| It depends on whether your claim is recognized in the law and whether you (through your lawyer) can present convincing evidence to support each of the elements required by the law
Is your claim is recognized in the law? Legal claims are presented to a court of law by the filing of a Complaint
The Complaint is usually broken out into "Causes of Action" or "Claims for Relief" which set forth the legal theory (or theories) of the claims.
Each such "Cause of Action" (legal theory) is made up of "elements" each of which must be proven in order for you to be entitled to obtain "relief."
The "relief" usually is a judgment for money damages or an order of court requiring the other party to do something.
To start off with, ask your lawyer what "cause(s) of action" or "claim(s) for relief" you are making in your lawsuit.
And as to each, find out what the "elements" are that must be proven if you are going to be sucessful, i.e "What do we need to prove in order for us to win?"
Each state has pattern jury instructions that set out the elements of each of the available "causes of action." Even if your case is not going to be tried to a jury, there is great guidance to be gained from the applicable jury instructions.
Can you (through your lawyer) present convincing evidence to support each of the necessary elements as required by the applicable law?
What evidence is available from your side on each of the required elements? Evidence can be: testimony - documents - things - etc.
What are the legal "defenses" raised by the defendant which would defeat your claims?
A "defense" might either be to disprove the existence of one of your required "elements" OR a "defense" can also be what is called an "affirmative defense" -- which might negate your "cause of action" -- but a defendant has the affirmative duty of producing evidence to prove an "affirmative defense."
"Affirmative defenses" have "elements" each of which must be proved with evidence. You may seek to disprove the existence of any "element" of an "affirmative defense."
What evidence is available from the other party's side to support their defense(s)?
Once you get an understanding of what each side needs to prove in order for that side to win - then you can see what evidence is available to each side - and eventually you'll be in a pretty good position to understand and evaluate where your case is going.
In the beginning, the parties each claim they have evidence that allows them to win, but the outcome probabilities are narrowed through the "discovery" process, i.e. investigation, requests for production of documents, written questions and depositions. |
