Boutique Law Firms, Litigators, Small Law Firms

Work With Other Professionals You Trust To Better Serve Your Clients

Sometimes, to best advise clients, litigators must go beyond the world of litigation.

By Jillian L. McNeil  
on

Diverse business team teamworkSometimes, the best way to serve your clients as a litigator is to make the appropriate connections with professionals in other fields. Not only does working alongside these professionals give you and your clients a broader understanding of the issues before you, but it allows you to provide a more comprehensive set of services to your client that you would not otherwise be able to offer.

These professionals may come from a wide array of industries. They could be lawyers who practice in another jurisdiction or who have extensive experience in a particular area of the law, discovery providers, public relations advisers, or accountants, to name but a few.

In the last several months, I have faced multiple instances in which our clients were best served by connecting them to (and working closely with) professionals outside of the firm.

Most recently, I had to consider certain complex valuation calculations, which were needed to support my client’s claim for damages. While it would have been possible for me or one of my colleagues to make these calculations, it would have taken us a substantial amount of time and resources to do so. Instead, we worked with a financial advising firm that specializes in these types of valuations and is well-regarded in both their industry and ours. The result was a final report that we knew would stand up in court and was created in a timely and cost-effective manner for our clients.

In another case, our adversary produced hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in discovery. By working with an outside discovery vendor, we were able to review these documents and advise our client on their content more efficiently than had we processed the documents completely in-house.

Finally, on another of our firm’s cases, my colleague had to attend an argument in a district court across the country. While he has extensive experience in federal court generally, it was crucial to work with local counsel who could advise him about the idiosyncrasies of the local practices.

As litigators, we are used to being the experts on the ins and outs of the courtroom, writing and arguing about complex legal issues, and presenting detailed narratives in an engaging and easy-to-understand manner. But sometimes, to best advise our clients, we must go beyond the world of litigation and work with those who are experts in their own areas of practice. By doing so, we are able to provide a wider range of services for our clients in an efficient and cost-sensitive manner.

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Jillian L McNeilJillian L. McNeil was an attorney at Balestriere Fariello, a trial and investigations law firm which represents clients in all aspects of complex commercial litigation and arbitration from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach firm partner John Balestriere at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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