Choosing the Right Attorney: Legal Expert Tony Sgro

Welcome to the Vegas Law Podcast, hosted by renowned Las Vegas attorney, Tony Scrooge. This episode is sponsored by the law firm of Scrooge & Roger. Each episode explores legal insights and local stories that matter to you. Now on with the show. Welcome to today's edition of Vegas Law Podcast. My name is Tony Skrow. I'm here with Daryl Harris. And today's topic is how to choose an attorney, the right attorney. Yeah, that's the key, the right one. And tell us about that because I know it's a complicated subject and also depends, of course, on if it's a criminal matter, if it's a civil matter. Let's talk about that, Tony. Sure. You want to make sure that the person that you are choosing to hire as your lawyer has the correct amount or the right amount or enough experience in a particular area that you need someone to help you with. So knowledge, skill and experience in the particular area, that's what you got to find out. And attorneys like myself, we expect our potential clients to ask questions. How many times have you done a case like this before? What's your experience in this particular circumstance? Do you know the judge that we're in front of? What's your success level been with this judge? Do you know the opposing attorney on the other side? How well do you know them? What about your firm gives me a competitive advantage over the other firm? And as basic as these things might seem, you'd be surprised how many people just go in and blindly or, you know, they count on dumb luck to get the right person. And that's really not how it should work. Someone choosing the correct lawyer needs to be armed with the right set of questions so that they feel comfortable. And I tell people all the time, listen, hiring a lawyer is a very important relationship. You've got to feel comfortable. And so the best lawyer must necessarily mean the one with whom you feel the most comfortable with so that you can have a good working relationship and trust that lawyer. Because there's going to come a time when that lawyer may say something like, it's time to resolve the case. Here's the current offer on the table. Well, if you have had an unpleasant experience or you don't trust your lawyer, how will you ever know if you've really made the right call? And I think in no circumstance is it more important to know the mechanics of how to choose the right lawyer than, ironically, in personal injury. One would think, well, in criminal, you know, you have your liberties impacted. You need to make sure. That's true. But in the world of criminal defense, there are a certain group of individuals, especially in our community. that people are going to recognize as being at the top of their game. It is competitive in the sense that, you know, everyone wants to compete in the business world, and I get that. But really, it's hard to not always dip into the pool of those 10 or 15 practitioners that have been doing this a long time, that have the battle wounds, you know, that have been to war many, many times. though that's the group that you need to choose from. And I very much consider myself to be part of that group. In the area of personal injury, our Las Vegas community has taken just a bad left turn, no pun intended. And there is part of that industry that's devolved. And I want to make sure that anyone listening to this understands that there are very good, very competent, and very capable personal injury lawyers that are going to take your case to heart. They're going to do the very best job that they can do for you, and they're going to do it honestly, ethically, and above board. What do I mean by that? Well, there's a couple of red flags where you should absolutely stay away from a personal injury lawyer that comes from the wrong referral source or that is paying to have you be a client. So not only is it unethical, it is also illegal. And those are the trappings that I want to talk about today. And we talked a little bit about that before during this episode. I think it's the term capping. Is that correct? Right. So explain what that is because I kind of jokily said that. Reminds you of the with the mob in Vegas. It's a different kind of capping. So explain what that is so people can understand and know what to look out for. Sure. Capping is a term of art used to describe when someone who is an agent of a law firm shows up mysteriously, surprisingly, inexplicably to the scene of an accident. And they walk up to you. You've just been rear-ended. You're in a crash. you've been hurt. And someone will walk up to you and say, hi, my name is Joe Blow and I'm a detective. Now they want you to think that they're a detective like with Metro, but they're not. And they then from that point say a couple of different things. One common example is I'm a detective. Here, I'm on my cell phone. I'm going to pass you the cell phone. This is someone that can help you. And so the unsuspecting person that just got injured in a car crash receives the cell phone and they say hello, you know, and on the other side of the cell phone is an attorney or someone who works in an attorney's office that says, hi, I'm attorney Mary Smith and I understand you've just been in an accident. Why don't you come down here right now? Let us get that handled. and these phony