Good lawyers know to tell clients not to sue if it’s not worth it – financially.

Especially those clients who say it’s about principal; they better have more dollars than sense.

So the same should apply when an attorney considers suing co-counsel. Don’t do it unless you got really hurt – financially.

Do the Math

Cheryl Maples had to do the math after winning a gay-marriage case. She and her co-counsel Jack Wagoner successfully challenged a gay-marriage ban in Arkansas.

But when it came time to request attorney’s fees, everything went sideways. Wagoner said Maples inflated her fees, and she says it cost her about $375,000.

Fill In the Blanks

Still, Maples has a chance. According to reports, Wagoner’s comments bled out online to say Maples “tried to rape the taxpayer for $345,00” and that she was a “liberal, bloodsucking piece of s—.”

You fill in the banks, but you don’t have to take them literally to get the factual message. Wagoner meant it, so an opinion defense might not work.

Ultimately, a court will decide whether it was worth it for Maples to sue her co-counsel. Unfortunately for her, a judge already said her efforts in the same-sex case were worth about $30,000 – not $375,000

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