Associate
This piece was initially published on LinkedIn by Debbie Silberman.
The Hardest Part of the Intake Process
At Stritmatter Law I serve on the intake committee. Every week, the committee and I read the stories of people who’ve been wronged, deeply, often brutally, and who are looking for someone to fight for them.
Some of those stories hit a dead end immediately. The statute of limitations has expired. The wrongdoer is immune. The damage, though real, isn’t legally “enough.” You read the intake and your heart breaks, but your legal brain is already delivering the verdict: there’s nothing we can do.
When Hope Collides with Legal Barriers
Other cases take a little longer to unravel. We dig into records, timelines, obscure statutes. We call experts, request documents, ask follow-up questions. We hold on to hope. Sometimes we even start sketching the theory, until the trapdoor opens. A jurisdictional bar. An unfixable causation gap. A client who vanishes. And again, the answer is no.
These are not easy noes.
The Invisible Weight Plaintiff Lawyers Carry
Plaintiff’s lawyers are often cast as warriors, we battle Goliaths, we speak truth to power, we get justice where the system failed. But there’s a quiet, invisible part of our work that rarely gets talked about: the weight of the people we cannot help.
The ones who waited too long because they didn’t know the deadline. The ones whose stories are devastating but legally invisible. The ones who call us back, again and again, hoping maybe we missed something.
Every no feels like a tiny betrayal, even when it’s not your fault. Because you do believe them. You do feel their pain. You just can’t fix it.
And we don’t go into this work because we like saying no.
We do it because we want to be the one who says, “Yes. I believe you. I will help you. You’re not alone.”
But if we’re honest, that’s not every story. Some stories end at intake. And those stories haunt us too.