Crain’s Cleveland Business | When strategy wins: Lessons learned from a last-minute trial

You’re a business owner with less than three months until the trial that will determine the future of your company. The attorneys who have worked on your contract dispute for more than three years are unable to pursue the case, and you’re losing faith in the system. You need to make a change in counsel but with only 11 weeks to go before trial, is that wise? Is it even possible? In this case, you had no choice.

Christine Lobas, owner of the marketing communications firm Studiothink, found herself in a similar situation and needed to find a new law firm just weeks before her trial. At the recommendation of her prior counsel, she hired Buckingham and started working with Greg Amend, a litigation partner. While this isn’t the desired scenario for attorneys taking on new cases, there are critical insights that can be gained from their experience.

 “I was in a state of anxiety,” said Lobas. “We had been working on this case for a long time and now we had new counsel. It was all on the line.” Amend and his team quickly went to work, reviewing every pleading, discovery request and deposition transcript. “From the very first meeting with Greg, I could tell the relationship and my involvement would be different,” said Lobas…