Reliance on legal advice: Difference between revisions
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{{a|negotiation| | {{a|negotiation| | ||
[[File: | [[File:mithril.jpg|450px|thumb|center|A thousand pounds an hour, did you say?]] | ||
}}You may see this sort of clause, especially in a [[custody]] or [[agency]] agreement: | }}You may see this sort of clause, especially in a [[custody]] or [[agency]] agreement: | ||
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Have no truck with this nonsense. | Have no truck with this nonsense. | ||
===Bad advice is not the client’s problem=== | |||
No one is stopping the agent getting whatever [[Legal advice|advice]] it wants, ''on its own dime and at its own risk''. It’s a free country. And no one is stopping the agent ''relying'' on whatever advice it gets. That’s an [[agent]]’s prerogative. That it ''did'' get advice may even be (weak) evidence that it diligently discharged its duty and wasn’t, factually, at fault. | |||
But if the advice is ''wrong'' that’s the agent’s problem, not ''yours''. The answer is ''not'' for the agent [[Disclaimer|disclaim]] its liability to you: ''it is for the agent to sue its lawyer''. That’s what it paid the blighters for: so they, and that juicy [[professional indemnity insurance]] policy they never seem to claim on, can cover the agent’s sorry arse if their advice turns out to be wrong and their client — you, kind sir — goes on the warpath. | |||
===If fails the [[commercial imperative]]=== | |||
In any case, agents: think about it from your counterparty’s perspective. If you’ve buggered up, she’s lost money, you will not make her good, and you are letting your own ([[Q.E.D.]] [[negligent]]) [[Law firm|lawyer]]s off the hook. Whatever the documents say you will still have a pissed-off counterparty: make no mistake about that. She will think you are a moron. She may be right. She may withdraw her business. This undermines the [[commercial imperative]]. The [[commercial imperative]] is the main thing keeping you ''in'' business. | |||
'' | Nor, this way, are you getting good value out of that [[professional indemnity insurance]] you just bought,<ref>You know, by engaging legal counsel.</ref> are you? You are letting the ''actually delinquent party'' – your lawyer – off [[scot-free]] (your counterparty can’t sue your lawyer for (legally [[privilege|privileged]]) advice) and leaving your valued client – who is also, don’t forget, the only ''innocent'' party here – high and dry and without any legal recourse against ''anyone'', while your lawyer laughs it up all the way to the bank. ''A grand an hour charge-out rates, right?'' | ||
To say nothing of the perverse incentives this creates: in any time of [[doubt]] you run to matron for (most likely crappy) legal advice since every [[email]], file note or memo, however misconceived or dunderheaded, functions like a cloak of [[mithril]], protecting you from all pecuniary harm, parking all questions as to your culpability in arranging the advice, such as “was the legal ''advice'' [[negligent]], or were ''you'' [[negligent]], in the way you chose to frame it, implement it, or even understand it? | |||
===[[Cui bono]]?=== | ===[[Cui bono]]?=== |