Business Ideas and Lawyers

I am a crook.

Each time I speak to a lawyer he tells me this. Not in words. It is a narrowing of the eyes, a slight shift away from me as he fights to find a reason why I might be wrong, a slight feeling that a mere mortal, unschooled in Latin even, might be meddling on his turf.

My entire life has been about finding answers. That is the role of a person who wants to get rich in business. That means that the tougher the state of affairs, the harder I must look for more answers.

My squint-eyed lawyer, by contrast, simply has to say “Ah yes, but what about the income tax?” or “Ah yes, but what about capital gains tax?” or “Ah yes, but have you thought the estate duty issue?”

When your lawyer says “Ah yes,” what he really means is “No, I don’t like that new idea.”

There is a reason for this. Your lawyer, like mine, and like lawyers all over the world, has been taught one core lesson: Never offer answers. Wait for the questions. Answer those. Do not answer more than you are asked.

This lesson is crucial to survive a day in court where each answer offered is liable to cause a slew of new questions and it is not long before your lawyer finds himself in a tangled web. All of this can be simply solved by not giving answers other than to a direct question.

So, if you go to your lawyer to detail an idea, and end with a “So what do you think…” you are not asking a direct question. This means that his answer will start with “Ah yes, …” That is always a bad answer!

We assume that all lawyers are equal. They are not. How do you know whether your one passed summa cum laude at the top of the class on his first try? Or whether he only scraped 50.1% after taking six years to finish that last term?

I think we can agree that these two persons might not be in the same league, legally speaking. One is the star scrum half, while the other punches the tickets at the entrance to the field.

When you’re testing ideas, they are so frail that the smallest hint of a “No” is enough to kill them. If we do not review where that “No” comes from, then our dreams will keep on being stillborn. Only go to your lawyer if you have thought through the questions to want to ask, and you have clarified the idea in your own mind.

I may have assumed that all lawyers are the same. I am sorry if it seems that way. The fellow at the turnstile will be the first to point out how wrong I am