20 Was It Worth It?

Years later, Ken could look back on his lengthy civil litigation, and all the stress it had caused him, with a better view. In fact, Ken’s lawsuit had made a huge difference to his career and finances. Ken couldn’t exactly tell where he would have been without winning his trial, but he knew it wouldn’t be nearly as far as he’d gotten with the trial win. Ken might have ended up in an entirely different field, starting over, if he had lost his lawsuit. But thankfully, he’d won. Ken remained sure, a decade or more later, that all the stress of it had been worth it.

Litigation

Litigation has a life and character all its own. Filing or defending a lawsuit is a bit like unleashing a whirlwind in your life, when you have no clear idea where it’s going. And you don’t exactly know what it will leave behind. You hope that your lawsuit cleanses your path of obstacles and leaves the refreshing landscape that you believe you deserve. But you don’t control the whirlwind that you unleash against others. That same force may just as much affect you. You may have clear and achievable goals for your lawsuit. But they’re still only goals and not necessarily goals you control. The above chapters should have shown you the large number of variables that lawsuits and their outcomes involve. Even the most-experienced of litigators will face new situations with every new lawsuit. You cannot predict a lawsuit’s outcome with assurance.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is actually one of a lawsuit’s greater values. If the outcome of a lawsuit were perfectly predictable, lawsuits would have no point. Everyone would instead just go straight to the mandated conclusion. That’s called a dictatorship or something else, not a justice system. The value of a justice system is in its ability to countenance uncertainty among innumerable variables. A lawsuit gives us a way of moving forward when formulas and mandates won’t do. If, in retrospect, your lawsuit looked and felt like a complete roll of the dice, then that randomness may still not be a bad thing. Sometimes, randomness cloaked with a veneer of morality is exactly what we need to proceed with any confidence in an ordered society. 

Perspectives

You may, though, look back with reasonable clarity on your lawsuit, once you have experienced and concluded it. After the lawsuit, the outcome and events that led to it or influenced it should be clear enough. You may or may not have foreseen the outcome or those influential events. You may have thought that other factors and conditions, like the law and facts applying to your claim, would have been more influential than they were and that other things, like your opponent’s resources or guile, that heavily influenced the outcome would not have done so at all. You didn’t know beforehand, but afterward you’ll probably know well. After your lawsuit concludes, give yourself a little time to recover and put some distance between you and the outcome. But then reflect on the course of your lawsuit for what your post-lawsuit perspective may show you. 

Education

Your post-lawsuit perspective may, for its clarity alone, be valuable to you. In life, we sometimes just need to commit to a path for what it teaches us, not necessarily for what else we’ll gain. Lawsuits are great teachers. Your lawsuit likely showed you things about human motivation, morality, values, corruption, capacity, and character that you would otherwise not have seen, at least not so clearly and with so much at stake. For instance, you might not have realized it until after your trial, but people probably tell more lies under oath than under any other circumstance. After all, the justice system places witnesses under oath precisely because it expects them to tell lies. And of course many do so, their oaths notwithstanding, because many value manipulable material interests over their eternal soul. Examine your lawsuit experience for what you might have learned, whether of human character or how the world really works.

Outcomes

Naturally, your lawsuit’s outcome, favorable or unfavorable, will color your perspective. A lawsuit win can make all the cost and stress of it seem worthwhile. A lawsuit loss can compound tenfold the already-obvious costs and stress of the lawsuit itself. You have no real point in regretting having initiated your lawsuit or having conducted it in the way that you did. Regrets and wishes don’t change outcomes. In the final reckoning, don’t overlook the costs even if you won. You may have substantial work to do to repair relationships and restore trust that you lost in the course of winning your lawsuit. And don’t overlook the benefits even if you lost. Outcomes can mean a lot. That’s likely most of why you filed your lawsuit. But outcomes don’t mean everything, not even close. Your legacy will likely have little if anything to do with any lawsuit outcome. Your legacy will instead likely have far more to do with how you carried yourself and conducted your affairs throughout your life.

Winning

If you won your lawsuit, beware the challenges that may promptly accrue because of your win. For some parties, winning turns out to be harder than losing. Winning can bring its own temptations, invitations, demands, and expectations, on your part and on the parts of those close to you. You may find your life no easier and little better after winning, and instead significantly more challenging. But that curious outcome may be alright, too. Winning a lawsuit shows that you’re up to one challenge. Why not bring on the next challenge, to see if you’re up to it, too? Yet also beware courting the next lawsuit just because you won your last one. Your win in your current lawsuit may not prove you any more likely to win the next one. Discretion remains the better part of valor.

