Attorney Spotlight – Daniel P. Finney, Jr.
Tell us a little about what initially interested you in law. Was that something you always knew you wanted to do?
Litigation and the process of trying cases is what interested me the most about law. The competitive aspect of arguing cases before a court and jury appealed to me and motivates me to this day. I also enjoy the investigative work involved in litigation and the focus on putting pieces of evidence together and gathering information to support a case. At the same time, there is an opponent in each case who is working against you to ensure that you fail. All of those aspects make litigation a challenging and stimulating aspect of the law.
Before working in your own practice, you served as an assistant circuit attorney for the city. How did that work compare to the work you do now?
In many ways, the work is very similar. When I was assigned a case as an assistant circuit attorney, I would be in charge of handling the case from start to finish and would be involved in every step of litigation. Here at the Finney Law Office, we handle cases the same way. We don’t just pass along the important work to somebody else. When I take on a client’s case, I do the work myself and lead the litigation until we reach a resolution.
One of the things that is important to me, no matter what case I am working on, is believing that my side is the right side which is a luxury that lawyers on the defense side of these types of cases do not always have. They may have to defend people who are responsible for an accident. On our side, we believe that we should win because we are doing the right thing by representing those who have been injured and have a legitimate case.
The Finney Law Office is known to take on many types of specialized cases, such as product defect lawsuits for protective firefighting equipment. Can you tell us about your firm’s role in these cases?
With respect to the firefighting equipment cases, we have the additional motivation to force companies to be more diligent in the way they manufacture products, because firefighters rely on those products with their lives. While a lot of companies do not need to be pushed to do the very best job they can to produce a good product, other companies will sometimes overlook a mistake and jeopardize people’s lives simply because they don’t want to pay the cost to make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, the further up the corporate ladder people are and the more removed they are from the problem, the easier it is for them to make decisions without taking into account the risks they pose to others. I think that our investigation and litigation helped to force their hand to issue recalls on dangerous products.
Speaking more generally, what types of cases do you typically focus on as a firm?
Our firm focuses on handling personal injury cases and we don’t restrict ourselves to any specific type within that area. We help victims of truck accidents, product liability cases, car accidents, medical negligence, or any other type of accident in which somebody has been injured. We also handle cases that involve not only an injury, but also a financial loss. For example, if a business needs to pursue litigation because it has been taken advantage of by another business, we are prepared to assist with that. Essentially we take on any case where somebody has suffered any kind of harm to due someone else’s actions.
How do you help to guide clients through the litigation process?
During the first meeting with a new client, we typically don’t discuss the facts of the case. Instead we go over the litigation procedure and the realities of pursuing a case so that our client knows what to expect. In particular, we discuss how long the case may take and what we can do to shorten that time frame. Once they understand the general progression of the lawsuit, we can discuss the facts of the case and how to go about building the case over the course of the litigation.
What insight do you offer to help them understand the legal aspects of the case?
One of the major things that we make sure to tell new clients is that there is no question that is out of bounds. They should not hesitate to ask any question that they have. A lot of clients may not ask an important question because they are concerned that it will make them look foolish or that it will offend the attorney. For instance, many people feel uncomfortable asking questions about attorney’s fees or why they are being charged a certain amount of money for a particular service. My job as an attorney is to make the client feel as educated and comfortable with the case as possible, so I am always willing to answer any question my client may have.
The next thing I make sure to clarify is how long the case will take and why. I explain how litigation works, why it works the way it does, and what they can expect from their case. Another thing we talk about is how cases are valued. Many times clients believe that their personal valuation of the injury dictates how the case will be assessed, when in reality that is not a factor at all. Instead, the outcome of the case is determined by the response of a reasonable jury to the facts, and the response varies from state to state and even jury to jury. Every juror enters the courtroom with some kind of prejudice as to how money should be used to compensate people and in what amount. Everyone has a different view of how the world should work, and they will evaluate a case through that viewpoint.
How do these factors affect how you approach a case, if at all?
Whenever we litigate a personal injury case, we have to know where we stand and prepare for any possible reaction from the jury. An attorney should never be caught by surprise in the courtroom. It is our job to prepare for any answer to a question or any ruling by a judge and to know how to react to that. There shouldn’t be one thing that we fail to anticipate, or we haven’t done our job completely. A good litigator has planned for all possibilities and has the course of a case mapped out strategically, step by step. As a litigator in St. Louis for over 30 years, I work hard on each and every case to convince the other side to avoid a lawsuit and settle the case outside of court. We want to come to an agreement without a trial or even a lawsuit if possible, but if necessary we will try a case and prepare for any possible outcome.
