# Legal question prompted by "The Good Wife"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-question-prompted-by-the-good-wife/637756>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 15, 2012, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-question-prompted-by-the-good-wife/637756 "2012-10-15T08:24:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-question-prompted-by-the-good-wife/637756/21 "2012-10-16T21:19:01Z")

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> [@md2000](#):
>
> If the defendant in a lawsuit gives the plaintiff money to “go away”, isn’t that what we call an “out of court settlement”? IIRC from the news, these can happen up to when the verdict is delivered - and even after, if the plaintiff wants to avoid the whole appeal process too.

No, an out of court settlement is still typically handled by lawyers, it just means the lawyers (possibly with clients present) get together outside of the court and reach an agreement, vs going to court and trying to convince a jury/judge who should get what.

This appears to be describing a situation where the defendant goes to the plaintiff out of court and presumably without lawyers. Possibly just skip his own, but more likely skip both lawyers.

But the risks are, as stated, that the plaintiff could take the money and not drop the suit. “What do you mean you paid? Where is the contract?” Etc. Also, the lawyers generally have something in their contracts to get paid.

Also, if you couldn’t reach an agreement such that you needed lawyers in the first place, it’s hard to see reaching an agreement without the lawyers later.

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**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-question-prompted-by-the-good-wife/637756/22 "2012-10-17T07:17:26Z")

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With respect to the free speech issue on TGW, I took the argument to be that every word appearing on CEO/Owner’s search engine is protected speech, maybe even commercial speech and therefore the thought process or in this case, the algorithm, used to produce it is protected. I don’t think I am explaining this clearly, but maybe it is just that defendant has no right to see the algorithm that produces inaccurate results, that defendant has a right to produce a crummy search engine without having to disclose his methods. From a legal standpoint I have no idea if this makes sense, but it did not arouse my curiosity in the same way the end run around plaintiff’ attorneys did.

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