Diamond McCarthy Law Firm

The current trend in the legal market is towards the mega-firm. Mid-size firms are vanishing, as they are swallowed by firms with thousands of professionals. Such firms typically promote themselves to clients as one-stop shopping, touting experts in every legal field imaginable. For the privilege of retaining such a firm, clients are asked to pay hourly fees that often make little economic sense.

Diamond McCarthy Law Firm is not a part of this trend. In   our experience, it is virtually impossible to be all things to all clients, and the pursuit of such a widespread goal often prevents firms from truly mastering any given area. They choose to focus on the things they do best - trials of complex cases and insolvency. Diamond McCarthy's approach to these areas is different from the traditional, and they believe those differences provide their clients with several significant advantages:

From the moment a client engages their  firm to handle a case, Diamond McCarthy assembles the best team for that particular matter based on the needs of the case - not the needs of an individual firm office or practice group. Our clients get to know the entire team, all of whom are available to the client at any time. This approach usually results in more efficient and responsive communication between the attorneys and clients, and ensures that cases are not overstaffed with unknown professionals needlessly increasing case costs.

Unlike most firms with multiple offices, we view our firm as a single entity rather than a collection of separate economic units. As a result, Diamond McCarthy is free to assemble our trial or insolvency teams based on the needs of the case and the benefits individual team members can bring to bear, rather than being restricted to the resources available in any one office. By staffing our cases across offices, we avoid the geographical restrictions that often hamper other firms.

Prosecuting a complex case can be an expensive proposition; but in our experience, many firms needlessly increase those costs by focusing on the litigation rather than preparing the case for trial. Diamond McCarthy believes in preparing cases for trial rather than simply litigating for years while hoping for a settlement. As a result, we generally take fewer, and often much shorter, depositions than many "litigators." We determine what evidence we will want to present to the judge or jury, and then focus on obtaining that information rather than extraneous minutia that will either never be used or would serve only to bore the trier of fact. Diamond McCarthy's document requests, interrogatories, and other discovery requests are usually more focused than the standard blunderbuss approach some firms employ. It often seems as though many lawyers are trying to avoid trial at all costs. By taking the opposite approach, we can handle our clients' cases more efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, if the parties are to reach a settlement, we have found that nothing speeds that process along better than actually pushing the case toward a real trial.

One of the reasons we formed our firm was to free our clients from the standard billable hour when the circumstances made that possible. Clearly, some cases are best suited to an hourly approach, and we offer it to clients who prefer it and for cases that need it. But many of our clients prefer a more flexible approach that blends reduced hourly fees with contingent compensation components. Some cases demand such flexibility. We are extremely flexible in our approach to legal fees, and have structured arrangements that are as varied as the cases we handle. We have handled matters using flat fees (by the matter or by the month), hourly fees, mixed fees, contingent fees, and everything in between. Rather than dictate a fee arrangement, we prefer to consider the subject case by case, as the requirements of the matter and the client's circumstances often require a more tailored approach.

Overall, Diamond McCarthy's  approach is simply to focus their time and energy on the things they do best, and leave the rest to others. When Diamond McCarthy's clients need services the don't provide, they are free to direct them to the firms that best provide that service - whether in the United States or elsewhere. Their clients appreciate this unbiased approach, because it does not involve simply referring a matter to someone else within the same firm. Their goal is provide their clients with the best, most responsive, legal service they can - not simply to profit at their expense.