When and how can I recover attorney's fees in Wisconsin?

The Wisconsin State Legislature has adopted rules governing when and to what extent a party to litigation is entitled to recover attorney's fees from the other party.  This is an oversimplification, but Wisconsin generally follows what is known as "the American Rule", meaning the parties bear the cost of their own legal counsel.  This rule is modified somewhat by Wisconsin Statutes Section 814.04.  This statute sets the recovery of attorneys fees in most actions to a very small amount, usually less than $500.  There are many important exceptions to this general rule.

I have attempted to aggregate as many of the exceptions to the rule as I could find and list a descriptive name along with the relevant fee-shifting statute below.  At the bottom of this guide I have provided a link to the Wisconsin State Legislature's searchable database of statutes.  Please know that while this list is an effort at identifying as many fee shifting statutes in Wisconsin as possible (please send suggestions for additions, deletions and changes to the guide to nickpasse@gmail.com), even I do not believe it is an exhaustive list.

If you have a case you are involved in or you may soon be involved in litigation, you should consult with at least one attorney to determine what full representation might cost, whether a limited representation might be available, what the risks and benefits of any representation might be, what the risks and benefits of proceeding through the litigation unrepresented might be and if there might be ways of recovering any attorney's fees you if you are successful in your lawsuit.  Attorneys trying to determine if there are cost-shifting provisions available for a certain case should consult with other attorneys in the practice area if a search of the relevant statutes has not turned anything up.  I hope to improve the list of cost-shifting provisions below in the future so I am especially hopeful that you attorneys reading this list will offer suggestions for additions, deletions and changes to the list to me at nickpasse@gmail.com - thanks!)

Source: http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/under-what-circumstances-can-i-recover-attorneys-fees-in-wisconsin

Working on 5 post series about "Evil" Asshat Lawyers

This is just an update on a featured post series about “Evil” Asshat Lawyers EsQ.  I will tell you and show you proof that these asshat lawyers are using multiple personae over a diverse network. I will show you how the buy gift cards and purchase domain names and hosting mixed with free sites. I’ll explain how they link their sites and use the links to keyword a site’s strength and also to damage other lawyer’s reputations.

I won’t go into software they use, however I will show you the similarities and word speech analysis. I will give you a few sips of how they make money from HOA and other venues. I’ll outline the methods they attack and harass with and show you sites they have done this on a reoccuring basis. I may post database information so any tech savy people can verify the information….but, I may save that as a tool for later.

I will show you how they make themselves sound so impressive with President of this organization or pooba asshat lawyer of that organization. I will also outline with a time-line and post pictures the verify information about their misconduct towards conley. I have names and copies of receipts they spent to order records and copies of them talking about what they planed on doing to conley. They have serious liability issues and when it is over I will verify I am not whom they think I am in a video post. Also, why don’t they link t this site I wonder? Don’t you want people to see for themselves how I am this sick horrible person? No, because they are afraid of the truth.

Any good journalist worth their salt will give both parties a chance to speak and let the readers decide for themselves. Instead you write multiple blog articles and give each credibility by link to another blog claiming the same thing….Thus Making a link wheel which is very Black Hat SEO and unethical….and very much an injustice to whomever you slander. I’ll save that for the article series. I am on #3 now so be patient. I have tried contacting these people and it’s not so easy. Oooopps I am late for my Home Owners Association meeting, ao I gotta go.


Source: http://asshatlawyers.wordpress.com/

How to improve your rating at AVVO.com

If you’re a lawyer, you likely have a profile on Avvo.com, even if you have never visited the site. Avvo.com, which bills itself as the largest online lawyer listing service in the world, has developed a database containing almost every lawyer in the country. Each gets rated from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best possible score. Clients and peers can post positive or negative comments.

“Why am I only a 6.5 out of 10?” A trial lawyer asked me a couple weeks ago. “And why does John [the lawyer across the hall] have a rating of 10?”

First things first: Why should you care?

If you’re a corporate, business-to-business attorney, you might not need to care very much. If you’re a business-to-consumer attorney, your score might matter a great deal. The clients you’re interested in don’t tend to hire lawyers very often. They don’t understand what makes a great or even competent attorney. They might turn to Google, where they’ll be bombarded with advertisements for lawyers. But they don’t want ads—they want unbiased information.

