Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter:
Before a boxing match, the fighters touch gloves.
Then they spend the next several rounds trying to knock each other out.
I’ve always liked that little contradiction.
You can be there to fight. You can absolutely want to win. And you can still respect the person standing across from you.
Trial lawyers understand that.
A few years ago, I represented a woman in her 50s with mesothelioma.
Her father had worked at a refinery for more than 30 years, unknowingly carrying asbestos home on his clothes.
His daughter was exposed. Decades later, she got sick.
Her case was headed toward trial, but there was something much more immediate in front of her.
She was scheduled for a risky surgery that might extend her life by 18 to 36 months. There was also a chance she wouldn’t survive it.
And the trial wasn’t scheduled until months after the surgery.
So there was a very real possibility that my client would never see her case resolved.
Two weeks before the surgery, the lawyer on the other side called me.
“Let’s do this right.”
He knew what she was facing. So did I.
We were still opposing lawyers. We still had very different ideas about what the case was worth.
But suddenly, the calendar mattered more than the courtroom.
So we settled.
The amount is confidential. I can tell you that it was one of those settlements where the other side probably felt like they overpaid, and we probably felt like we gave them a discount.
But more importantly, my client went into surgery knowing her case was resolved.
Sadly, she didn’t survive.
Her father had already carried enormous guilt over the asbestos he unknowingly brought home from work all those years ago. Now he had lost his daughter—every parent’s worst nightmare, no matter how old that child is.
Nothing we did could change that.
But that phone call two weeks earlier meant she at least went into surgery knowing her father and her family were taken care of.
I’ve thought about that case a lot over the years.
We were on opposite sides. We had different jobs to do and different clients to represent.
But we were also two people who understood what this family was facing.
And when it mattered, we found a way to do it right.
— Scott Frost
(866) FROST-WINS
P.S. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and you’re not sure what to do next, we’re here to help.
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