What Makes Us Different


YUHL STONER CARR’S LAWYERS

Lawyers are not fungible. YSC’s founding partners created the firm based on their belief that a fundamentally different legal practice could be created that better served the needs of clients looking for original solutions to complex and difficult legal challenges. YSC’s lawyers share common goals. We are entrepreneurial, unconventional and aggressive. We look for creative strategies to swiftly resolve commercial, employment and personal injury disputes advantageously for our clients. YSC lawyers are trial lawyers and we like to try cases. Because our opponents know this, we are frequently able to settle cases more favorably for our clients.

We believe YSC has a different and better case evaluation perspective than of other firms. We share a view that in a world of increasing specialization, the most successful lawyers master their litigation specialty, but also draw from their experience handling a variety of cases. YSC’s lawyers have worked on both the plaintiff and defendant side of many different types of cases. Accordingly, we have seen a myriad of different commercial, employment and personal injury disputes from nearly every perspective.


OUR SOLUTIONS

It is easy for a law firm to say it better serves its clients, but how does a firm demonstrate that fact? We think one way is to identify fundamental problems confronted by all clients in connection with the purchase and receipt of hourly rate legal services and then to develop innovative arrangements to eliminate those problems.

Nearly every client confronts two problems:

• Most law firms are leveraged professional businesses--partner owners make their money based upon how many associate and junior partner hours are sold. The unavoidable incentive is to add more lawyers to a case, rather than to try to understand how few are actually needed to successfully do the job. For a highly-leveraged firm, the incentive and opportunity for "over-lawyering" is often compelling. YSC wants to sell results to our clients, not associate hours. All YSC attorneys are seasoned trial lawyers that actively litigate our cases.



• The compensation arrangements at leveraged law firms may not properly motivate lawyers to evaluate and to communicate with the client as a true economic partner. Too often, clients who pay by the hour at leveraged law firms are told one thing about the value of a case at the front end of a controversy and something far different immediately prior to trial, even though the facts have not materially changed. We believe that one contributing cause is that unless the evaluating lawyers bear some meaningful part of the risk of faulty analysis from the beginning, there is not enough emphasis, from the very start of a case, on being thorough and right from the beginning of the case. YSC is commited to evaluating cases as a fine economic partner with our clients.

BUSINESS & COMMERCIAL LITIGATION PRACTICE

Our commercial disputes experience includes a broad range of cases consisting of fraud, partnership disputes, unfair competition, trade secret/copyright business-related violations, as well as breach of contract in the insurance, employment, real estate, and commercial settings. Because many business cases also involve tort overtones, such as fraud and insurance bad faith, our expertise in tort law has proven to be a valuable tool in the litigation of complex commercial disputes.

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LITIGATION PRACTICE

Our labor and employment practice involves over 25 years of extensive experience representing individuals with claims involving all types of discrimination, harassment, retaliation and/or wrongful termination occurring within the work place. YSC also has unique experience representing senior executives and management level employees in the negotiation and preparation of employment, compensation, separation and severance agreements.

PERSONAL INJURY & INSURANCE LITIGATION PRACTICE

The partners of YSC have generated several hundreds of millions in recoveries for their personal injury clients since the opening of the firm's first office in 1985. We have handled a broad range of cases including products liability, motor vehicle, premises liability, professional negligence (medical, legal and architectural), construction accidents, maritime, aviation, wrongful death, insurance bad faith, and other catastrophic injury cases.

Sample Case Results

Examples of significant successes generated by YSC’s founding partners include:

• $52 million gross verdict for several investment funds who suffered financial losses due to the fraudulent sale of high yield securities
• $14 million gross verdict in defective highway design case against the State of California
• $8.1 million verdict for a client against his former employer arising out of a corporate takeover
• A record setting $8 million award to a client afflicted with cerebral palsy but who suffered a substantial diminution in the quality of his life following a motor vehicle accident
• $7.5 gross million settlement in a personal injury case against a national media network arising out of a film set accident
• $7 million award to a prominent international Dutch model who suffered catastrophic injuries when her bicycle was struck by a San Diego Transit bus
• $5.2 million verdict for two executive clients in a complex breach of deferred compensation contract case
• $5 million settlement for a prestigious Hollywood director who suffered disabling injuries when an elevated camera crane collapsed
• $5 million settlement against a building owner for injuries arising from a fall from a dangerous ladder
• $1.78 million judgment against an internet directory