One inexperienced, grandstanding or lackadaisical lawyer can foul things up. Two can make life unbearable. A few months ago — through a long, hot August — two lawyers jousted over the sale of a Sutton Place two-bedroom listed for $1.375 million, even though the buyer and seller had already agreed on a price. “Literally from the moment these two attorneys made contact,” said Joan Sacks, an associate broker at Stribling & Associates, “there were sparks.”
The lawyers’ conflagration baffled and shocked Ms. Sacks, who was representing the seller.
“There were fiery e-mails shooting between attorneys that stopped short of saying, ‘You’re a moron.’ I was trying to step in as peacemaker and say: ‘Let’s keep the deal together, boys. Let’s stay on track, let’s stay focused.’ It got to the point where it wasn’t about the deal anymore. It was about who was going to win — who was going to make the other appear to be so dumb that they would come out with some banner on their back saying they were the smartest attorney in town.”
Before the contract could be signed, brokers for both sides swooped in and deposited their clients alone together in the Sutton Place apartment.
“When they finally spoke, the intensity was defused,” Ms. Sacks said. “I think the buyer and seller were very reasonable. It’s just that sticking points that shouldn’t have existed at all were intensified as issues by the attorneys.”
Third week in a row the Sunday Real Estate section in the Times highlighted lawyer-caused problems; if only the News and Business section reporters were to take lessons. (Teri Karush Rogers, “How Not to Scare Off Buyers”, NY Times, Dec. 17).
3 Comments
You don’t have to be involved in too many deals to realize that the lawyers always muck things up. They’re on the clock to produce ‘work’. It does not matter if their work product furthers the interest of their client or not. They merely need to appear to address the client’s interests by creating ‘problems’ that then only they can solve by working more hours with the opposing attorney. If they make the whole situation appear hostile then like pro-wrestling we get sucked into the drama begin to cheer for our side and feel grateful that we have our Armani suited Hulk Hogan.
I can sum the problem up in two words … Billable hours.
My lawyer handled my divorce because he knew that I would be reasonable. His firm dropped its divorce practice because they could not make money – it was too adversarial.
Lawyers work best when they work toward reasonable solutions – plea bargains for example.
Unfortunately our law schools pound on doing all you can for your case. This focus on tenacity for its own sake has lead to terrible excesses.
Suppose somebody is about to shoot sombody in an act of rage. Tradition says that the attorney should try to calm the situation. Our law schools say the lawyer should ready papers for a wrongful death suit.