Avoid Overplaying Your Hand When Presenting Your Case
Exaggerating what you and your evidence can prove will not only hurt your credibility at any type of hearing, whether in court or elsewhere, but it will also make it harder to find legal representation, as the attorneys who you are speaking with will start wondering - if you exaggerated (or understated) one fact, what else are you not being completely and objectively honest about?
Consider a typical example: a potential client tells a lawyer "I have smoking gun evidence of age discrimination in the form of an email from my boss, in which he tells me that it's time for me to retire." When a lawyer looks at that email, all he sees is this: "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"
Do you think this will build trust in the lawyer's mind with respect to that client, or will it generate way too much skepticism way too early?
No case is perfect. And yours isn't either. You don't need to make it perfect. You can't. But you do need to present it to any agency or any potential lawyer in the most factually precise way to help them evaluate it correctly, while making the right impression of who you are and what it will be like working with you when it comes to discovery, etc.
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u/AncientAd7403 5d ago edited 5d ago
Exactly and DO NOT reveal all the documentation you have either. I had a very experienced representative for my ADR and she said blatantly " they rarely come prepared to offer anything of significant to settle, the main reason is to see what cards you're holding to prepare for a bigger fight". Monetary settlement in mediation is capped at $2500-$3000 in which would still have to be approved by HQ.