Losing

And yes, losing a lawsuit can have its benefits, too, as already once suggested. Losing your lawsuit can remind you of what’s more important, especially if your spouse and children still hug you when you get home. Even more important than outward affirmation from those who love you, you may also find your conscience and its authoring spirit consoling you. The spirit of truth sometimes calls us to losing battles, not just winning ones. Indeed, the one who stands on truth while ready to lose the battle, in the end wins the war. Even though you lost your lawsuit, you may have done the right thing in pursuing it. Your lawsuit’s outcome was the work of a very human judge or very human jurors, not necessarily the work of justice itself. And your family members and friends may well know it. Losing may confirm and prove your good character, not suggest or prove its opposite. 

Values

Your lawsuit may thus have had other value to you, your winning or losing outcome aside. Your lawsuit may have tested your mettle, proven your courage, and bolstered your reputation. It may have shown both your friends and enemies that you’ll stand up for yourself and for those who share your interests. Win or lose, your lawsuit may have shown your co-workers, neighbors, and community acquaintances that you’ll stand up for them, too, after having stood up for yourself. Your lawsuit may also have shown your family members that you’ll fight to be the provider and protector that they need and desire. Your lawsuit may even have shown your religious community that you have faith, hope, and convictions, whether a government’s court system recognizes your virtuous character and just cause or not. Don’t let the government’s edict, represented in your lawsuit’s judgment, become your identity, for better or worse. Maintain instead the identity that called you to pursue justice at whatever your lawsuit’s cost.

Representation

Your lawsuit may also have introduced you to an attorney or attorneys whom you can admire for their commitment, character, knowledge, ethics, and skills. The earlier chapter on whether you need an attorney has already indicated that the value of an attorney can be just as much in the attorney’s counsel and mentoring as in the attorney’s service and skill. As odd as it may seem, you may or may not have had the outcome in your current lawsuit that you sought, but you may still have developed a relationship with your attorney that will in the future provide you with a greater benefit than anything your lawsuit might have gained. Whatever your lawsuit won or lost, you gained entry into a professional community and network that may supply great future value to you. Preserve your relationship with your attorney, no matter your lawsuit’s outcome. That relationship may be your biggest win. 

Relationship

The relationship you established with your attorney, though, isn’t the most important one. Rather, how you consider, evaluate, examine, and treat yourself is more significant to you. You entered your lawsuit with your ego in control, claiming rights and interests, and setting objectives and unleashing resources to pursue them. But deeper within you was your authentic self, the one to which you don’t have direct access but can only sense when your ego briefly lets go. Your authentic self is the spirit and soul within you that responds to beauty, seeks truth, and hopes for justice, while trusting that beauty, truth, and justice are all around you, just beyond the unconscious darkness that ego projects. Don’t get too much into your head in evaluating your lawsuit and its outcome. Instead, listen to the hints of awakening consciousness whispered into your soul.

Reflection

Whether your lawsuit is over yet or not, what do you think you’ll think of it years from now? Can you get a good perspective on it yet, of its worth to you? Was or is your lawsuit’s outcome as uncertain as you initially thought? Did the things that you thought would determine its outcome actually do so, or were other things more significant than you thought? What have you learned from your lawsuit that might be valuable to you, even more valuable than the outcome of the lawsuit itself? Are you giving yourself too much credit for a win or too much blame for a loss? What values, positive or negative, did pursuing your lawsuit reflect to your family members, friends, and acquaintances? Are you preserving your professional relationship with your attorney, in case you can draw on it fruitfully in the future? How has your lawsuit changed how you think about yourself?

Key Points

• Litigation has a character all its own, affecting its participants.

• Lawsuits are typically uncertain, often with unpredictable outcomes.

• Looking back on a lawsuit gives the litigants a different perspective.

• A party can learn a lot from a lawsuit, whether the party wins or loses.

• A lawsuit’s outcome can have surprising impacts, win or lose.

• Winning a lawsuit can bring greater challenges than losing a lawsuit.

• Losing a lawsuit can prove one’s personal character and commitment. 

• Pursuing a lawsuit reflects values, independent of the outcome.

• Your professional relationship with your attorney has its own value.

• Pursuing a lawsuit can reveal and affect how you view yourself.