ACFW Insider Scoop on Legalese

We get it.

And it’s not just you. Pretty much every person we talk to feels like their head will explode when we send over law firm agreements. What does it all really mean?

The good news is that, beneath all the odd-sounding words, most legalese is easy to understand; you just need the code. Voila! Our Legal Whisperer™ glossary below is just what you need.

Bellwether Trial
Civil Lawsuit
Class Action

Contingency Fee
Criminal Lawsuit
Defendant

Litigation
Mass Torts
MDL

Plaintiff
Settlement
Verdict

Bellwether Trial

“Bellwether” originally meant the head sheep that led the flock with a bell around its neck. In the legal world, it means a “sample” trial that helps attorneys understand how similar cases will go and, hopefully, if enough sample trials are won, will get the defendants to settle with all the plaintiffs who are a part of the mass tort.

Since only a few cases are chosen for bellwether trials, it is extremely unlikely that your case will be chosen. There are usually five to ten cases out of 1000’s upon 1000’s that end up as bellwethers. If you are chosen, your attorney will ask if you want to participate, and together, you can decide if you want to go forward or not.

Civil Lawsuit

We know you may be mad at the specific person who hurt you but punishing him/her/them is not your only option. Sure, you can sue that person individually, but if the individual is part of a larger entity that has assets, then many times, you can go after the entire system that was not vigilant and enabled or allowed the problem to occur. The goal is to hit the corporations/institutions where it hurts them most (financially), so they stop doing bad things. When successful, you (the plaintiffs) receive monetary compensation, and the lawsuit helps prevent the entity from causing harm.

NOTE:
Civil lawsuits usually involve a large entity like a church, corporation, or manufacturer. People sometimes file a civil lawsuit against one individual, like in the case of E Jean Carroll, who filed civilly against D Trump because he had sizeable assets.

ALSO NOTE:
Civil lawsuits do NOT result in people being imprisoned. The goal of a civil lawsuit is to punish the entity responsible for the individual’s behavior through monetary punishment.

Class Action

We don’t get involved in class actions, but since people often confuse them with Mass Torts, let’s take a look. A class action occurs when the exact same harm happens to a large number of people. It usually involves a product default, and the overall settlement, when divided between thousands and thousands of people, is generally very small – as in a few dollars or a few hundred dollars.

NOTE:
While we don’t sign people up for class action cases, it is important to sign up if you get one in the mail. The defendant (remember, that’s the bad entity!) will take a financial hit for their wrongdoing, but the cases are only effective when people are notified about the class action and sign up.

Contingency Fee

When you, the person who’s been hurt, are injured in a way that qualifies for civil litigation, there is an option of working with a plaintiff attorney who works on a contingency fee basis. That means you pay nothing upfront and generally don’t owe your attorney(s) a penny unless they win for you at the conclusion of the trial or in out-of-court settlement negotiations.

NOTE:
We only team up with lawyers who work on contingency.

Criminal Lawsuit

If, heaven forbid, you are hurt by an individual either accidentally or intentionally, you can bring a criminal case if how they hurt you is seen as a criminal event under the law. The goal of a criminal case is to punish the individual who hurt you, usually by putting the person behind bars.

Defendant

Were you hurt? If so, then someone is responsible for that hurt. It could be a single individual, an institution, or a manufacturer – but in all cases, the “bad players” are called defendants.

Litigation

Way before lawsuits, people “went out back” and worked things out with a fistfight. Litigation is basically a civilized way of working things out in court via a lawsuit. The goal is to punish the person or entity who harmed you by putting them behind bars (as in a criminal case) or to go higher up and create change by pushing for monetary compensation (as in a civil case).

Just remember that while your lawyers may physically appear in court, it is unlikely that you will ever be. Most cases settle before trial, meaning they are resolved before you go to the courtroom. During A Case for Women’s eight-year history, we have never had a woman or man we helped have their case go all the way to trial.

Mass Torts

We often hear this: “Why bother signing up for the so-and-so lawsuit when the compensation is only going to be, like, $5?” The answer is easy because A Case for Women only works in the area of mass torts and single-event lawsuits, where the financial outcome, if the case is won, will be waaayyyy more than a few bucks. These are not “coupon cases”.

Let’s look at it this way: a tort is a legalese word that literally means a “wrongful act.” The injury (or wrongful act) could be to your body, pocketbook, or property. Mass means that a lot of people have experienced a similar injury. Put the two words together, Mass Tort means a large number of people who have similar injuries caused by the same or similar wrongful act (defective product, dangerous medication, and so on).

But … in a Mass Tort, unlike a class action, the injuries to each person are unique and serious, so they must be examined individually. That makes Mass Torts a complex legal procedure and also makes the outcomes, when successful, way more financially beneficial than class actions.

When successful, the monetary compensation from a Mass Tort is considerably more than the compensation received by individuals in a class action. According to Reuters, Bayer agreed to pay each of the 39,000 plaintiffs approximately $41,000 in the Essure birth control litigation. (Source: Reuters, August 20, 2020 – before attorney fees)

MDL

MDL means Multi-District Litigation. You can imagine that in a Mass Tort, you have many people in many states filing lawsuits. By consolidating all of the lawsuits into an MDL, the plaintiff attorneys across the country can share in gathering all the evidence against the defendants, which will save every plaintiff a ton of money!! Sometimes MDLs are in Federal Court, other times there is a JMPDL (smaller MDL) in state court, but wherever the attorneys end up filing your case, they will save money and time by consolidating the cases.

Even with consolidation, Mass Torts can take years to settle, depending on where they are in the process when you sign up. If they are starting, and it is a brand-new case type, it will take longer than if you sign up for a case that has been around for a while. The good news is that while the lawyers will be busy working on your case, there is very little for you to do but wait patiently.

Plaintiff

Were you the one injured? Then, you are the plaintiff.

Settlement

Yay! Suppose a settlement is reached in your case. In that case, it means that the lawyers for the wrongdoers (the defendants) and your lawyers (plaintiff lawyers) have come up with a fair way to compensate you (and others) without further legal action.

Verdict

In some situations, civil cases go through a full jury trial where a judge or jury gets to decide whether the defendant is responsible for the damages (injuries) alleged by the plaintiff. Instead of a settlement, there is a verdict … but the bottom line is still compensation for you.

A Case for Women’s Insider Scoop on Legalese