Legal cartoons and humorous comment (c) Paul Brennan. All rights reserved.

I decided on 101 reasons as I didn’t want to depress the entire legal profession by having 1,001.
Paul Brennan, Lawyer, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

# 4. Lawyers are difficult to live with



I never realised why people tended to dislike lawyers until I married one. Argumentative, prone to making smart comments and costly too.

If you are sick of changing lawyers or you live with one 24 hours a day, like me, the solution is to build a “relationship”.

I hear you say, “Shouldn’t the lawyer be doing this as part of the service”?

Hey, these are lawyers we are dealing with here!

Do not just stay and moan; that will affect your business. Your choice is to either sack ‘em or lower your expectations.

After years of moaning about lawyers the best way of lowing your expectations is to accept that all along you were the problem (I did not say this was going to be easy). Now here are six questions that may help you down this road:

1. Are your matters always urgent?
2. Does the material become non-urgent once the ball is in your court?
3. Is the quality and/or service never really up to scratch?
4. Do you invariably complain about the bill?
5. Do you then call the lawyer and try to get him to repeat steps 1 and 2. Followed by your steps 3 and 4.
6. Do you then in exasperation look for a new lawyer?

Does any of this sound familiar?

Legal services can be cheap/quick/excellent. You can have any two of these but not all three. Cheap and excellent but not quick. Excellent and quick but not cheap. You get the idea.

If your solicitor is consistently delivering all three, be suspicious and look for an angle e.g. he is sleeping with your wife.

I hope this helps. Otherwise keep on sacking, you never know one day your prince will come.

Extract called "Managing your lawyer-be firm" from “The Law is an Ass Make Sure it Doesn’t Bite yours” © Paul Brennan 2006

Sponsored by Brennans solicitors
 

No comments:

Post a Comment