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Litigation lawyer: Difference between revisions
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So, “litigation advisory” 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 a padded cubicle having first signed a [[disclaimer]]. Signing off hypothetical risk scenarios in the abstract is just not how [[litigator]]s roll. They are are short the same [[option]] as is any other [[risk controller]], only they know in detail what goes down when that option is exercised: they know better than anyone that 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 (such as a [[Sullivan and Cromwell]] partner)<ref>Who, thanks to a crafty assumption on page 73 of its [[legal opinion]] ''won’t have underwritten it at all.</ref> and [[socialise|socialised]] to the [[General Counsel]]. | So, “litigation advisory” 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 a padded cubicle having first signed a [[disclaimer]]. Signing off hypothetical risk scenarios in the abstract is just not how [[litigator]]s roll. They are are short the same [[option]] as is any other [[risk controller]], only they know in detail what goes down when that option is exercised: they know better than anyone that 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 (such as a [[Sullivan and Cromwell]] partner)<ref>Who, thanks to a crafty assumption on page 73 of its [[legal opinion]] ''won’t have underwritten it at all.</ref> and [[socialise|socialised]] to the [[General Counsel]]. | ||
===Litigators as contract consultants=== | ===Litigators as contract consultants=== | ||
Nor are | Nor are litigators any better a source of advice about contract ''drafting'' than are trauma surgeons about motor-vehicle engineering. For what better insight can a [[litigator]] give than, “for Christ’s sake, don’t wind up in court?” What commercial draftsperson didn’t know that? | ||
For if you ''do'' wind up in court, hasn’t your [[contract]] ''already'' failed you utterly? | For if you ''do'' wind up in court, hasn’t your [[contract]] ''already'' failed you utterly? To be sure, it might be a nice surprise to find the deckchair to which you are clinging floats, even as the ship whose name is stencilled on it descends to a watery tomb a mile below you, but how much ''nicer'' would it be, were it still sitting on the sun-deck of that very vessel, with you on it, steaming sedately towards the New World? | ||
[[Contract]] design should ''avoid'' icebergs. A litigator can only help sort out whose fault it is that one has been hit. | |||
[[Contract]] design should ''avoid'' icebergs. A litigator can only help sort out whose fault it | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||