detectives, which are nothing more than employees of these various law firms that do this, they are actively listening to radio scanners, police radios, and as soon as they hear of an accident, wherever they are, they drive over to that scene. And there are so many accidents. I think last I checked, there were approximately 8,000 accidents a year, which is a lot, or 800 a month, somewhere in that range. But, you know, 8,000 to 10,000 accidents a month, that's a lot. And at the end of the day, that business is a very lucrative business. The ones that don't engage in capping, like myself, like many other firms, they all do a good job. They all make a good living. This is now a cottage industry where it's a burgeoning industry where people are out there getting paid to go chase down persons that have been hurt in a car accident in order to get them to a specific attorney. And then, of course, whether it's the phony detective or, in some cases, even the tow truck driver themselves. The tow truck driver shows up to the scene where there's a tow. So what do you know when a car is going to get towed? Well, you know that the car crash had to have significant enough impact for the car to need a tow, right? It's not a fender bender. Commensurate with that, oftentimes, is the level of injury is going to be more because the car got totaled. totaled. And now that tow truck driver has a unique opportunity to take that accident victim and refer them to a specific lawyer. And that happens, unfortunately, all the time. And there is a predetermined amount of money that is given by the law firm to the tow truck driver in order to make that happen, none of which is ethical, none of which is legal. But because of the short staffing issues and it's not really a sexy crime, so to speak, it just is not one of those circumstances that is vigilantly prosecuted like on a 24-7 basis. If an issue gets reported, of course, the state bar will intervene and do whatever they have to do. But I don't know yet of one single circumstance where a personal injury lawyer who engages in this capping has been charged criminally. And here's what I mean by that. There's a statute that was amended recently, I think last October. And the statute is 7.045. You can look it up. And it talks about the unlawful activity of showing up at a scene in order to solicit someone. The first time you do it, it's a gross misdemeanor, right? So worse than a DUI, but not a felony. The second time you do it it has to be treated as a felony And so the legislature finally has criminalized the conduct to make it serious And the other part of the statute that very interesting is this If a person is solicited at a scene of an accident and that person goes and hires the lawyer that was responsible for that solicitation. The lawyer is not only potentially on the hook criminally, but the lawyer, if the client complains eventually that they were solicited, that lawyer also must divest themselves of the fee. So I can tell you what happened to us more than once is persons out there in the public having heard of this statute, they've called our office and they have said, hey, listen, you know, I heard about the statute. I saw something on TV. I was solicited by a tow truck driver and my case settled for $500,000. The lawyer took a third of that money. What can I do? And I've said, well, listen, you know, I'm not in the business of, you know, judging how other people make a living or trying to tamper with anything, but there is this statute. And it says, if this is truly what occurred, the lawyer's not allowed to keep the fee. And so they came in, we shot a letter out to the attorney that was the subject of the inquiry. And within seven days, without a fight, that lawyer gave the client all their money back. Why? Well, because they know. And it's really just the cost of doing business. There's so much money out there and it's such a huge industry to lose one case here at one case there because they couldn't keep all the fees. To have it just be handled and they get to circumvent any inquiry from the bar, because all I can do is say, look, there's these allegations, right? I haven't proven anything. I don't know if what the client's telling me is true or not true. The client's trying to be opportunistic or not. So there's no mandatory reporting that's occurred on my side. I just say, you know, here's what the allegations are. Before we dive into the investigation, let me know what your position is, right? Words to that effect. Yeah. And the reputation, of course, is what's at stake beyond just the criminal penalties, possible criminal penalties for doing that. And do you, I mean, obviously as an attorney, your reputation is everything. Talk a little bit about that. Sure. I mean, your reputation is always going to precede you, whether you have a good one or not so good one. And so what you want to do is as a lawyer, especially in our community, is you have to constantly put yourself out there as someone who's honest, dedicated, and that has integrity. And the last thing you want to do is be scrutinized under a cloud of suspicion, having, you know, been accused of dealing with tow truck drivers or, you know, showing up at the hospital on a surprise visit to, you know, the phony detective, et cetera, et cetera. And these people are all out there. And