While we focus on creativity, and underestimate at our peril the importance of effort in serving our clients well, don’t forget to be systematic.
There is something genuinely special about what we do. Our clients — of all kinds, shapes, sizes, backgrounds, education level, and so forth — come to us with some kind of problem, what at least to them certainly feels like a big problem. And we need to solve it. And those of us like my colleagues and I who handle complex litigation, generally have a whole plethora of weapons we must bring to battle and implement: investigation, tactical thinking, legal research, legal analysis, persuasive writing, persuasive oral advocacy, connecting with witnesses and clients (and hopefully judges and arbitrators and juries), and a whole lot more, and generally (hopefully) with a team of colleagues.
But the fact that is special does not mean it cannot be systematized. You can start investigations pursuant to a particular protocol. You can work on a document, including who does what drafting and editing when, and when the document gets provided to a client, and then filed, and then served, with an efficient procedure that you develop ahead of time. Or you can engage in that tactical analysis with your teammates by circulating a joint memo, or having a call, or all taking a walk together, or whatever. In any event it would be a good idea to a have a system that is not ad hoc for you and your colleagues to do that analysis.
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My point is that while I do think the adage that no two litigations or trials are the same (though the comment is lots of cases are very similar), we would serve our clients better, be more efficient, win more for them, and likely enjoy ourselves more if we had systems to do what may seem like unsystematic work. The reference to weapons is a good one since the military fights all kinds of battles in all kinds of ways, but they have systems, and they live or die by logistics. We can learn from them.
While we shouldn’t let it go to our head about how clever and creative we are — and any tough litigation almost always is anyway going to require a lot of effort — let’s be thoughtful, ahead of time, about the systems and protocols we employ to get the job done. We will win more for our clients, more cheaply, and have more fun.
John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at [email protected].