George Mkrtchyan’s first job out of law school was at one of the larger personal injury firms in Los Angeles — a Century City practice with a reputation and a heavy caseload. He was assigned a slip-and-fall case from the firm’s backlog. The case had been signed three years earlier.

In those three years, almost nothing had been done. No pre-litigation work. No demand letter. No investigation. Just a file in a drawer. Days before the two-year statute of limitations would have run out, the firm filed the lawsuit — a procedural save, not legal strategy. Then the case kept sitting. Nearly a year passed after filing. No discovery. No depositions. No motion practice. The client was waiting.

That client deserved more. The Century City firm wasn’t doing wrong by being a big firm — it was doing wrong by treating a real person’s case like an afterthought. George understood why it happened. Big practices run on volume. Files queue up. But understanding why didn’t make it acceptable.