Let’s say that a partner at a law firm has been there for quite a while and is getting older, a situation in which I once found myself.
And let’s say that the partner is done with working lots and lots of hours and wants out. Perhaps the partner has become tired or has had a health scare or no longer deals with stress as well as he or she or they once did or finally realizes that there is more to life, or whatever.
“Our policy is to push the work down to the least expensive professional resource who can provide an excellent work product, and by doing so you get the best value for your money.”
Said every partner in a law firm, ever. And they mean it when they say it. That is in fact their policy. And in theory, some day they will figure out how to manage their law firm so that they can consistently comply with that policy. Of course, there is a difference between theory and practice. For example, in theory communism works. Not so much in practice.
Every time I phone a call centre for just about any company, it turns out that they are experiencing a higher volume of calls than anticipated, and although my call is important to them, they must keep me on hold for a very long time. It really makes you wonder why, after all of this time, they have not yet started anticipating a higher volume of calls and hiring more staff. Especially since my call is so important to them. I know that something does not quite add up, even if I have not zeroed in on the exact problem. I suspect that it has something to do with them lying to me and my call not actually being all that important to them.
At my first firm, Eric was a client lawyer. He was not much for reading legal documents, but he knew how he wanted them to look, and that was short.
You may have heard the saying that ‘If you owe a $100,000 to the Bank, you have a problem; but if you owe $100,000,000 to the Bank, the Bank has a problem.’
The first time that I saw this principle in action was in the case of a rather large company that became insolvent years ago. This company owed so much money and there was so little chance of any of it being recovered, that the Bank could not be bothered to spend the money required to shut it down, and no other creditor thought that it was worth their while to drive it into bankruptcy. So, the insolvent company kept sputtering along for quite a while.
As a continuation of my public service, I offer the following additional translations from Lawyer Talk to Plain English:
My many years of practice taught me that clients usually want to close their transactions quickly.
You would think that they would want to close when everyone involved has had the time to do the job properly, but that does not seem to be the case. Apparently, ‘quickly’ is when deals have to close. Now, in fairness, there is often a good reason to close a deal quickly. A business reason, or a tax reason, perhaps. But, more often than not, the desire to close the deal quickly seems to constitute an independent, over-reaching, crucial goal.
As a public service, I offer the following translations from Lawyer Talk to Plain English:
We lawyers like to use definitions in our writing. It makes the substance of the document easier to read because it allows the drafter to avoid repeating things or using terms in an inconsistent manner. I am going to try that here, knowing that I may offend someone or other.
In this article, ‘marriage’ means a romantic relationship (whether or not having a sexual component) between any two or more people of any genders or without a gender, whether or not sanctified by a religious or civil ceremony of any type, and ‘spouse’ means any of the human beings who are involved in such a relationship. I hope that I have included everyone, but I will not be surprised if I have not. Frankly, I am having trouble keeping up.
When I completed my Articles long ago, I was not hired back. It was a time of economic recession and jobs were difficult to come by. I sent out many application letters and eventually accepted an offer at a small suburban firm. The day after I accepted the job, I received a phone call from one of Canada’s largest law firms offering me an interview. I politely declined and said that I had already accepted a position. A family member who will go unnamed thought that I was crazy, but I had given my word and I was not going to break it.