Agree on the mistake of giving Uber all the info. The guy was trusting Uber not to be as scummy as they ended up being. I'm sure he has learned his lesson and next time regardless of company, especially once lawsuit stuff has come into play, will do what you said:
> What he should have done was say "we can discuss this in court, or you can make me whole now and avoid that," and NOTHING else.
It can be worth it, especially if - as OP mentioned - part of his goal was to prove his case to Uber, not so much to specifically recover the money. He didn't necessarily need an incredible A++ 10/10 lawyer, just somebody decent who could devote a couple hours to advising him and act as a go-between for settlement negotiations.
Having a lawyer levels you up in the eyes of court systems and corporations both. Is it perfectly worth it? Not necessarily. Is it very good advice for people considering any kind of legal action? I think so.
-compensation for valuables in the bag
-compensation for software/files/etc
-compensation for time wasted
-compensation for di-stress caused
-compensation for tickets & hotel (if I get this right, the "victim" had to fly in for the court)
The Uber may had to cough-up 6-8-10k, the lawyer would get 2-4k for 2 hours worth of work and all would be happy
He could go to regular court to claim a larger amount, but that's a more involved and lengthy process.
It's expected that you'll try to resolve things before filing a suit, and it's expected to try to settle if possible once suit has been filed, but it's not my understanding that those negotiations necessarily involve giving info to the other party that isn't to your advantage except as part of actual discovery. Were you told at some point by the magistrate or court otherwise that you had to do that?
[1] http://www.mass.gov/ago/consumer-resources/consumer-assistan...
I assume that he assumed it would just be a couple letters drafted and they would cough up, but they really dug in their heels and used the dialog between the lawyers to extend hassle, and it took a bit more than a few letters. We didn't settle until the day before the court date.
Needless to say the $500/hour bill for his services pretty much nullified the settlement, and when the process concluded he politely informed us that this was a little below his scope as our retained lawyer and to gladly not bother him again with things quite so trivial and time consuming.
Frankly, at $500/hour, I would politely tell him that I will bother him with whatever I need, he's not doing me a favour.
How, exactly does one "retain" a lawyer?
Is that a formal, monthly-fee kind of thing, for the ability to call them up for questions and advice?
Or is it more like an informal, having done business in the past, maybe for a larger lawsuit, getting to be friendly, and knowing a guy who knows a guy, sort of thing?
That money is held by the firm and Billings are placed against it until time to top it off again.
Initially, no. By the time you're in a court of law, yes. Once you file suit - small claims or not - discussion time is over. If you make that decision prematurely, that's not great, but there's no taking it back except by dismissing the suit, which would have been a mistake.
Yes it is. Why? Because they won't hesitate to do exactly that to you in the reverse situation. In this (almost literal) prisoners dilemma, the corporation has already defected. You gain nothing by cooperating.
I think when you're facing a large entity and their thousands of dollars per billable hour legal team, it makes sense to leverage any advantage you can.
It's going to suck if this guy gets sued for libel.
Theft is often a misdemeanor where robbery is often a felony. They are pretty different things, legally speaking.
I'm looking at taking two parties to small claims court, over ~$1,000 USD, and wonder if it's worth the fees to seek legal guidance.
The big one is not retaining an attorney. No, he doesn't have to for small claims court, but Uber clearly had its legal team looking at this. Now, I understand that lawyers are expensive and carry their own issues - but if he'd won the case with an attorney, he could potentially have secured attorney's fees as well. Plus, a good way to make a company cave on an issue like this is to say "direct all requests to my attorney; I'm not speaking to you on this matter."
I realize getting a lawyer isn't always feasible, though, especially in small claims, so I'll assume it just wasn't possible for this case (also, I'm not a lawyer, this is just based on my understanding of the small claims process). Still, giving Uber all the evidence in the case after a suit had been filed but before any discovery had been ordered was a misstep. Small claims court rarely has formal discovery - the process by which each side finds and turns over evidence to the other side. The OP was - as far as I can tell - under no obligation to give evidence to the Uber rep of any kind. He should not have; they used it against him. What he should have done was say "we can discuss this in court, or you can make me whole now and avoid that," and NOTHING else.
Edit: A line I really enjoyed from the piece: "They were a company that shows blatant disrespect to authority, operating illegally in cities and using technology to intentionally avoid law enforcement." Yep. That's Uber in a nutshell. Well played.