so when they get called out, it is much more in their best interest to try to preserve the little bit of the reputation that they still maintain as opposed to fighting it and have them be exposed potentially for what they are. And lawyers have a good idea of the sorts of other lawyers that are doing this sort of capping and that are engaging in those practices. The community at large, though, doesn't know that this goes on. And unbelievably, I mean, it's unbelievable to me. Maybe it's just because what I do every day. But unbelievably, at the scene of an accident, you know, when people just show up out of nowhere, instead of raising an eyebrow, it works. And these people are throwing accident victims. Sometimes they're putting them in their car and taking them directly to a lawyer's office even before they go to the hospital and get checked out. to me sounds pretty crazy but it's working uh the other thing is the you know surprise hospital visit oh we were contacted by some nameless faceless person how are you doing today and the unsuspecting person in a hospital bed says who called you who contacted you and then just skip over it and say but we can help you because we're lawyers and all you have to do is sign here. It's a shame and it's the one area where there appears to be a little bit of a willingness to depart from that which otherwise lawyers are given the job task to do and to perform, which is to stay above board, stay ethical, and just do the right thing and work card and the business will come. This is obviously a tremendous shortcut. And people in my industry know, they know of two young lawyers, three young lawyers, whatever it is, they all of a sudden partner up. They buy property, they buy a building. All of a sudden they have this huge law firm overnight inexplicably. Well, how did that happen? Well, they only do personal injury, let's just say. you know, there's a better than not chance that they're doing something perhaps they shouldn't be doing. And so we in the community see what's going on and we know. But we are also dealing with some real life issues, understaffing, attorneys being unwilling to report their own colleagues, the public at large not understanding that that's not how it's supposed to be, that that's not how it works. And I think in large part, that's why the statute says, listen, public at large, if you've been solicited, you have a right to go get even your attorney's fees back because the contract was null and void. The lawyer that signed you up didn't have the right to sign you up. Therefore, they don't have the right to keep any of the fees. And so that was in there. I don't know this for sure, but my best guess is that that was put in the statute to allow for the opportunity for the public to be economically incentivized to call the lawyer and say, hey, wait a second, your tow truck driver was the one that brought me into your office or your detective was the one that brought me into your office. You know, what gives? And, you know, it's a very slow, a slow climb to try and turn that around. But the hope is that it works. So now getting back to the original inquiry, what is this podcast about? How to choose an attorney. And is it something important? Yes. And you have to realize too, if someone is willing to go to those lengths to cultivate you as a client or procure you as a client, and they do it often, you're just not going to get the best result in your particular case, as opposed to going somewhere else where they don't do that and they're just focused on getting the most optimal result for each individual client, the likelihood is you're going to get more money in your settlement because they're not worried. The legitimate lawyer is not worried about filling the pipeline line up with the next 10, 20, 30, or 500 cases. They're worried about just getting whatever they can get done for you in your settlement, advocating appropriately for you in your settlement so that you can get the best outcome possible. What are some of the top questions that come to mind that you think potential clients should ask an attorney to kind of feel them out and get a sense for where they're coming from. Sure. How long have you been doing this? How many cases like mine have you had over the course of your career? How many lawyers are at this firm that you can talk to about my case and bounce ideas off of? What expectations should I have of your office in terms of communication? If I call you on a Monday, am I going to get a return call within 24 hours. If I send you an email, what's your policy on how quickly you respond to my email? So the list goes on from there, depending on, of course, on what the answers are, right? If my case goes to trial, are you going to be the one that shows up in court? Or are you going to send it to someone else? Because you don't do that, right? There are lots of lawyers in our community that farm work out and that's okay. And there's nothing wrong with doing that so long as the client knows going in, right? The whole point of this is for the client to make an educated decision. Maybe they don't care that the lawyer that they're hiring doesn't do the trial because they really like the lawyer They get along with the lawyer The lawyer has the right personality They have good chemistry great So the issue is