Success Stories

See how our experience can help you:

1. Success Story: Class Action Suit to Slay a Dragon
2. Success Story: Our Research Facilitates Out-of-Court Settlement
3. Success Story: Busy Lawyers Love Us
4. Success Story: We Stick to What We Agree Upon
5. Success Story: We Can Ball-Park Pain & Suffering Damages
6. Success Story: Need a Ghostwriter? We Can Do That, too!
7. Success Story: We Can Assist Your Tribunal
8. Success Story: We Can Assist Self-Represented Litigants



Class Action Suit to Slay a Dragon
One of my long-term clients decided to slay a dragon and took on the insurance industry in a class action law suit. I was involved from the beginning in preparing research memoranda to help him frame his action and to deal with interlocutory proceedings. This resulted in research of such quality that we co-authored four articles on the law relating to class actions that were published in a national legal journal. On appeal, I researched additional issues, helped write the factum and took care of the details to bring the final draft to a "filing ready" form. I then worked closely with my client and prominent outside counsel to prepare the Application for Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and again took carriage of the detail work to ensure a product that was ready to be filed, requiring only the signature of my client.
 

Our Research Facilitates Out-of-Court Settlement
A new client was due in court on a matter three days after he called me. He told me that he just wanted cases, noted-up, within a fixed budget of $1,500 plus GST. A Bottom Line Research associate gathered the relevant case law for him and prepared a memorandum summarizing her results. I reviewed her work to ensure that it met our standards, made minor revisions, and emailed the report to the client with attached cases. Our fees and disbursements actually exceeded $1,500 but the invoice to the client was discounted to the agreed-upon amount.

When I made my follow-up call to ensure that he was happy with our services, he said that with the case law in hand he had been able to negotiate an excellent settlement on the eve of the court appearance.



Busy Lawyers Love Us
One of my long-term clients is an established lawyer with a very busy practice and little discretionary time. He had an important appeal to handle, however, and asked me to write the factum for him. He sent me a letter outlining what he thought were the grounds of appeal and how he wanted to approach the argument. I reviewed the appeal books in detail and we had a 20-minute discussion about how he wished his argument to be developed. After he had reviewed the draft I prepared for him, we spoke for another 20 minutes to discuss his revisions. I took care of the remaining details and prepared the final draft of the factum and the highlighted Book of Authorities and the Extracts of Key Evidence, in a form ready for him to simply sign and file.

He comfortably met his filing deadline and felt that his arguments had been articulated as he would have done himself, had he had the time.
 

We Stick to What We Agree Upon
A typical scenario is the instance of a client who called and gave me instructions on the phone regarding research on a substantive matter of commercial litigation. He was being asked by his client to prepare an opinion letter and wanted a research memorandum to provide the analytical framework. As there was no pressing deadline, we agreed that I would have a research memorandum with background cases & materials ready for him in two weeks time. We also agreed on a maximum fee. He confirmed the details of our discussion in a brief letter of instructions. The work was delegated to a Bottom Line Research associate who had expertise in matters of commercial litigation. Upon timely delivery by the associate, I reviewed her work to ensure that it met Bottom Line standards. The project was then emailed to the client, on schedule. Even though I had a small cost overrun, I billed him the amount agreed upon.

In the follow-up phone call the client confirmed that the research was exactly what he was looking for and his opinion letter was near completion, based largely on our research memorandum.



We Can Ball-Park Pain & Suffering Damages
A long-term client with a thriving plaintiff's personal injury practice was off to mediation on the issue of the amount of damages justly due her client as a result of his injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident. She wanted a quantum assessment summarizing the injuries suffered, reviewing analogous cases and suggesting a likely range of damages for pain and suffering. The client sent over a brief letter of instructions and copies of two recent medical reports regarding the injuries. In one week time a quantum assessment reviewing the analogous cases, adjusting the awards to inflation and concluding a likely range of awards for general damages was emailed to the client.

The client then used the quantum assessment as the basis of her mediation brief and had a successful result.

We frequently also draft a mediation or ADR brief as step one, saving money for the client by leap frogging the research memorandum.
 

Need a Ghostwriter? We Can Do That, too!
Discretion prevents us from providing too many facts in this success story. Suffice to say that a prominent member of the bar was invited to give a presentation to an educational conference on a breaking issue. This lawyer was far too busy to research and write the paper required to go with the presentation. Unwilling, however, to decline the prestigious invitation, and because of the great potential for marketing opportunities arising from it, the lawyer came to us. We were asked to ghostwrite the paper. The lawyer and I met for about an hour to canvass their views on what should be in the paper. I then researched and wrote a 30-page paper which was submitted to the conference organizers and distributed to attendees.

The lawyer received many compliments from attendees and no one was aware that the paper was not the lawyer's own scholarship.

We also ghostwrite blog posts and other web content.
 

We can also assist Tribunals
Bottom Line Research also takes a support role to various tribunals. We prepare research memoranda on legal issues arising, prepare policy papers on more strategic issues, and provide further support as needed.

We can assist self-represented litigants
A member of the public was considering a lawsuit as a result of abuse by a government agency. We prepared a thorough research memorandum explaining his options for the law suit.

Another self-represented litigant was going to argue an appeal himself, but retained us to prepare a professional, filing-ready factum for him. He had a successful day in the appeal court.