Once again, since I am all about giving back and public service, I offer these translations from legal talk (“LT”) to plain English (“PE”) to help lawyers communicate effectively with opposing counsel. I hope that you find them helpful.
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Targets (On Our Backs)
Law firms give lawyers minimum billable hours targets to meet. There is nothing wrong with setting expectations, I guess. The theory is that you make the lawyers aware of the firm’s expectations, and they then work to achieve them. Transparency is good.
Yet another public service. Lawyers are busy people and often do not have the time to get to personal stuff, so I thought that I would help by providing a first rough draft of New Year’s Resolutions for you. Of course, feel free to use this as a precedent and edit for your personal circumstances.
I recently authored an article about law firm compensation systems, lamenting how they are usually laser-focused on billable hours and business brought in, but not so much on all of the other skills required to build a great firm. Of course, there is a great deal of lip service paid to the so called ‘soft factors,’ but the conversion rate of lip service to cash for ‘soft factors’ is not particularly great.
I met Paul at my very first job as a lawyer. Paul was a commercial real estate lawyer. He was hard-working and extremely capable. Paul thought quite a bit of himself and other people who he considered to be intelligent and diligent. However, Paul did not suffer fools gladly.
I was born and raised in Montreal. I started my legal education at the Faculty of Law at McGill in 1975. My plan was to obtain my Bachelor of Civil Law and practice law in Quebec.
In 1976, the Parti Quebecois was elected in Quebec for the first time. As an Anglo in Quebec, I thought that it was a good idea to also obtain a common law degree so that I could get the hell out of Quebec should the need arise.
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All About the Lead Dog
Many years ago, the managing partner of my firm, who I will call Sid because that was his name, had on his desk a replica of a dogsled with a team of dogs in single file. There was a pithy saying attached to the sled which read, “if you are not the lead dog, the scenery never changes.” Think about that for a minute. No, I mean really think about it. Take a moment to focus on exactly what every dog following the lead dog had to look at for the entire trip.
I practiced business law for 40 years. I never knew much about criminal law. In fact, I knew so little about the subject that I used to tell my clients that if they got arrested, they probably should not use their one phone call to call me because all that I could do for them in their hour of need would be to incorporate a company.
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Translations From Lawyer Talk: Part Three
Due to popular demand (I have now asked myself to do this ten times) and as a continued public service, I am providing some more translations from Legal Talk to Plain English.
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How To Raise a Baby Lawyer
Those who know me would not be surprised to learn that I think that I was a brilliant supervising lawyer and mentor. Not necessarily because I was, but because I had a fairly high opinion of my own skill set. Many of us lawyers do. Not all of us are right, although I am.