not me suggesting hey if they don go to trial don hire them because they will make arrangements to get the right lawyer. Sometimes our office gets contacted to do the trial. That happens with me with some level of regularity. So I would encourage anyone listening to this to just ask. And the issue for me would always be transparency. And if after the conversation where the lawyer and the client have had an honest conversation, the client feels comfortable, that's who your person should be. If you've been hustled because of a tow truck driver, a phony detective, someone inexplicably showing up at a hospital, that's just not the right lawyer because they're willing to bend and or break rules just to get you in as a client, right? So you have to be a little bit guarded when that occurs because you're already starting with someone who's willing to compromise their own ethics just to have you as a client. Do you find that, are there some attorneys that will do anything to settle because they don't feel comfortable going into a jury trial? Is that something that you've run across and how do you deal with that? today most lawyers have taken the position that if they won't do the trial they will farm out that work to someone that is willing to do the trial and that's okay are there certain attorneys that because they don't do the trial because they don't have the knowledge skill and experience to go to trial where they might settle it a little short. Unfortunately, I think that happens. And again, it's all part of that initial conversation. If you speak with someone and they tell you, I've never been to trial. I have no idea how that works. But if we get there, I'll find you someone that can do the courtroom stuff for you. That may resonate with some folks. And if that's the case, and that's your person. On the other hand, if you think, wow, well, is there a chance that because he doesn't go to trial and if he or she has to farm out the work to a trial lawyer, will they be tempted to settle the case for less than it's worth just so they can keep all the fee instead of sharing the fee with the trial lawyer? And that's an honest question. I would ask that. I would say, listen, okay, I get you don't do the trial work. You're going to refer it out. How does that help me at all? Does it cause you to be tempted to compromise my case sooner rather than later, even though if we held out for trial, we might be able to do a little bit better, right? And I'm not suggesting that every case needs to go to trial. That's not the point. Sometimes getting the money now is better than waiting and getting the money after trial and appeals, and it could be two or three years. The money now is guaranteed. The jury trial is not guaranteed. Who knows what's going to happen in front of a jury? There's all sorts of communications that happen all day, every day about whether or not to settle or go to trial. The whole point is, though, your knowledge as the client, what are you comfortable with and what are you not? The for sure non-starter is going to be, well, someone hustled me to go to this firm. In that particular circumstance, the answer has got to be you have the wrong person. Other than that, it's the questions that you ask and the level of engagement between you and your prospective lawyer that needs to really seal the deal for you. Do you find that that kind of relationship, it's a bit like a short-term marriage, but some of these cases go on for years. So it can be quite a commitment. And is that something that you've kind of experienced with your career? Because you've done a lot of jury trials. You've done cases that have lasted for years. Going into that, you're also assessing the client, thinking like, probably, do I want to be involved with this client? Talk a little bit about that. Sure. Listen, not every communication with the client is an easy one. And so it is like a marriage, a short-term marriage. And I use that example all the time. There has got to be some level, some baseline level of blind trust. So you're going to hear from your lawyer. We should accept this amount of money as a settlement. You should take this deal, which exposes you to three years in prison. You should do X, Y, or Z. These are heavy decisions. You should, you know, agree to only see your child every other weekend because of what your work schedule is. These decisions are not mechanical. There is not a one-size-fits-all. These are decisions that need to take place with the predicate being some baseline level of trust. So you must trust your lawyer. And sometimes that trust is the only thing that saves the relationship during the time when there's an unpleasant or uncomfortable conversation. And, you know, our position is always, listen, we're going to do whatever you want us to do. Right. That's number one. You're in charge. You, the client, are in charge. We're going to do whatever you want us to do. And we're going to do everything in our power to get you the outcome you desire. You need to know, though, with that job task, there may be some risk involved. And our job is to determine the level of appreciable risk and balance that against the guaranteed result we have today. I was going to say, you have a lot of younger attorneys here at the firm, Skrull and Roger in Las Vegas. And do you discuss these