A client walks in and tells his lawyer that he was told he has a strong case or defence. To the client after being told by many people that his is a sure win case and there should not be any reason why he may not win. There are times we can hear in town of talks in town that certain lawyers told their clients that their clients’ case is a “guarantee win case!” Wow! This sounds great and the clients also felt happy! This is something like “money back guarantee” package offered by certain lawyers. What is certain here is that the lawyer who gives the guarantee is either inexperienced or rather is boastful of his trade. For experienced and seasoned lawyers in court or lawyers who are familiar with litigations, they may not wish to speculate the chances of winning at all. The most these lawyers will say is that, “I shall give my best, the rest I shall leave it to the court.”

In litigations, clients may lose their case for many reasons. The more common reasons are:

  1. Failure of lawyer in preparing case adequately before trial;
  2. Client’s failure or inability to finance the suit or pay the fees of his lawyer during trial or during appeal;
  3. Client and witnesses showing off and speaking more than necessary in court, thus, opening gaps for opponent to exploit the evidence in opponent’s favour;
  4. Incorporative attitude of client and witnesses;
  5. Incorporative attitude of lawyer; 
  6. Lack of legal knowledge of lawyer in areas of dispute;
  7. Lack of litigation skill of lawyer;
  8. Poor case file management by lawyer;
  9. Leakage of information by client, lawyer and or by witnesses;
  10. Wrong assessment of facts and law by trial judge;
  11. Judge lacking legal knowledge in the area of law in dispute;
  12. Bias of presiding judge;
  13. Bias of expert witnesses who most often than not always speak in favour of the party who called and paid him;
  14. Key witnesses died, absconded, migrated or under threat to give evidence and so give evidence in favour of opposing party;
  15. Witnesses of opposing party telling lies in court to strengthen opponent’s case;
  16. Key witnesses being bought over to give evidence in  favour of the opposing party;
  17. Client’s inability to produce evidence and documents asked by his lawyer;
  18. Client and key witnesses failing to turn up in court to give evidence on the appointed day;
  19. Client and key witnesses could not recall crucial events during trial;
  20. Documents and evidence or exhibits lost during trial;
  21. Wrong identification of exhibits, persons or eye witnesses produced in court;
  22. Insufficient or poor presentation of evidence during trial;

Can you say you have a sure win case when faced with problems mentioned just now? Do you still believe in “money back guarantee” package by lawyers?

To overcome all these problems when faced with a legal problem or a suit, you may wish to settle first, with a lawyer that you are able to trust, competent, knowledgeable with good legal skills and experience, hardworking and with whom you are able to work with.

After that, you may wish to be able to finance the suit against your opponent and thirdly, just pray and hope for the best. Good luck!