How to Deal With Losing Cases as a Lawyer

I  recently lost a six-day medical malpractice trial. And I have zero regrets.

The case was an extremely difficult radiology malpractice case involving the failure to report an incidental finding on a lumbar spine MRI that turned out to be kidney cancer. The deceased was diagnosed with kidney cancer 7 months after the MRI and died a year later.

Both standard of care and causation were very difficult.

A Fulton County jury returned a defense verdict after about 3 1/2 hours of deliberations.

We tried the best case we could with challenging facts. My colleague and fellow personal injury attorney Eric Funt did an excellent job working up the case and trying it with me. Eric handled causation and I handled standard of care.

Why am I sharing about my trial loss?

Because it is important that we share our losses, as well as our wins. Sharing losses gives other lawyers the courage to take on tough cases. It gives them the confidence to take cases to trial. It lets other lawyers know that losing doesn’t make you a bad lawyer. It shows other people that you can lose a case and not care how other people may judge you.

I think it is important to avoid creating the false appearance that trial lawyers win every trial. We don’t. If you have a perfect record, you aren’t trying hard cases.

We can learn a lot from our losses and this one is no different, especially when you have excellent defense lawyers on the other side.

You’re going to lose cases if you take cases to trial. The best way to handle it is to focus on what you can control: the process. If you focus on just the outcomes, which you can’t control, you’ll have a much tougher time handling it.

This loss won’t be my last. I’m sure there will be other defense verdicts in my future over the next 20-plus years I hope to continue practicing law. (And if there aren’t, I’ll probably question myself as to whether I’m taking the easy way out).

As with this one, I’ll keep putting in the work. I’ll learn from any losses and move on to the next case. I’ll continue to do my best for my clients and focus on what I can control: the work I put into the case. I’m extremely proud of our team for putting in the hard work and taking the case the distance when many other firms would have cut their losses and run.

How do you handle losing? Join the conversation with me on LinkedIn.