This may sound weird coming from a lawyer, but generally speaking I personally don’t like most laywers. Obviously there are plenty of lawyers that are great people, great advocates, great champions of liberty and truly do all they can to protect the rights and positions of their client. I have many friends who are lawyers and those that I count as my friends all fall within this category. That being said, I think most people can relate to what I would call a general disdane for the profession, and why many would consider the ”Lawyer” a nefarious species of animal that has slowly but surely embedded itself as puported required element in too many parts of our daily lives.
So why am I brining this up in this blog? Today I had an individual come into my office who had met with a couple of different laywers on an issue they are dealing with, and they were looking for a third opinion. Can’t really go into the details of the “issue”, but suffice it to say he had been give accurate “legal” advice by the other two lawyers which, if followed, would have cost this guy thousands of dollars in legal fees, and he probably would have “won” his case. The problem is that these other two laywers failed to look beyond the “legal” issues or the “rights” this guy has and give the guy some good business advice. If they had, this guy would have realized that he could spend thousands of dollars and win, but actually end up with less in his pocket than if he took another approach to the problem, i.e., an approach that solves his problem and doesn’t end up costing thousands of dollars to “win” a judgment that would have no more value than the paper it would be written on. I told the guy to take a step back, look at what he wanted, what the other side wanted, and how a simple business approach (without the need for lawyers) could get him what he wants now, instead of getting him a worthless judgment a year or two down the road, where the only true winners (at least financially) would have been the laywers on both sides of the dispute.
I run into this kind of situation all the time. Sometimes I have to convince my own clients that while they may have the “law” on their side, moving forward with litigation is not really in their best interest, and they can get a better result without me by working out their problem on their own, directly with the other person or entity. Of course, unlike many lawyers, I had other jobs and businesses before deciding to go to law school, so I see things not only through the eyes of an attorney, but also through the eyes of a person who lived in the real world of working for somebody else in a regular job and running my own businesses. The problem with most lawyers is that they go to college directly out of highschool, they graduate and go to law school, then they start practicing law, but they never have lived in the “real world” of business. Most lawyers work for law firms; they get paid every week; they never have to meet payroll or borrow money to get their business off the ground; they never have punched a time clock or waited tables; they never have had seen the real world through the eyes of the clients they actually represent. It seems funny to me how a laywer who has never actually started and run his own business can truly relate to a small business owner or entrepreneur. Sure, the lawywer can give them “legal” advice, but can they truly give that client good business advice, which sometimes requires telling the client that they should not “laywer up.”
And Politicians?? Wow, I really don’t even want to get started on this “species of animal”, but from what profession do most of our politicians slither their way to their respective positions? That’s right, most of them are Lawyers. And to make it worse, most of them were unsuccessful laywers. So now we have people who never ran a business, never made a payroll, never punched a time clock, and never lived in the real world telling the rest of us not only how to run our businesses and our daily lives, but also being in charge of the most powerful country (at least at one time) in the World!!
Ok, so I don’t like most laywers, and I most definitely don’t like most lawyer politicians; but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some good ones out there. Just be careful when taking advice from a lawyer and ask yourself “does this advice really help me in the long run?” or “is there another way to solve this problem without running to the courthouse?” Often times the answer is that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer, and in my opinion the good lawyers will tell you that.
As for politicians??? Well, that’s a tough one. My initial advice is to not vote for anyone unless they have had a real job or run their own business, and if possible, avoid the failed lawyer politicians. Remember, being a “Politician” was NEVER EVER intended to be a career path by our founding fathers. The intent was our neighbors and friends, local business owners, etc… would represent our interest for a few years and then return home and get back to their real jobs. This system was designed so that our ‘Representatives” were looking out for “our best interest” because they were in fact “one of us.” Unfortunately this in no longer the case and most politicians are only concerned with keeping their careers going by being re-elected. Oh well, won’t be solving the World’s problems in this blog (maybe the next one), so in the interim, think before you hire a laywer, and really think before you vote one.
Tu ne cede mailis sed contra audentior ito!! (Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them!!)