matters with them in terms of interviewing clients and the importance of that and how to approach it? All the time. And the number one thing that I ask the lawyers here to do is to reiterate to the client during the initial meeting. Listen, good, bad or indifferent, when we get news, we're delivering it to you. We are not cheerleaders, nor are we magicians. But what we are is honest and what we are is hardworking and what we are designed to do is to do everything in our power to get you the outcome that you desire. And we will do that. And we, you know, the biggest cases I have ever had in my career were cases where in one circumstance, I was the fifth lawyer that was interviewed. Fifth. Why? Because four of my colleagues in town turned down that case. In the second case, I was the sixth lawyer because five of my colleagues turned down that case. each of those two cases resulted in settlements of over 30 million dollars and colleagues of mine in our community had had the opportunity to visit with that client and uh you know they decided to turn it down no you don't have anything here and were those cases difficult yes where did the cases take several years in both circumstances? Yes. But was I able to communicate with my client in such a way that they knew the road was going to be long, the road was going to be difficult, it was going to be a lot of risk? I was willing to risk the time and the money if they were willing to be patient. And I always came back to that, you know, whenever there was a little bit of a hiccup, oh, this is taking too long. What about this? What about that? And I reminded them, hey, remember when we first met? This is what's going on now. I forecast we would have some difficult times. That's what we're doing now. And so there's no substitute for that. If you can be upfront in the very beginning of the meeting, let the client know what you expect is going to happen, what you can do, what you can't do, man, that goes a long way. Do you find that in these high stakes cases, high dollar cases, that the opposing side, they need to believe that you're willing to go to trial? Is that something that's super important? A hundred percent. There is definitely a tactical advantage. If I am on the phone with an opposing counsel or one of the members here of my team is on the phone with opposing counsel and we say, here's what we have to do, or, you know, I appreciate your position, I respect your position, but we're going to have to go to trial. When we hang up the phone, they actually think, understand, know, and believe we're going to trial. It's not an empty threat. It's not me pounding my fist on the table saying we're going to go to trial because they know I do that work all the time. This office does that work all the time. So if we are not in our offices researching, writing, meeting with clients, whatever we do, instead of doing that we in court That a normal thing for us So because of that we are able to very easily communicate the message that this is it This is our offer This is what we need to do If you can't accept it, we respect your position. We'll see you in trial. And it is a significant advantage to be able to say something like that and to have it be believed. And when offices like hours get hired by other law firms just to go do the trial, it continues to add credibility and validity to that which we have to say. So that's a lot different than coming from someone who's never been to trial before saying, okay, well, I'm going to take you to trial. Okay, well, everybody in town knows that's not your reputation. Your reputation in particular, you've been very successful as a trial attorney. Talk a little bit about that. We've talked about it before, but I think it's important for people to understand your background. Sure. I joke about it. I stopped counting at 125 jury trials, which is a lot. And that is in civil work, personal injury work. We had the largest premises liability ever recorded against Walgreens. We had an extremely large real estate verdict. We've gotten acquittals in homicide cases, drug cases, sex assault cases. So we have had successes in a number of different fields of law. So when people ask me, well, what do you do as a lawyer? What kind of law do you do? Ironically, I developed myself into just being a trial lawyer. I need to be downloaded the information. I need to be consulted with on, okay, what do I have to prove to win this particular case? And I have the blessing and the good fortune of many smart people around me to adequately frame what the issue is going to be. And then my job is to go deliver it to a jury and hope that my view, my position is more persuasive than the other side. And so far, so good, right? More than 30 years later, I've had the opportunity to win cases in criminal court outright and big cases, homicide trials. I've had the good fortune to win enormous verdicts in real estate trials and to also be successful in front of a jury on personal injury trials, medical malpractice cases. So I was told years ago, no one wins medical malpractice cases here in Las Vegas. Well, I had two that I guess at that time I had the misfortune of being involved in. And I won them both. And then the third one I did, when we went to trial and they knew we were serious, right after we were done picking a jury, they