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Teamwork Comes In Many Forms

The best team planning comes from understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each person.

By Charles Hecht  
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Reading Peter Garnett’s article on vacations as an important part of an attorney’s life and their relationship to the practice of law and servicing of clients made me think about what we decide to do outside of the practice of law and how it can help us become better service providers to our clients. Teamwork is an important part of family life, but I want to focus on what we do outside of our family relationships and how it can help us improve in the practice of law.

I was an avid scuba diver for over 45 years, with over 1,000 dives throughout the world. Fundamental to safe scuba diving is the buddy system. It is universally required that you have a dive buddy each time for safety reasons. If something goes wrong, your dive buddy can save your life. But just like teamwork within a law firm and a law firm with its client, teamwork as a good buddy is the result of proper planning and realizing you have a life-and-death obligation to your dive buddy.

Before a dive begins, you and your buddy check each other’s equipment to make sure that it is operational and in proper working order, to avoid entanglements and other problems during the dive. You also plan out your dive in advance as a team. You study the local map and determine the direction of the current to come up with a dive plan. Once you descend, you look for sea fans, which I call nature’s sea computer, to verify the current’s direction and strength. For safety reasons, you always start your dive against the current and then as you get more tired and have to return, you use the current to come back to where you meet the pontoon boat used to transport you to the dive site.

You have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each person. For example, Leslie, my significant other, who has been my dive buddy on over 500 dives, has trouble initially descending. As her dive buddy, I initially descend to only 15 to 20 feet to make sure that she can begin her descent. Once she is 15 feet deep, she has no problem. I am the stronger swimmer, but she is much better at conserving her oxygen, so she can last a lot longer underwater.

Teamwork requires that if there is a heavy current, I take the lead in going against the current at the beginning of the dive to make it less taxing for her. When we are underwater for over 45 minutes, especially if it is a deep dive, she continually signals me to check my air gauge to see how much air I have left in my tank so we can do a safe ascent together. During the dive, if either of us sees something that the other would enjoy, we make sure to let the other person know what has been spotted and give them the option of enjoying the moment.

Since I have a good eye, I normally take the lead and look for interesting things whether on the reef or in the open ocean. I continually look in all directions because things change so quickly on a coral reef.

If I am running out of air or she is uncomfortable during the dive, we come up together and return to the boat together. We are a team, and we never abandon the other person underwater. Also, because getting back onto a rubber pontoon boat requires a lot of strength, Leslie goes first so I can give her help in getting over the side of the boat, especially in rough water where the crew is unable to get her tanks off first.

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I also bike raced for many years. It is the ultimate team sport. Just as in scuba diving, you need to plan out your strategy before the race begins. In a one-day race, there is normally a sprint at the end of the race. The team knows who the best sprinter is, and the plan is designed for various stages of a race. How do you preserve the strength of your best sprinter so that he or she has the necessary burst of energy to cross the finish line first? During the race there are often breakaways and the team has to make decisions as to whether to chase down the breakaway or stay with the pelaton. The situation can change quickly because that decision is based on how far ahead the breakaway is and how far away the finish is. Also, you have to know how each member of your team is doing at that time because your stamina and the ability to keep up that level of energy varies from day to day and for each rider in different types of terrain. If you want to chase down the breakaway, how many riders do you use to breach the gap and then try to slow down the breakaway group?

The goal is to get as many members of the team in the proper place while every other team is organizing for the sprint. Your planning is supposed to determine which rider or group of riders will initially lead the sprint group, with your sprinter to be in the best position within the final 300 to 500 meters. Each team member has a designated role in the final sprint with one person leading out the best sprinter so that he or she can pick the right moment and be in the right position to draft past you to the finish line.

As lawyers servicing our clients, teamwork has many facets. Critical to the success of any assignment is complete cooperation between the client and his or her attorneys, and this begins at the initial meeting.

The continuation of open and complete communication between client and counsel is an ongoing process, especially in commercial cases where documents produced in discovery can call into question the attorney’s original understanding of the case. It is especially important that the attorney be aware of potential weaknesses in the client’s position in investigations and litigations so that everyone can be properly prepared on how to handle facts that are unfavorable on their face. Teamwork within the law firm is also important as tasks are assigned to various persons and everyone must do their assignment properly and on time.

The lessons we learn outside of the law office have a direct impact on our ability to coordinate with our clients and colleagues at the law firm with the goal of improving the quality of our service to our clients and for the client to obtain the best result.

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Charles Hecht was a partner at Balestriere Fariello, a trial and investigations law firm which represents clients in all aspects of complex commercial litigation and arbitration from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach firm partner John Balestriere at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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