If you’ve spent time talking with us or browsing our web site, odds are you’ve seen or heard this imperative phrase, Litigate like you mean it.® We believe it’s so important that we needed to trademark it. Why? What does it mean? And why should you care?
For starters, it resonates with us like an anthem. If you litigate like you mean it, you’re challenging yourself to continuously measure and continuously improve as an advocate so you can deliver the best possible outcomes. In the spirit of candor and 360-degree evaluation, we asked attorneys what “litigate like you mean it” means to them. Here’s a selection of their responses.
“In high stakes litigation, legal teams must challenge and push to find as many advantages as possible. Adopting new tools can help gain that needed edge that could mean the difference between a victory versus a painful costly loss.” – General counsel and former litigator
“What comes to mind for me when I read that is a high standard of excellence. To "litigate like you mean it" means to bring 100% of your capabilities and performance to each case, which extends to the quality of the team you assemble for each matter and the ingenuity and efficacy of the tools you leverage to advocate for your client and achieve the best outcome for them.” – General counsel
We are a LitTech (Litigation Technology) company. We live and breathe in a hyper-competitive ecosystem. An ecosystem where technologies are leveraged to obtain advantages in closely fought contests where the margins between the conspicuous winners and the conspicuous losers are fine indeed. In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the difference between Gold and Silver in the Men’s 100M dash was four one-hundredths of a second, which is close. The good news for Olympic athletes is that second place still gets a medal.
But litigation is a different beast entirely. Advantages are key. Macro-advantages, micro-advantages and everything in between. Zealous advocates seek them. Advocates that eschew cutting edge tools, and place an over-reliance on their jazz hand, do not.
In this we are reminded of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1.1 and its commentary remind us that lawyers have an obligation to keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. Some take the ABA’s admonition to heart. Others, not so much. Those who don’t merely litigate. Those who do Litigate Like They Mean It.