It's Friday the 13th and I have great news to share. I finally got a trial date for Lacambra vs. Shea Properties et al. The court scheduled the 4-5 day trial for November 10th, 2008. Now, the work really begins. I have a tremendous disadvantage in terms of discovering facts. My meager litigation budget will prevent me from conducting depositions on people and so I have to simplify things and seek out facts by alternative means. That’s probably a good thing; it’ll make me smarter.
Many Entrepreneurs that I have spoken to say that the best time to build an organization is during lean times. It creates a culture of frugality and develops a miser attitude that brings projects in faster, smarter and cheaper. Given my limitations, this will be a welcome challenge to the artist that resides within me. Mark Geragos once said “… litigation is the ultimate creative arts.” I tend to agree with him in so far as it requires a command of many skills and a deep understanding of human behavior. During trial, a litigator has to connect with a jury – a group of people that he or she has never met – and put in their hands the fate of the client. As an advocate, you are like an artist painting an image of your client – one that is credible and likeable to the jurors. In that respect, this case will give me one of two outcomes. It will either make me or I’ll end up doing something else. In any event, I hope to show my Spartan best.
But that is not to say that my excitement is easy to contain; On the contrary. The Shea Case has enormous implications when you consider that more and more people are now opting to work out of their homes. In the future I’d like to advocate for new laws that prevent landlords from easily evicting tenants who operate businesses out of their homes. By design, the “Unlawful Detainer Action” that landlords use to evict tenants has a fast track feature that gives a respondent only 5 days to respond. A normal lawsuit, on the other hand, gives the respondent 30 days to reply. If you are operating a business out of your home, as I was, and you get evicted, you will need time to relocate properly to continue your business. Logistically speaking, there are office equipment and desks involved when this happens. These are things that cannot be easily moved into a small room and in short notice. I am looking at possible solutions to this and will be writing more about it on my blog.