That’s where Avvo comes in. “We use a proprietary software that goes out and crawls the web to build an automated profile of these lawyers,” said Mark Britton, Avvo’s founder and chief executive officer. “Some lawyers are saying, ‘I’ll do good work and clients will come to me.’ But the problem is, if you don’t have an online presence it is extremely difficult for people to evaluate you.”

Avvo evaluates attorneys based on the information gathered by its webcrawler. “Avvo is replicating the process that someone sophisticated would go through in choosing a lawyer,” Britton said. “Think about what you would do for a family member trying to find a lawyer in another state. You would work the web. You might check their license, do a Google search and check LinkedIn—maybe blogs or even Facebook. Avvo starts with the bar records and then goes from there.”

Obviously, lawyers with strong web presences will score well. But Avvo also allows lawyers to supplement their profiles with information about any clerkships they served, the schools they attended and firms they have worked for. The technology-averse can even ship their resumes to Avvo, which will enter the information on their behalf. This added information could raise an attorney’s score.

If you have a common name—say, John Smith—”there is a much bigger need for adding in your own information, because the crawler has a hard time distinguishing,” Britton said.

Lawyers are especially wary of Avvo’s comments feature—what if a competitor attacks them or disgruntled clients try to destroy their reputations?

For one thing, the service’s terms of use forbid personal attacks; any information posted must be predicated in fact. ” ‘This lawyer sucks!’ would never be approved in our system,” Britton said. “We also require contact information for everybody who makes reviews.” Finally, Avvo scrutinizes every comment before posting it. Lawyers can challenge comments, and if a reviewer doesn’t respond, the comment comes down. If he or she stands by the comment, it stays up.

“There is a very real process to make sure it isn’t a competitor, and there is a place for the attorney to respond to the review,” Britton said. “They can say, ‘I’m not sure this is a client.’ Or they can say, ‘I had no idea you felt this way—this isn’t the way we normally do business and we would love to make it right.’ ”

There is also room for endorsements. “Having the right attorneys endorse you is valuable,” Britton. “Lawyers in your own firm will not be very helpful. Opposing counsel in a case will be very helpful, but it is capped how much it will help. Clients actually don’t affect lawyer ratings at all. Non-lawyers have a hard time evaluating the quality of legal services, especially if it is a one-off. Clients often have unrealistic expectations.”

One example Britton gave was a man accused of murder who was found guilty of manslaughter. His lawyer may have represented him very well indeed, but he might yet feel aggrieved.

It may be time to claim your profile. Avvo claims more than 5 million visitors per month and more than 125,000 participating lawyers. “It’s a win-win situation,” Britton said. Clients, he said, want a third party to provide more unbiased information and lawyers want to provide information in a trustworthy way.

Source: http://adriandayton.com/2013/04/how-to-improve-your-rating-at-avvo-com/

Law firms must extract meaning from data

Businesses in a wide variety of sectors have gathered masses of information relating to everything from their core consumer base to the performance of particular products and services.

With it being so easy to store business information and documents electronically these days, organisations such as law firms can collect huge quantities of data regarding every single aspect of their operations.

But what do they do with it then? Large quantities of information are effectively useless if a firm is not actually using it to inform its future strategy and business plan.

Art Coviello, executive chairman of RSA, this week told Computer Weekly that less than one per cent of the data held by organisations is actually analysed.

As a result, the vast majority of businesses are failing to - in his words - "extract meaning" and "sort through the masses of data elements to discover the hidden pattern, the unexpected correlation".

This means they might be missing out on valuable opportunities for growth, which might be particularly significant in light of the uncertain economic climate.

Analysing trends and patterns within a data set can throw up all sorts of interesting findings for law firms, such as who their biggest clients are or which is their fastest growing type of client.

Once they have found these patterns, they can use them to inform their business decisions and strategic moves, so they can step up efforts to target these strong segments of the market and reduce spending on areas that are not delivering significant returns.

Alternatively, they might see those areas where performance has not been so good and decide to put more money towards addressing the problems and turning them around.

Business management software makes the entire process possible with just a few clicks of a button and if it enables a law firm to use their money more efficiently and adopt a more targeted approach to spending, it can certainly be worthwhile and generate results in no time at all.

Source: http://www.lexisnexis-es.co.uk/legal-technology-news-hub/business-intelligence/law-firms-must-extract-meaning-from-data/801548209