Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Business Attorney

Business law is divided into two broad categories: transactional and litigation.  I handle transactions (planning for problems before they arise), but the majority of my experience has been in litigation (dealing with problems after they happen).  These two areas work together well, and I've found that the litigation experience is extremely helpful in transactional work.

What I offer clients is quality work, professional service, and personal attention.  There are two extremes among business attorneys, and I fall somewhere in the middle.  On the one end, there are firms that churn out boilerplate work quickly and efficiently, but may have a limited capacity to go beyond that.  For example, actually lawyering a case does not fit into some firms' business models, and they have trouble reacting when there are legitimate (or even arguable) defenses to their clients claims in a litigation context, or where a transaction develops in a way that does not quite fit their pre-drafted documents.  On the other end of the spectrum are firms that over-lawyer every case, and spend unfathomable amounts of their clients' time and money on nonsense.  For example, I've seen numerous instances where firms will take very simple things and make them unnecessarily complicated, or have multiple attorneys and staff spend considerable time with multiple conferences and meetings to schedule tasks that can be completed by a single attorney in only a few minutes.

I'm in the middle of these extremes.  I try to handle things as efficiently as possible, with an eye towards always moving forward towards the clients' goals, and at the same time I address each matter as a lawyer (not merely a paper-pusher).  I focus on execution -- getting things done, rather than just talking about getting things done -- but at the same time give each issue the time and attention that is required to ensure that things are done properly.  

No comments:

Post a Comment