On the flip side of the coin, lawyers can also mediate between the big egos on the business side that can cause a deal to fall apart over relatively small issues (this happens very often--executives are a lot more personally invested in the process than their lawyers are).
Ultimately, the fact is that you don't need a lawyer to negotiate a contract. Yet people use them almost universally in contract negotiations. Is it for irrational reasons? I like to think not, but who knows.
There are very rational reasons to use lawyers. If the other side is using lawyers, you can be sure that they have tried to slip in terrible terms that you really don't want. They won't look that bad, but they will be bad. Relying on yourself to find them is just stupid.
And once you're using a lawyer, that lawyer will naturally be inclined to try to turn the negotiation into a gravy train.
Try this. The next time you are part of a negotiation and want to redraft the agreement, ask yourself who you are doing it for. Are you serving your client's best interests? Or your interests?
Here is another exercise. The next time you see the need to mediate between "big egos on the business side", think carefully about how those egos got unhappy in the first place. I'll give you even odds that the issue they got upset over is one that was introduced by a lawyer. Could the conflict have been avoided entirely if it was negotiated differently? My guess is that, more often than most lawyers would want to admit, the answer is yes.
> And once you're using a lawyer, that lawyer will naturally be inclined to try to turn the negotiation into a gravy train.
So negotiate a fixed fee, with a bonus for the deal closing. Or find a lawyer that you trust to not run up the clock. There are a lot of things you can do as the client to guard against that sort of behavior.
> Here is another exercise. The next time you see the need to mediate between "big egos on the business side", think carefully about how those egos got unhappy in the first place. I'll give you even odds that the issue they got upset over is one that was introduced by a lawyer.
People get mad at their dentists for telling them to floss, but that doesn't mean anything by itself. The business people on a deal are optimistic--they think the deal will go well and is a good idea, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. Lawyers are pessimists. They want to hedge against all the ways the deal can go wrong. They don't have a personal investment in the deal that can cloud their judgment of all of the ways it could blow up.
Comments
On the flip side of the coin, lawyers can also mediate between the big egos on the business side that can cause a deal to fall apart over relatively small issues (this happens very often--executives are a lot more personally invested in the process than their lawyers are).
Ultimately, the fact is that you don't need a lawyer to negotiate a contract. Yet people use them almost universally in contract negotiations. Is it for irrational reasons? I like to think not, but who knows.
There are very rational reasons to use lawyers. If the other side is using lawyers, you can be sure that they have tried to slip in terrible terms that you really don't want. They won't look that bad, but they will be bad. Relying on yourself to find them is just stupid.
And once you're using a lawyer, that lawyer will naturally be inclined to try to turn the negotiation into a gravy train.
Try this. The next time you are part of a negotiation and want to redraft the agreement, ask yourself who you are doing it for. Are you serving your client's best interests? Or your interests?
Here is another exercise. The next time you see the need to mediate between "big egos on the business side", think carefully about how those egos got unhappy in the first place. I'll give you even odds that the issue they got upset over is one that was introduced by a lawyer. Could the conflict have been avoided entirely if it was negotiated differently? My guess is that, more often than most lawyers would want to admit, the answer is yes.
> And once you're using a lawyer, that lawyer will naturally be inclined to try to turn the negotiation into a gravy train.
So negotiate a fixed fee, with a bonus for the deal closing. Or find a lawyer that you trust to not run up the clock. There are a lot of things you can do as the client to guard against that sort of behavior.
> Here is another exercise. The next time you see the need to mediate between "big egos on the business side", think carefully about how those egos got unhappy in the first place. I'll give you even odds that the issue they got upset over is one that was introduced by a lawyer.
People get mad at their dentists for telling them to floss, but that doesn't mean anything by itself. The business people on a deal are optimistic--they think the deal will go well and is a good idea, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. Lawyers are pessimists. They want to hedge against all the ways the deal can go wrong. They don't have a personal investment in the deal that can cloud their judgment of all of the ways it could blow up.