Curiosity, intention, and accountability in a profession with no room for autopilot.

Curiosity killed the cat, or so the saying goes. It’s a peculiar warning, particularly for lawyers. Luckily, lawyers have always been good at finding an exception to the rule

Good lawyers dig. They push. They prod. An explanation that does not quite add up invites questions. One that everyone seems a little too comfortable accepting invites more. If curiosity did kill the cat, the legal profession may be in trouble. But first: who found it, what happened, and who decided it deserved nine lives in the first place?

Investigating losses and pursuing recovery from the parties responsible means reconstructing events, examining evidence, tracing relationships, and applying the law to figure out where responsibility rests and what can be proven. Three habits guide that work from the first investigation through litigation: staying curious, acting with intention, and insisting on accountability. Complacency has no business at counsel’s table.

Stay Curious

From the moment a case comes through the door, lawyers are the first responders. The job is to learn the facts, test the assumptions, preserve what exists, and build a theory. A misstep at any one of those points ripples through the life of the case.

Sometimes in this work, the facts are simply the facts. Lawyers do not get to choose them, but they do control how thoroughly they investigate them. The first explanation is rarely the only one worth considering, and that a story repeated often enough to sound true is still not evidence.

The other side feels that work before a complaint is ever filed. A pre-suit demand does not need to give away the whole case, but it should make the other side understand what is coming if the matter goes into litigation. A well-built demand package lays out the strength of the claim and the theory behind it clearly enough that opposing counsel and the carrier have to take a hard look at their own exposure. Good lawyering makes the other side question its position.

Preservation runs both ways. Protect what can be protected and demand in writing that the other side protect the rest. Evidence gets repaired, overwritten, and thrown away. A written preservation demand creates a record. If evidence later disappears, the explanation deserves questions, and sometimes consequences, too.

Be Intentional

Curiosity gets a case started. Intention keeps it moving in the right direction.

Too often, cases are filed and then simply moved along. Pleadings get recycled, discovery gets copied from the last file, and paper goes back and forth without anyone stopping to ask what the case actually needs. That is going through the motions, and clients pay for it.

It is not hard to see how it happens. A heavy caseload is demanding. Deadlines converge, clients need answers, and life does not pause outside the office. Lawyers are human, and the rest of life rarely checks the litigation calendar before making demands of its own.

Every minute counts, at home and in practice. Autopilot wastes time that clients are paying for. Forms provide structure, but every case requires judgment, and the hours spent finding the right questions early can save months of avoidable work and open the door to an earlier resolution.

That starts with the pleading. Florida remains a fact-pleading jurisdiction under Rule 1.110(b), and a complaint drafted with care can avoid unnecessary pleading challenges and the months of delay that come with them.

Written discovery should carry that same intention forward, and too often it does not. Some requests are so generic that a meaningful answer, let alone a precise objection, is hard to give. The requests themselves tell opposing counsel something about the lawyer who sent them: whether the facts have been studied, the issues understood, and the questions chosen for a reason. A recycled set sends a message, too. Just not necessarily the one intended.

Rule 1.340(a) allows 30 interrogatories, including subparts, absent leave of court. Go straight at the affirmative defenses. Comparative fault? A third-party cause? Pin down the facts, witnesses, and supporting documents. When summary judgment comes, rebuttal takes evidence, not indignation. Make. Each. Count.

Requests for production under Rule 1.350 call for a wider lens. In a products case, that means design history, testing, and prior similar incidents. In a negligence case, it means incident reports, maintenance logs, and surveillance footage, because the defendant’s own records can supply the evidence of duty and breach. If the records matter, ask for them. A meaningful search may take work. That is no reason to settle for what is convenient to produce. Discovery done with intention tells the other side that counsel understands the case and means to prove it.

Insist on Accountability

Accountability starts with the file on counsel’s own desk. The time to find a case’s weak spots is before opposing counsel does. That allows room to plan around them and be candid with the client.

Florida’s rules demand that same accountability from everyone, and earlier. Subject to exemptions and court orders, Rule 1.280 requires initial disclosures concerning witnesses, documents, damages, and insurance within 60 days after service of the complaint or joinder, without waiting to be asked.

A running inventory of witnesses, documents, and damages should begin before suit is filed. Opposing counsel’s disclosures deserve the same scrutiny. Did they identify who knew what? Did they produce the documents or describe them by category and location? What did they leave out? A party’s omissions often raise the most useful questions.

The same standard applies to written responses. Under Rule 1.350, an objection must state whether responsive materials are being withheld on that basis. Under Rule 1.380(a)(3), an evasive or incomplete answer is treated as a failure to answer for purposes of a motion to compel. A boilerplate objection is exactly that. Accountability requires follow-through.

That groundwork pays off at deposition. By the time a witness is under oath, counsel should know what documents exist, what documents do not, and what may still be sitting somewhere unproduced. That is how a witness’s answer gets tested against the paper.

It matters in front of the judge, too. When the other side does not comply, a motion to compel under Rule 1.380 carries far more weight when counsel can explain exactly why the materials are needed, how they tie to the claims and defenses, and why the request is proportional to the needs of the case. Pick your fights deliberately, and win the ones you pick.

Good litigators know how to dig. Experienced litigators know where to dig, how deep to go, when to put the shovel down, and how to pivot.

Holding opposing counsel accountable for their answers is part of holding the case itself accountable to the evidence. What kills a case is often the assumption nobody tested, the answer nobody challenged, or the document nobody thought to request. What saves one is intuitive improvisation and the judgment to know when to be malleable.

Without questions, without challenging explanations, and without looking for what everyone else missed, what, exactly, is the point of practicing law?

As for the cat? It says only complacency can kill it. Apparently, nobody had bothered to ask!