He Shoots, He Scores!

A little professional update: I won a case this week. Well, that's "I" in the sense that I did most of the work within the firm on the case, and "this week" in the sense that the ruling on a motion filed in December and argued in February was finally made two days ago. But I digress.

Without going into too much detail because the judgment has not yet been filed and the time for appeal has not run, I had had primary responsibility for what we call a "coverage case" for the last couple of years. A claim was made against the company our client insured. For various reasons, we (I) determined that our policy provided no coverage. Another insurance company that was involved in the action eventually sued our client, looking to get the money they spent back from our client. Ultimately, we (I) filed a motion for summary judgment, which basically says that the facts and law require that judgment be granted in our favor, prior to trial. It is a drastic motion, and not often granted, although routinely filed.

There were some rather amusing procedural missteps by our (my) opposing counsel, but ultimately she filed her own motion. The Court heard argument on the two motions in February (my managing partner handled that part). We've been cooling our heels ever since waiting for the result. On Wednesday, the e-mail from the court clerk arrived. It was one of those that you are afraid to open -- which way will it go? Thankfully, considering the large dollars potentially involved if it went against us, the Court ruled in our favor. That means game over -- we win the case outright.

So much of what we do involves mediation and settlement that it is extremely rare to have a definitive, scoreboard-worthy result. To achieve such closure, favorably, on a motion that was based, in structure and content, on my own reasoning and expression, is very gratifying. This profession permits precious few of these mountaintop occasions; I am glad I had one.