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Comment by linuxftw | Hacker News Reader

What are you talking about? 90% of litigation is convincing the judge that existing case law that clearly applies to your case does apply to your case.

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I'm guessing what they're saying is that nothing goes to litigation if it's a clear pattern-match to existing cases, so actual litigation practice is only novel cases.

Isn't that just in the US/Commonwealth judicial system? I could be completely wrong on how others, like non-adversarial judicial systems, work and/or how pervasive the US system is or is not.

EDIT: specifically around the use of judicial precedent in case-law.

Look at all these benighted folks who believe that American judges adhere to precedent when it’s brought to their attention!

90% of litigation is pressuring a settlement.

And most of the leverage you have in negotiating a settlement is by referencing prior case law. If something is novel, there's too much variance to get a good settlement.

No, most of the leverage you have is how much time and money is on your side vs. the opposing party.

Money doesn't mean anything if you don't have a case to begin with. More money/time just makes the lawyers win because they end up siphoning most of the settlement. And more money with crappy lawyers will always lose to less money on smart lawyers who are able to use AI to find 100 examples of prior cases going your way. That's the whole point of AI disrupting the field.

> 90% of litigation is pressuring a settlement.

90% of legal work where there is a plaintiff and defendant is pressuring a settlement. My wife, an attorney, does not consider that to be "litigation".

As a former litigator, I would consider that to be litigation the moment a complaint is filed in court, regardless of whether the dispute is settled without trial.

But, for your sake, it's probably best that you accept your wife's definition.

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