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Beware. A friend signed a ludicrous non-compete as a consultant which disallowed him from working with any company the company had approached. Was layed off, go

Beware. A friend signed a ludicrous non-compete as a consultant which disallowed him from working with any company the company had approached. Was layed off, got legal advice: his lawyer told him not to fight it :( He changed industries.

csallen 6y ago
In my limited experience with lawyers, they always advise conservatism. That's not to say they're always wrong. But they don't have much incentive to say, "Go for it!" Even if you're 95% chance likely to have things work out okay, what would the lawyer get in that situation? Nothing. And in the 5% of cases they'd be excoriated for giving their client bad advice.
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > Even if you're 95% chance likely to have things work out okay, what would the lawyer get in that situation? Nothing. And in the 5% of cases they'd be excoriated for giving their client bad advice. Spot on. EDIT: On further thought, there's a wrinkle, which is that NOT being super-conservative can be good marketing for a lawyer. In a 95% confidence situation, consider the lawyer who tells the client, "here are the pitfalls, but IMHO they're an acceptable business risk [one of my favorite formulations], so if you want to do it, then go for it!" That lawyer is likely to have a happy client who, if asked for a recommendation by a third party, might refer the third party to the lawyer. (Of course, this presupposes that the lawyer has enough experience to be able to confidently weigh the business risks — and that a 5% disaster doesn't befall the client.)
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    IANAL, but from my understanding, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If a lawyer tells you something is “probably ok”, but doesn’t cage that “probable” in enough legalese, then they can potentially be held liable in court. This is why you’ll rarely see a good attorney saying things like you suggested. Ultimately though, there is an important thing that GP’s friend missed out on. Lawyers do not tell you what to do, rather instead they advise you of risk on what your options are. It’s your responsibility to decide how much risk you are willing to bear.
    - dctoedt 6y ago
      Thanks. FYI, IAAL; I don't claim to be the world's greatest, but my clients seem to appreciate it when I tell them that I think that Contingencies X, Y, and Z are acceptable business risks for their situation — after explaining the nature of the risk — and I've never had any kind of malpractice claim, knock on wood. Example: Many years ago, on the afternoon of the last day of the quarter (when lots of business gets closed for financial-reporting purposes), a software-company client's VP of sales — with whom I'd worked for years — called me and described a situation, saying "the customer wants to change our contract to say X." I asked a couple of questions and then said "there's always the possibility of Bad Situation B coming up, but it's unlikely, and it'd be manageable if it did — go ahead." The VP said "Thank you — bye!" and slammed down the phone. (That VP went on to CEO positions at two other companies and uses me to this day.)
      - jsjohnst 6y ago
        Thanks! Curious, as a lawyer, how do you feel about what I said in the second paragraph? I like to ask whenever I get a chance, most agree, some don’t, so I’d love your perspective.
        dctoedt 6y ago
        > as a lawyer, how do you feel about what I said in the second paragraph? I agree with it completely. But I've been doing this long enough that I'm not embarrassed about telling clients what I think and what I'd do if I were in their shoes, and my clients aren't the sort to just passively do what I tell them. (It also helps that I've been a solo public-company general counsel — meaning that for a number of years I worked very closely with sales people and became acutely aware of the importance of getting deals done, as opposed to just identifying and flanging up risks.)
- Digory 6y ago
  The core task of a lawyer is risk identification and mitigation. If everything else goes south, the client sues the lawyer — and the best defense is “here’s where I said that might happen.”

csallen 6y ago

In my limited experience with lawyers, they always advise conservatism. That's not to say they're always wrong. But they don't have much incentive to say, "Go for it!" Even if you're 95% chance likely to have things work out okay, what would the lawyer get in that situation? Nothing. And in the 5% of cases they'd be excoriated for giving their client bad advice.

dctoedt 6y ago
> Even if you're 95% chance likely to have things work out okay, what would the lawyer get in that situation? Nothing. And in the 5% of cases they'd be excoriated for giving their client bad advice. Spot on. EDIT: On further thought, there's a wrinkle, which is that NOT being super-conservative can be good marketing for a lawyer. In a 95% confidence situation, consider the lawyer who tells the client, "here are the pitfalls, but IMHO they're an acceptable business risk [one of my favorite formulations], so if you want to do it, then go for it!" That lawyer is likely to have a happy client who, if asked for a recommendation by a third party, might refer the third party to the lawyer. (Of course, this presupposes that the lawyer has enough experience to be able to confidently weigh the business risks — and that a 5% disaster doesn't befall the client.)
- jsjohnst 6y ago
  IANAL, but from my understanding, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If a lawyer tells you something is “probably ok”, but doesn’t cage that “probable” in enough legalese, then they can potentially be held liable in court. This is why you’ll rarely see a good attorney saying things like you suggested. Ultimately though, there is an important thing that GP’s friend missed out on. Lawyers do not tell you what to do, rather instead they advise you of risk on what your options are. It’s your responsibility to decide how much risk you are willing to bear.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    Thanks. FYI, IAAL; I don't claim to be the world's greatest, but my clients seem to appreciate it when I tell them that I think that Contingencies X, Y, and Z are acceptable business risks for their situation — after explaining the nature of the risk — and I've never had any kind of malpractice claim, knock on wood. Example: Many years ago, on the afternoon of the last day of the quarter (when lots of business gets closed for financial-reporting purposes), a software-company client's VP of sales — with whom I'd worked for years — called me and described a situation, saying "the customer wants to change our contract to say X." I asked a couple of questions and then said "there's always the possibility of Bad Situation B coming up, but it's unlikely, and it'd be manageable if it did — go ahead." The VP said "Thank you — bye!" and slammed down the phone. (That VP went on to CEO positions at two other companies and uses me to this day.)
    - jsjohnst 6y ago
      Thanks! Curious, as a lawyer, how do you feel about what I said in the second paragraph? I like to ask whenever I get a chance, most agree, some don’t, so I’d love your perspective.
      - dctoedt 6y ago
        > as a lawyer, how do you feel about what I said in the second paragraph? I agree with it completely. But I've been doing this long enough that I'm not embarrassed about telling clients what I think and what I'd do if I were in their shoes, and my clients aren't the sort to just passively do what I tell them. (It also helps that I've been a solo public-company general counsel — meaning that for a number of years I worked very closely with sales people and became acutely aware of the importance of getting deals done, as opposed to just identifying and flanging up risks.)
Digory 6y ago
The core task of a lawyer is risk identification and mitigation. If everything else goes south, the client sues the lawyer — and the best defense is “here’s where I said that might happen.”