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Habits of Highly Ineffective Lawyers

If you feel like saboging your legal career, why not saunter over to Justin Patten's Human Law blog, where he  lays out a list of Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Lawyers, courtesy of Dan Hull. The habits include: 

1.  Be risk-averse at all times.

2. Tell the client only what it can't do.

3. Whatever you do, don't take a stand, and don't make a

recommendation. (You don't want to be wrong, do you?)

4. Treat the client as a potential adversary at all times. Keep a

distance.

5. Cover yourself. Write a lot to the client. Craft lots of confirming

letters which use clauses like "it is our understanding", "our

analysis is limited to ..." and "we do not express an opinion as to

whether ..."

6. Churn up extra fees with extra letters and memoranda and tasks.

7. As out-house counsel, you are American royalty. Never forget that.

Have you ever employed any of these techniques or been directed to use them by your superior? If you don't like following these rules, not to worry: if you abide by them long enough, your client will fire you.

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on June 27, 2006 at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Comments

My (former) lawyer evidently lived by this code - the sad part is that I didn't get the chance to fire her, the magistrate granted her motion to withdraw two days before my objections deadline! It seems that consumers of legal services have NO PROTECTION from
such practices. The horror stories are mounting. Ethics ?
I'd laugh if I, among others, wasn't so devastated by the lack of them, and the lack of recourse.

Posted by: Mary. D. Wojkowski | Jul 3, 2006 3:50:58 PM

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