baddog

This was probably one of my favorite jobs of all time. Anyone that knows me knows that I love to debate, and when the results of the debate can end in rewards of tens of thousands of dollars, so much the better.

I just got back from a ride on my bike, and I was thinking about this question. I don't know if this was the most interesting case I ever worked on, but it was one that I was most proud of.

I worked for a Beverly Hills law firm, and most of the time I was negotiating with insurance companies. This one particular case I was dealing with a claims adjuster for an out of state insurance company.

There are procedures that must be followed in a lawsuit, and one of them is that you must make a good faith effort to settle the issue without having to go to court. That is where I came in. Insurance adjusters had to deal with me, and only as a last resort would they ever got to talk to my boss, and that would be after we had actually filed and served the summons of the defendant.

This particular adjuster did not want to deal with me, her position being that I was not an attorney, and she would only deal with attorneys.

Being very good at what I do, I knew the Code of Civil Procedure and Civil Code inside and out, and tried my best to get it through her thick skull that by California law she was obligated to try and settle this without going to court, and the only way she was going to talk to an attorney was in a courtroom. She just didn't get it. So I filed a complaint with the Calif Dept of Insurance.

She ended up turning the case over to one of the top insurance defense firms in the state. The head of the firm personally took on the case, and filed his own 8 page complaint against me, at which time he described me as "an intellectual terrorist." It was the highest compliment anyone had ever paid me.