He Never Lost a Case
What Clients Actually Measure When They Hire Outside Counsel
By Rudy Rivera - Sr. Consultant, Legal Practice
For most of my life I have been involved with judo. It is one of my life choices, hobby and exercise I like to do.
One of my former judo students became a prominent criminal defense lawyer in St. Louis. He liked to joke that he had never lost a case: his clients did not always fare as well, but he still went home at the end of the day.
Like most good jokes, it carried an uncomfortable truth.
The result that matters to a client is not always the result a lawyer records as a win.
Law firms love to advertise win rates, but no lawyer wins every matter. Even a 60 percent win rate means that 40 percent of the matters were lost.
More important, the number says almost nothing unless you know which matters came through the door, the exposure each one carried, and what each client needed to achieve.
The number is also easy to manage.
A lawyer who accepts only clean matters will post a better record than a lawyer who accepts the difficult ones. A lawyer who settles early and often will post a better record than a lawyer who tries cases.
Neither record tells you which of the two you should hire. It tells you a great deal about intake and very little about judgment.
The Trouble with Win Rates
Consider a defendant charged with murder who is ultimately convicted of manslaughter.
The prosecutor can claim victory because the jury returned a conviction. The defense lawyer can do the same because the client avoided a murder conviction and received a lighter sentence.
Both claims are defensible, and both may appear in the win column. Which one is true depends entirely on where you were standing when the verdict was read.
It Depends Where You Were Standing
Winning Is Rarely All or Nothing
Civil practice is no different. Winning is rarely all or nothing.
A matter may settle for a fraction of the demand
A claim may be narrowed
Exposure may be capped
A business relationship may be preserved
A dispute may be resolved before legal fees consume what is at stake
None of those outcomes fits neatly into a percentage, yet any one of them may be exactly what the client hired the lawyer to accomplish.
The Result and the Experience
A win can also be measured by client satisfaction.
A client may be unhappy with the outcome yet satisfied with the lawyer's preparation, communication, and effort. The reverse is equally true: a lawyer may win outright and still leave the client dissatisfied because the matter was poorly handled or the client was poorly treated.
The result and the experience are different, and clients remember both.
The Matter I Would Not Put in the Win Column
One matter has stayed with me.
I managed a breach of contract lawsuit in Mexico. The demand was $20 million. The trial judge issued a judgment against the subsidiary for $17 million.
Trial counsel thought I would be upset with him. Attending all the major hearings allowed me to evaluate his performance. Despite the initial judgment, I was pleased with his performance. He did an incredible job.
The judgment was eventually reversed by the constitutional court.
In managing matters around the world, retaining and supervising law firms, and advising the business through disputes carrying serious exposure, I have seen that the most valuable lawyers are not necessarily those with the most impressive records of wins and losses. They are the ones who prepare diligently, leave their egos at the door, understand the company's objectives, and align their strategy with the practical consequences of each decision.
A CEO is rarely preoccupied with how outside counsel labels a result; the company's financial performance, reputation, relationships, and its interests over the long term come first.
That perspective has taught me that the client is buying sound judgment and a business result, not a statistic.
What I Look for Instead
Over the years I have developed my own short list of what I want from outside counsel. None of it appears on a firm's website.
Preparation. I can tell within one meeting whether a lawyer has read the file or read the summary of the file.
Candor
I want to hear the weaknesses in my position early, from my own lawyer, and not for the first time in a brief filed by the other side.
A sense of cost
Every motion has a price. A lawyer who cannot tell me what a step costs and what it buys is asking me to spend the company's money on faith.
Business literacy
The best outside counsel ask what the business is trying to accomplish before they tell me what the law allows.
A willingness to be wrong
Strategies stop working. I value the lawyer who tells me that before I discover it on my own.
How they treat people
The way a lawyer deals with my team, opposing counsel, and court staff tells me what to expect from that lawyer under pressure.
Lessons from the Mat
Judo taught me the same thing in a different setting.
You do not win by overpowering the other person. You win by understanding where they are going and using it against them.
The throw is the part people remember, but the throw is never the work. The work is the position you create before you execute the move.
My years on the mat and in the courtroom also taught me to value preparation, discipline, and results. I am competitive by nature, and I like to win as much as anyone.
But litigation experience shows that the most satisfying result is not always a sweeping victory; it may be a narrowed claim, controlled exposure, an efficient resolution, or a strategy that protects the client's broader interests.
Success should therefore be measured by whether the matter was handled efficiently, strategically, and in the client's best interest. That is the standard that endures.
The Endgame
A lawyer should always understand the endgame: where the matter is headed and what a successful resolution should look like for the client.
At the same time, the immediate work deserves full attention.
The right question is not how the matter affects the lawyer, but what must be done now to advance the client's interests.
Rudy Rivera
Sr. Consultant, Legal Practice
Rudy brings a client-side view of legal work. As Senior Counsel for a global, Fortune 500 insurance company, he managed legal teams across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America and retained and supervised outside counsel. Having reviewed hundreds of law firm proposals, he knows how corporate clients evaluate their external partners.
At changeforce, Rudy helps law firms close the gap between what they sell and what clients buy. He lectures frequently on litigation management and outside counsel relationships, and is a lifelong judo practitioner and former instructor.