Lots of people in my family, or my wife's family, will call or e-mail or text her, for legal advice. My wife is not an expert in any of these areas, but she has a JD, she is on the DC Bar, the NY Bar, and the Texas Bar, among others. She has practiced law in many countries, been the General Counsel of a large multi-billion dollar international company, and came very close to being certified as a UK Solicitor. She's also smart enough to know when she's out of her depth. She can also use Lexis-Nexis.
She also says that one of the biggest mistakes that most lawyers make is hubris. Plenty of lawyers will take on cases or clients for which they know absolutely nothing, but they will be supremely confident that they can handle anything.
Frankly, the biggest thing my wife does on these matters is to act as a sounding board, use basic logic, general knowledge of how the legal systems tend to work in various jurisdictions, and having a large pool of other lawyers to whom she can refer people if things get serious. And if no one in her pool of lawyer friends and co-workers at her firm can help, then she knows the tools to use to go find other lawyers outside of her circle. As a former General Counsel herself, she is well versed in the tools of how to find good outside counsel.
The key is to know what you're good at, when you're out of your depth, and know how to find help from other experts who can fill in those gaps in your expertise. And to have a big network of friends.
Thanks for this! What tools does she use, other than her network and Lexis-Nexis? I'd love to be able to access those. In terms of hubris/specialty, that's a great point. Law can be really specialized but unless you're in a big firm, it can be hard to find good specialist legal partners, so learning how to tackle new topics (while acknowledging your limits) is a critical skill.
Another main tool that I know she uses is called Practical Law. It's another website, but I don't know if it's from Westlaw or Thomson Reuters. I know that she led the effort to get her entire firm on the system, and she was able to get them a substantial discount as well. But that contract does have to be renewed every year.
The price per person goes down as you get more people signed up.
But at the individual level, I don't think even my wife would be willing to pay that price. You need to get larger groups of people together before it starts becoming compelling enough.
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My wife is a lawyer.
Lots of people in my family, or my wife's family, will call or e-mail or text her, for legal advice. My wife is not an expert in any of these areas, but she has a JD, she is on the DC Bar, the NY Bar, and the Texas Bar, among others. She has practiced law in many countries, been the General Counsel of a large multi-billion dollar international company, and came very close to being certified as a UK Solicitor. She's also smart enough to know when she's out of her depth. She can also use Lexis-Nexis.
She also says that one of the biggest mistakes that most lawyers make is hubris. Plenty of lawyers will take on cases or clients for which they know absolutely nothing, but they will be supremely confident that they can handle anything.
Frankly, the biggest thing my wife does on these matters is to act as a sounding board, use basic logic, general knowledge of how the legal systems tend to work in various jurisdictions, and having a large pool of other lawyers to whom she can refer people if things get serious. And if no one in her pool of lawyer friends and co-workers at her firm can help, then she knows the tools to use to go find other lawyers outside of her circle. As a former General Counsel herself, she is well versed in the tools of how to find good outside counsel.
The key is to know what you're good at, when you're out of your depth, and know how to find help from other experts who can fill in those gaps in your expertise. And to have a big network of friends.
Thanks for this! What tools does she use, other than her network and Lexis-Nexis? I'd love to be able to access those. In terms of hubris/specialty, that's a great point. Law can be really specialized but unless you're in a big firm, it can be hard to find good specialist legal partners, so learning how to tackle new topics (while acknowledging your limits) is a critical skill.
Another main tool that I know she uses is called Practical Law. It's another website, but I don't know if it's from Westlaw or Thomson Reuters. I know that she led the effort to get her entire firm on the system, and she was able to get them a substantial discount as well. But that contract does have to be renewed every year.
thanks!! Yeah I'm aware of them, they're so expensive tho! Probably worth the price.
The price per person goes down as you get more people signed up.
But at the individual level, I don't think even my wife would be willing to pay that price. You need to get larger groups of people together before it starts becoming compelling enough.