"A great lawyer can achieve a settlement against a party like this without the need to throw sacks of cash onto a firepit."
A lawyer, good or bad, has no control whether the other party settles.
A lawyer, good or bad, has no control whether the other party settles.
This is a game of leverage.
Lawyers are tools that have to be used effectively to apply leverage. Like any tool, good ones make a big difference.
At the time LI was worth about $30 Billion, we had $250K. We convinced LinkedIn to settle after about 4 months in SF court for a nominal amount.
Good/ethical lawyers were critical along with significant creativity from our side on how to use them.
We survived, raised a round and the company is still kicking.
Also, I didn’t say lawyers control settling. I said they’re tools that can be used to achieve an outcome. And the good ones are very helpful. Force multipliers.
Ours were experts in IP law. They knew it well. We used them along with other leverage points to achieve our settlement.
Keeping costs down and only spending enough to acquire the absolute key arguments, research and evidence is how you get to discuss a settlement with leverage.
A large corp can still pepper you with motions then push into trial, but a great lawyer will be limiting how quickly you burn through your war chest and fight battles judiciously instead of throwing the kitchen sink at every motion.