Essays

The Decision to Litigate and the Adversary System The in-class video and lecture identified a number of factors that should be considered when making this decision. They include 1.) Trials are expensive and lengthy. Someone has to pay the costs. 2.) What is the likehood of recovery? 3.) Are the defendants able to satisfy the judgement? 4.) Will a suit impact the relationship between the defendant(s) and 5.) Will harmful publicity or loss of goodwill result? In the movie, the decision to go to trial was based on the attorney’s greed. Though that was not the initial decision, once Schlictmann saw Beatrice Foods and linked it to â€Å"Peter Pan, Tropicana, Samsonite, etc†. You could see the dollar signs in his eyes. From that point forward all manpower and resources were allocated to this one case. None of the plaintiffs in the film appeared to have the financial resources to support a decision to litigate, nor did the firm representing them. Towards the end of the trial, the firm was so heavily in debt over the case they filled out multiple applications for credit cards. They also had second mortgaged their homes, cashed in their â€Å"retirement plans, life insurance plans, gone.† The firm had completely overextended themselves in the process of trying to generate evidence to prove their case. The lack of evidence, money as well as the tremendous resources of the defendants should all have been considerations that would have steered them from a trial. Most important of all, the attorney should have been focused on the goal of the Plaintiff’s in determining whether or not to litigate, which in the movie was completely overlooked. They did not want punitive damages as a result of their losses. What they wanted was for the responsible party to take ownership of their actions and apologize to them. This was clearly stated to Jan Schlictmann in his initial meeting with them. Furthermore, they restated their interest at the time that the attorney’s informed the families that they would each receive $375, 000 as part of the settlement from W.R. Grace. Strategy in the Adversary System One of the strategies employed by lawyers in a trial to achieve a favorable verdict is to persuade the trier of facts that the facts presented by the other side are untrue, improvable or not credible. In the movie, both defense attorneys’s attacked the credibility of the plaintiff’s attorney, Jan Schlictmann.