NOVEMBER 13, 2024 – (Cont.) Almost nine years ago I inherited a matter from a law partner who was leaving the firm. The case involved a swanky medical office building owned by two groups of doctors. The two groups were also members of two parallel practice groups that occupied portions of the building. The rest of the space was leased to unrelated groups.
Everything went according to plan until it didn’t. For a variety of reasons the economics of the building turned upside down. I represented one of the owner groups in the complicated process of working out a financial solution acceptable to all parties involved—the practice groups and the lender, an out-of-state life insurance company. After weeks, months of effort, the whole effort looked as though it was headed for the abyss of litigation.
Being in a small firm that did some but not a lot of litigation, I didn’t have the clout or resources to handle what threatened to be a major war. I counseled my clients two ways at once: plan for war but work for peace, and work for peace by planning for war. The objective of this strategy was to drag the parties, kicking and screaming, if necessary, into serious settlement talks. The opening tactical maneuver was to aim a giant credible howitzer at the adversary to show a willingness “to fight” and an ability to do so if the credible threat isn’t taken seriously. You then try to load and position the “howitzer” as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. The next step has several variations. The cheapest and often most effective, I’d found, was to fire a very big, very loud warning shot. In the context of litigation, this amounts to presenting the adversary with a full-blown, fully drafted Summons and Complaint that will be served and filed—fired out of the howitzer—for real if said adversary doesn’t engage in earnest settlement talks that lead to an acceptable accord.
In advising my client, I had to recommend a “giant credible howitzer”; id est, a big honker law firm whose letterhead alone would command attention. Many familiar potential candidates existed in the Twin Cities, but after considering all the attendant dynamics, I chose Mike Streater, a well-recognized litigator I’d known for years—a lawyer back at my old firm of Briggs & Morgan.
I explained my goal and outlined my tactical approach, and Mike caught on immediately. After he was formally retained, at minimum cost to our client we drafted a Complaint, which Mike then transmitted to our client’s adversaries. It was the howitzer warning shot. All worked exactly as planned.
Now fast forward over six years to my stem cell transplant at the U of MN Masonic Cancer Center. By the luck of the draw, Mike’s daughter was one of the many miracle workers on “my case.” Little could I have guessed when I first met Mike in 1980 that 42 years later, his daughter would be part of the medical team that would give me a whole new lease on life. It was another case of “connecting the dots.”
More dots were connected last week when I accompanied Cory into the very building that had been the object of such rancor and had occupied my work life for many months—and where I’d attended many early morning and late night meetings. Moreover, he was now in the care of doctors who were the successors of the ones I’d worked with so closely and gotten to know a decade ago.
I guess “connecting the dots” is how we make the world a smaller and I do believe, better, place.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
