The Expert Podcast

…So how can you get your attorney's fees paid for by the other party in your court case? If you have a lawsuit against another party or you're being sued by another party, are there ways that your legal fees or part of them can be paid for by the other party? Some contracts have a very specific clause that says prevailing party gets some or all of their attorney fees paid for by the losing party. But even if you don't have such a contract there may be ways. To have some of your attorney's fees or even investigative fees or costs.

Paid for by the other party. Even if you lose how does that work? Well in many states, there is a provision called the wrongful act doctrine wrongful act doctrine Now remember we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice. This may or may not apply in your scenario. But it's something you should look into And as investigators, we always look to see if there is activity that the other party did, that might be agregious or it might be,

improper that could trigger this wrongful act doctrine. And there's a lot of things that could trigger that. sanctions or paying of legal fees Sometimes it's hiding assets. Sometimes it's concealing information not providing a discovery. Sometimes it's not responding to a subpoena properly.

Again you can…find out in your particular case what those are but you want to have all of the potential triggers to be identified so that you can present those to the court to the judge to say look this is what the other side did. They did this improper. maybe a fraudulent conveyance or true. money the wrong…place at the wrong time Also. You're going to find that many times the other party will be doing an investigation on you and they might do something wrong There's a lot of techniques and tactics that are used in investigations, which are not proper.

There's a Gramm-Leach-Bliley act There's the DPPA. there's a consumer protection. Privacy act. If the other side doesn't follow the right standards when they do their investigation or their case that could also trigger. The wrongful act doctrine.

Once that's triggered, you can go to the court and say I want the other side to pay my fees for either legal fees investigations.

maybe sanctions they have to pay to the court maybe fines, maybe it also allows you to get more discovery from the other side. So anytime you're doing a case make sure. That you and your attorney working together. look at that. Wrongful act doctrine now.

Here's another fact about attorney's fees. If your contract. That you have with another party maybe that's what triggered this lawsuit Right You have a contract with a business. If it says that. If they win.

They get attorney's fees but it doesn't say anything about what if you win in most states most jurisdictions that attorney's fees for the prevailing party automatically applies to the other side because it can't just be one way. If it mentions a contract that they benefit from it then you have to benefit from it too. So check with your attorney again we're not giving you legal advice We're just pointing out what we see in cases. You don't want to miss out on any advantages you have by catching the other party, doing something that's illegal improper, maybe accidental that they did, but you don't want to miss out on advantages you have in your case. And the court has a great liability to use that the wrongful act doctrine is created by the judiciary.

To make. The case equitable. Right. It permits the recovery of attorney's fees When the other side's acts or omissions they don't have to do anything positively They can forget to do something or overlook something. That causes the other party to incur costs attorney's fees or even expenses.

Now those expenses could be defending the case maintaining the case. Or even,

keeping in the case sometimes you might leave. litigation if you didn't have all the information, sometimes these costs are called special damages where the defendants wrongful act caused the plaintiff. to litigate the party in the first place. Maybe the case was even brought up because of improper acts from the other party So what you want to do is cast a wide net find any of this activity Sometimes this is beyond the scope of what an attorney would do, where they're going to do discovery depositions. You might want to have more strategic, either investigation research analysis or even observation of the other party to see if any of their activities trigger this.

Attorney's fees benefit to you or case advantages to you? Now when you're looking to see if this wrongful act doctrine applies in your case, you're not going to find anything really in the statutes for it You probably won't even find case law or references to it because many times it's not referred by those terms in the case. It's just where. You file a motion for damages for. And it may not show up in text and case text as wrongful act doctrine.

You're going to find it as simply a motion. To recover. Cost motion to compel.

discovery. And those are the same things under. that theory and in almost every state this is a very genuine long recognized. Process. And it's an exception to the rule about attorney's fees.

The rule of attorney's fees in most states is look unless it's in the contract unless it's signed. You pay your own attorney's fees. This is an exception to that rule And it's very well established in almost every jurisdiction. And you want to take advantage of it when you can because in almost every case, The other side is going to do something wrong Everybody always break some rule in litigation. And if you catch it.

and you can use it to your advantage. Financially you can benefit from it but even strategically with the case you might be able to get more of your motions approved. You might be able to get more allowances in the case. And it might benefit you more than a couple thousand dollars in legal fees It might help you win the case because now the other side's at a disadvantage. So.

This has been. Established case law for over a hundred years. Don't lose out or miss out. Just because it's not common. Or because somebody is not paying attention to the activities of your opponent…

And. You. Let them steamroll you and not give you information. Hide assets high documents hide information that would help you win the case and cost you more money Chasing it down in the first place.