When it comes to evaluating the merits of your own propsective lawsuit, there is an inevitable bias in place for the home team. Naturally, you want to keep legal costs down and ensure that the litigation and legal fees are as affordable as possible. On the other hand, you have a gut feeling that your lawsuit is different, more unique and complex than any matter ever previously litigated. If only the right lawyer could mine the precious mineral ore of your subjectively cherished truth, refining it into argumentative gold, you know you'd prevail in the end.
From your lawyer's point of view, it's likely a matter of been there, done that. Fact is, your lawyer has a secret arsenal at hand. It's called case law - and odds are that somebody, somewhere had a case just like you. So wouldn't you want to know beforehand how it's likely to turn out in the end?
In the bad old days before the Internet, most of us had no real idea, outside of television, how court cases played out. Beyond the popular notion that judges did little more than bang gavels and sustain objections, the key to unlocking the mysteries of the legal process meant getting yourself into law school or at least driving yourself to the nearest law library, there to be faced by a rat's maze of of dusty hardcovers, impenetrable to all but those able to decipher the Rosetta Stone of legal citations and indexes.
Beyond risking a harassment charge by the local librarian, the unschooled layman in those days had little option other than to place themselves totally in the hands of their lawyer.
Nowadays, before we place ourselves in the capable hands of our lawyers (notice I'm not suggesting you should represent yourself), we are actually in the position to answer that all-important legal question: "Do I have a case?" For that answer, you need not leave home, take the LSAT, or pester the hapless librarian to decipher the legal indexes. All you need is a decent understanding of BOOLEAN keyword searches...and possibly a credit card. And thus we embark on our quest for the affordable lawsuit.
