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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

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.)