William Wuerthele Ravin

I was very dissatisfied with the results. Mr. Raven claimed it was a simple case of former employees "stealing" from us including our database and it was a million dollar case. We had forensic evidence of the entire contents of a hard drive being copied to an external hard drive before the computer... was returned. He told us it would take $100,000 total including trial and at $75,000 said it could take another $100k or more because it was "more complicated." In the end we went through mediation. I felt initially I had an attorney that really wanted to fight for me. In the end I felt as soon as the money was coming to the end, I was a number. In fact, I felt a bit bullied during mediation where he said I had to settle and he wouldn't represent me any more. I wish I would have looked around more and found someone on contingency or had an agreement that at $100,000 it would go to contingency. My corporate attorney found another case exactly like mine before we filed suit or hired Mr. Ravin and this case ended with very favorable results and while initially Mr. Ravin was aligned with what my corporate attorney found, we strayed from the original simple goal of fighting back from people who were thieves. There really was no reference to the other favorable case and I don't know that Mr. Ravin even consulted with the successful attorneys. One of the perpetrators was a corporate officer in my company and had to return his small equity stake. This was definitely one of the most trying ordeals in my life but I believe you have to stand up for yourself. In the end this "win" was not much of a "win" other than the perpetrators knew I wasn't going to role over. You really need to ask the question "if it is such a good case, why won't you take it on contingency and what could happen during the case to make your attorney walk away from it." Also, find a ceiling where if you reach that they are still willing to represent you and take it all the way. If you go to mediation, keep in mind the mediator (at least in my case) will be sympathetic to both sides. For me the mediator wanted a win for both sides and to have a settlement the end of the day. I feel the other side won and I lost, because when is it a win for another party to be able to stay in business, steal your database and all your IP and the amount they pay in the settlement wasn't enough to cover the attoney's fees and costs incurred. Getting the equity back in the end could even be meaningless if the company doesn't succeed. Finally, make sure you get an attorney who will be a buffer for this negative energy. Another attorney who I admire greatly recommended against the suit because she knows what a toll it can take. Her advice was if it consumes more than 10% of your time, it's not worth it no matter how bad it is.