Litigation lawyer

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One of the sainted risk controllers of a financial services firm. An inhabitant of the litigation department. Litigators deal with ongoing customer complaints and, where clients have not come up to expectation, prosecute claims on the firm’s behalf. The litigation team would also claim have an advisory function, and encourage their colleagues to consult them ahead of time to avoid future angst.

This is a theoretical but not actual function, because no-one in their right mind would ask a litigation lawyer to bless any course of action more contentious than sitting cross-legged in an air-conditioned padded cubicle having first signed a lengthy disclaimer. Signing off hypothetical risk scenarios is just not how litigation lawyers roll.

In part this is because they are are short the same option as is any risk controller: There is no upside from signing off any risk that has not been fully diffused in a circle of escalation, underwritten in blood by someone else (ideally a Sullivan and Cromwell partner) and socialised to the General Counsel. But it is not just that: there's a personality element too. Litigation lawyers are preternaturally risk averse — fearful — by personal disposition. Loose cannon types rarely sign up to be litigation lawyers, and don’t last long if they do.

Nor are litigation lawyers any better a source of advice about contract drafting than trauma ward surgeons are about motor vehicle safety engineering, though this is not how they see it. But what better insight can a barrister give than, “for Christ’s sake, don’t wind up in court?” If you do wind up in court, hasn’t your contractual architecture already failed you utterly? To be sure, it might be a nice surprise to find the deckchair you are clutching floats, but how much nicer would it be were it still sitting on a level deck whose vessel is still steaming towards the New World?

Contract design should avoid icebergs. A litigator can only help resolve whose fault it is should one be hit.

Thus, an in-house litigation team is basically the complaints division of the firm. Be wary when these people wield inordinate influence. In recent times, like its equivalent in the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, litigation teams have gone from half a junior lawyer, on flexi-time, between spells of maternity leave, to fully weaponised Death Stars of fusty, naturally censorious solicitors with no appetite to make any call or take any risk, however remote.

And that’s assuming litigation lawyers really are glorified customer complaint reps. The alternative is worse.

Litigation lawyer

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