How to Lose Your Lawsuit — Guaranteed

What not to do when you get sued

They're suing me!

Even the thought might make your heart race, your mouth dry up, your breath quicken. Unfortunately, in today's society, almost anyone can get sued even if they've done nothing wrong.

In fact, one of the most common questions lawyers have to answer — right after Can you work for free? — is Can they sue me if...? The answer, unfortunately, is yes: just about anybody can file a frivolous lawsuit if they really want to. But the important question isn't whether they can sue you. The important question is how you respond if you do get sued. Here are the most common mistakes that people make when they get sued — mistakes that can kill your chances of winning without ever having even seen the courthouse.

Mistake #1: Panic.

Immediately upon getting served, the defendant goes into a mental tailspin. Papers meet the shredder; computer files fall prey to the Delete button; potential witnesses vanish under mysterious circumstances.

All of this is a very bad idea. Besides being highly illegal — especially the vanishing witness part — any type of evidence tampering or obstruction of justice will almost certainly cause the judge to direct a verdict against you, or at least assume that the evidence you destroyed was the smoking gun, and render a judgment accordingly.

Mistake #2: Ignore it.

The second way to guarantee losing your lawsuit is to simply do nothing. In most cases, you have twenty days from the time you are served until you must file an answer with the court. If you don't, the plaintiff will ask for, and almost always obtain, a default judgment against you. What is a default judgment? It's the Court's way of telling you that you've lost the case because you didn't bother to show up. Now the plaintiff gets to try to collect money from you — garnish bank accounts, auction off property, and take other nasty measures.

Once a default judgment is entered, it's still possible — in theory — to re-open the case. But it's at least twice as expensive and ten times as risky as hiring a lawyer from the start to do things the right way. If you've been sued, don't let your deadline pass you by. Get help, and get it quick.

Mistake #3: Help yourself.

You wouldn't take out your own appendix, would you? Why then, would you try to represent yourself in a lawsuit without the help of a lawyer? Fighting a lawsuit is a highly technical enterprise that requires years of training and experience to do right. Almost as important, it requires a degree of professional detachment that allows the advocate to make litigation decisions unclouded by emotion. Even a highly experienced lawyer would be foolish to try to fight a lawsuit without a professional advocate there. You've heard the phrase A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client? It's even worse when non-lawyers try it. So don't. Talk to someone with experience in the type of case you're fighting.

Mistake #4: Explain things.

Many times, the natural impulse is to simply get on the phone or write a letter and explain everything, because surely this lawsuit is just a misunderstanding!

This backfires, nearly every time. By the time a plaintiff has filed a lawsuit, the time for explaining is long gone. There's plenty of time, though, for a defendant to give away valuable information, expose a weakness, or make a self-incriminating statement. In other words, explaining helps no one but the other side in all but the rarest of cases. Don't do it.

Mistake #5: Ignorance.

If your lawyer isn't willing to educate you about your case, and leaves you in the dark, you need a new lawyer. Only a client who is informed and educated about the facts of their case and about the litigation process can have a reasonable shot at making good decisions on litigation strategy. Ask your lawyer to explain the process to you at the outset, and keep you reasonably updated about significant events in your case.

I wish I could write an article called How to Win Your Lawsuit — Guaranteed. But that article, if it could exist, would be the most carefully guarded secret in the known world. All you can do, as a party in a lawsuit, is to avoid making the mistakes hat are most likely to kill your case before it ever gets started. Do that, and you're ahead of a lot of others whose bones litter the courthouse steps because their mistakes ate them alive.