Lawyers have a naturally adversarial mindset. It's what they are paid for. The really good ones don't trust anyone; including close family.
In my work, I quickly learned to keep lawyers out of the loop until the last reasonable moment, because they not only injected a lot of cynicism and negativity into the situation; they often would fire off an email that CC'd a C-suite person, instructing me to do things the way they said; thus escalating the thing from the start.
That said, they are absolutely required for these types of things, especially if there are lawyers on the other side of the table.
I think most people think of lawyers as consigliere. Friends. People who will give you good advice.
In reality, they're employed by you to legally protect you to the best of their ability.
This means that (a) they view everything through the lense of "What should we do now, in order to have the best possible chance in court in a year?" (to the exclusion of things which might result in not ending up in court) & (b) they can be ordered to pursue another course of action.
It's your ship, because it's your money. If you take your hand off the wheel, they're going to do their best given their perspective. But if you resolutely decide "Damn the torpedos", then they'll do their best with that too (shy of deciding not to work for you any longer).
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I completely agree.
Lawyers have a naturally adversarial mindset. It's what they are paid for. The really good ones don't trust anyone; including close family.
In my work, I quickly learned to keep lawyers out of the loop until the last reasonable moment, because they not only injected a lot of cynicism and negativity into the situation; they often would fire off an email that CC'd a C-suite person, instructing me to do things the way they said; thus escalating the thing from the start.
That said, they are absolutely required for these types of things, especially if there are lawyers on the other side of the table.
I think most people think of lawyers as consigliere. Friends. People who will give you good advice.
In reality, they're employed by you to legally protect you to the best of their ability.
This means that (a) they view everything through the lense of "What should we do now, in order to have the best possible chance in court in a year?" (to the exclusion of things which might result in not ending up in court) & (b) they can be ordered to pursue another course of action.
It's your ship, because it's your money. If you take your hand off the wheel, they're going to do their best given their perspective. But if you resolutely decide "Damn the torpedos", then they'll do their best with that too (shy of deciding not to work for you any longer).