How Does Your Personality Impact Your Lawsuit? | Understanding the Law

When most people think about litigation, they tend to focus on the legal aspects of the process. However, there is more to litigation than meets the eye. One important factor that you must consider is your own personality. How much stress can you tolerate? Are you an anxious person? What impact will litigating a case have on you? All of these are important factors to consider, as the litigation process can be lengthy and stressful. If you are someone who doesn't handle stress well, it may be better to settle your case out of court. Ultimately, it is important to carefully consider your own personality before making any decisions.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

(00:00):

Well, hi and thanks for joining me. I'm Peter Lamont. I am a New Jersey attorney, and today we are going to follow up on our prior video, where we talked about what you should do if you are served with a complaint. And I mentioned in that video, that it takes a certain personality type to really be able to handle a litigation matter. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. What personality type are you, and that should help you decide how you should talk to your attorney and, and direct your attorney in the unfortunate event that you get served with a complaint and are beings suit in a lawsuit. Now, uh, the link to the complaint, and what should you do video will be in the description below today. We're gonna focus solely on what litigation is like and what kind of personality, uh, is best suited for it.

(00:56):

Now, when I talk about personality, I'm talking about you, the defendant, the a person who is being sued, you need to know your own personality type, what your limitations are, what your stress level and anxiety is. It is extremely relevant to how you move forward with an attorney who is representing you in a lawsuit. Why is it important? Because litigation extremely stressful. It is complicated. It is lengthy. You know, they call it a, a, a, a civil procedure because there's procedures every step of the way. It might make common sense to you and I to say, Hey, you know, uh, I rented an apartment to you and the least ended, and you didn't get out. I mean, I'm right, you are wrong. It seems simple, right? All you should be able to do is go into a court and say, make them leave. It doesn't work that way.

(01:52):

Right? We have these court rules that have all these requirements that are trying to give the parties of shot at representing both sides of the case due process. I'm sure you've heard that term before. So there's procedures for drafting a complaint and filing it. Then they give time for answering. We talked about that in the last video, then there's a period of time called discovery where people can exchange documents and take physicians. It's a procedure, a process. It is not quick. It is not easy. And throughout that process, it can get very stressful for you. The defendant, even if you have a top notch, best litigation attorney in the world, you are still going to experience internal and anxiety and stress because we don't know how a lawsuit is going to play out. As attorneys we can predict we can, you know, analyze and say, well, based on prior cases like this, here's what we expect to happen.

(03:02):

But litigation is filled with uncertainty and unknown variables. We don't know how a plaintiff is going to respond. We don't know if there's a document that pops up that hurts your case. So these things are constantly Evolv. And that's why you can't say to an attorney, how much time will this take? How much will this cost? What will the outcome be? We don't know. We, we, we aren't, you know, fortune tellers, but we have ideas about how this should work. Now that said, we just talked about the fact that this could be lengthy and it could be stressful. And there's that ever changing variable of what the plaintiff does? What a, a non-party witness might do. I'll never forget this time. I had a case where we were representing a school board and it was a, a shop class, personal injury action. We were defending the school and thet teacher.

(04:00):

Uh, the plaintiff had injured herself in a shop class and was blaming safety protocols on the teacher. Now we looked at everything and it looked like we were completely in the clear, because we followed all of the safety protocols, all of the procedures, everything that had been written and given to the students. So we in with the, the mindset that this is a very defensible claim. Well, here's where that wild card variable comes in. The plaintiff had a lot of friends in the class, and the plaintiff was able to convince her friends to essentially make up a story and to tell a different story than what our story was. And, you know, nine times out of 10, I'm not gonna say with certainty, but it was fabricated. And, and they testified under oath to things that just were not true. Now, obviously a 15 year old kid doesn't understand the gravity all the time of, uh, testifying under oath and, and what those implications are.

(05:08):

If you don't testify truthfully, but suffice it to say enough of them testified in favor of the plaintiff. That all of a sudden, he created questions for us on the defense. And when analyzing that, the thought was is a jury going to believe us, even though we are right. And the facts are here. Once they hear this testimony from these other students who is a jury gonna believe. So that's a situation by the way, the client settled that case. But that's a situation where there's, you know, a clear direction and then something out of the ordinary, something unexpected happens. Now, if you are the type of person that does not like uncertainty, that does not like stress and is not great at handling anxiety, litigation is not your thing. I have had plenty of clients who have been open and honest, and that's so important when you're dealing with an attorney, be open and honest with them who have said to me, I can't handle this.

(06:10):

This is causing me to lose sleep. It's causing, you know, my hair to fall out. I'm not eating. I, I'm not able to, to, to have fun. I'm nervous all the time. I don't want this to continue. And when, when we, as attorneys hear that from a client, we say, okay, so you're being sued. You can't just say, Hey, stop. I don't wanna be sued, but what can we do to alleviate this ongoing stress and certainty of litigation? We can attempt to settle the case and we can attempt to do it early. So by alerting your attorney of the fact that you are anxious, and don't like the stress that allows the attorney to shift focuses from or shift focus from, you know, pure, we're gonna take a trial to, okay, the client does not want this to go to trial. So what can we do right now to move this case into a position where it can be settled and it can be settled at a favorable amount or a tolerable amount for our clients.

(07:14):

So knowing your own personality is critical. So to sum up, if you are a person who is anxious, who doesn't like uncertainty, who wants things to be wrapped up quickly and neatly who doesn't like the unexpected twists, and the fact that a lawsuit could go on for a year and a half, you might not be did for litigation. That goes all the way to trial. Now, look, of course, sometimes you have no choice. Maybe the other side won't settle. Maybe you have no choice, but to go to trial and you'll do your best, but communicating your personality type with your attorney at the onset of a case, help you can help the attorney and can help you get past this unfortunate situation of being sued and get on with your life. All right. If you have any questions about this, make sure to leave a comment below, uh, if you haven't checked out our last video, please do. So the descriptions in the, or the video, uh, link is in the description below. Also make sure you ring the notification bell and subscribe. If you haven't. Our channel has over 200 videos at this point, and we're gonna be producing more content on a weekly basis. And if you find this helpful, you're gonna find some of our other videos helpful and entertaining as well. Thanks for joining me. I'll talk to you next time.