After litigating for 32 years here is what I learned for sure. When litigating, it’s better to be rich.  I understand that may be obvious, but as the costs of litigation continue to rise, it’s a lesson that the average Joe needs to learn and learn quick.   The bottom line is that it’s better to be rich because a rich person is not deterred by the cost of litigating and can simply fight fight fight.

Here’s how it goes representing rich people over the years:  Let’s say they are suing someone that owes them $15,678.32  I know before I start that my marching orders are to settle the case for $15,678.32 plus reimbursement of fee and costs.  It’s that simple.

When it’s a rich person vs. a poor person, every settlement offer made by the poor person will be rejected by the rich person if it simply does not reimburse the rich person everything they are seeking.  Then, the poorer person has to ask themselves if they simply want to offer everything the rich person wants, or continue to spend thousands of dollars anyway litigating.  Eventually they realize that it’s simply easier paying the rich person everything they want, rather than to keep fighting, keep paying their lawyer and keep taking a risk about losing the case.  It’s a very unfair fight.  I have represented rich people who simply would not settle unless they also received some sort of an apology.  That made settlement a lot tougher to accomplish.

Where it gets really interesting is when two very wealthy people are litigating against each other.  You might think that these very successful people would sit down and work things out because their time and money are better spent elsewhere, but that’s not the case.  At that point the competitive nature kicks in and it’s usually all or nothing or fight to the death.  Only sometimes can you convince the parties to settle.  Each side spent a lot of money litigating, but they showed the other side that they can fight just as strong and as hard as they can.

The bottom line is that the courtroom is truly for the wealthy.  In the condo and HOA world, it’s usually the associations that have a tremendous advantage over the owner because they control the purse strings.  Everyone else should get to the mediation table as fast as they can.