gave me the limits on their policy. So, you know, over enough period of time, I have had the good fortune of seeing trial skills that we possess translate into, at the end of the day, how does one pitch their case to the jury? How do we frame it? How do we most easily cause them to understand what our cause is and that our cause is the just cause? And that's really what we do as trial lawyers. So in the beginning, I used to tell people I do criminal defense. Then I moved into for a while, I did a bunch of business cases, you know, because friends of mine came to me that were in harm's way. We did very well because I understood the basic concept. Understand what the client needs you to communicate. Here's the pitfalls. Here's the ups and downs. And go do your thing. And we were able to garner enormous successes, including the one real estate verdict that we had, where it was my client and we engaged with eight Fortune 500 development companies from around the country. And we won. And so, you know, when you get verdicts like that, it's very validating. In the medical malpractice case, when I was told over and over and over again, you have no chance, no one wins. People like doctors. Your client has no chance. She was Latina, which I was told, you know, it was another strike against me. And I was just too dumb to know what I didn't know. So I went in there thinking, you know, listen, a courtroom's a fair playing field. And we went in there and we did extremely well in that case as well. So I think it's just a matter of getting that subset of trial skills and bringing them into a courtroom and understanding what the issue is, framing it correctly, and speaking to jurors like normal folks. You know, we're just all in it together. And I tell juries all the time, listen, if you don't believe this part of my case, give it to the defense. Give it to the other side. But if you do believe me, then you must understand that this is all we have is money, right? You can't put someone's arm back together. You can't, you know, I had someone lose a limb. I had someone that lost a child because of poor health care while the baby was in utero. I'm never getting any of that stuff back. Neither is my client. The only thing there's left is money, and money is pretty insignificant when measured against a life-altering circumstance. And the ability to get a juror to understand that and agree with you, that's my skill set. Do you find that when you walk into a courtroom, of course, the jurors likely don't know who you are, but the attorney does. Usually opposing counsel is going to be well aware of your reputation. Does that carry some gravity when you walk in? You know, I say all the time lawyers' egos are bigger than this building. And so I think every lawyer thinks that he or she is the greatest thing ever. and it's not so much the lawyer having trepidation until we're in it. Then they start to realize a little bit at a time that maybe they've bitten off a little more than they can chew. But it doesn't happen at the beginning. But what happens, though, when you're in court all the time, there's just a level of comfort. Everything from greetings with the court staff. There's a big difference between someone who's introducing themselves for the first time because they flew an attorney in from Denver to do a particular case. Them introducing themselves, having to be very formal, and me walking up and giving one of the court staff a hug and asking how their kid is doing. So that's the dynamic that you really can't see on paper. It doesn't translate that way. But the active trial practitioner has a built-in advantage because of the comfort level that they feel when they walk into the room. And the lack of anxiety, it's just not there because we've been there so many times. It's just a natural thing. And I mean it when I say it. instead of pulling up and, you know, jumping behind my desk, if I pull up to the regional justice center because I'm picking a jury, both days are the same for me. They're both comfortable. You know, obviously, if I'm in trial, I haven't slept for two weeks, but, you know, and I'm eating crackers and peanut butter so I don't get full. But the comfort level is there. I am totally fine. and I know I'm going to be ready. I know I'm outworking the other side. And then it's up to the judge and the jury. But if I get to do my thing and I'm on the right side of the case, I'm going to win. Yeah, and you have quite a reputation for winning and a great office, a great staff, a great team. Tony, tell people how they can reach you if they want to contact or if they have some questions. Sure. Sure. The website is scrowandroger.com, S-G-R-O-A-N-D-R-O-G-E-R.com, and our phone number is 702-384-9800. And that number will allow us to get you to our Reno office as well. Yeah, and I was going to say you have an office in Las Vegas and Reno, and you also have an office in Milan. You have a great partner there, which we spoke with once, but we're going to be doing some future broadcasts with them as well. So great. Thank you for joining us, everybody. Please like and subscribe to hear current and future episodes. And thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. And for further information, please visit our website at scrowandroger.com. Please like and subscribe. Thank you.