How the whole thing began

Decisions made by real-life people

Almost since the day I began to practice as a Dispute-Resolution lawyer about 10 years ago I had a vague feeling that I was missing something important. I persistently suspected that blackletter law was not everything about Dispute Resolution.

I pretty much understood how it worked for compliance lawyers: you have to tell your client what to do, what to avoid and what to AVOID AT ALL COST. Surely, you also have to get yourself a pint or two after they choose the AVOID AT ALL COST option.

As for my beloved disputes, I had a general gut feeling that human factor weighted too much to be ignored. What's worse, I had more specific gut feelings about certain situations and didn't have forbearance to keep it to myself.

Naturally I started asking my seniors questions like: «How do you know the judge is going to read it till the end?» or «Do we really have to put forward all fifteen arguments if ten of them are clearly weak?» or «Are you sure we will not make idiots of ourselves by replying to obviously ridiculous arguments of the other party?»

Most of the seniors (not all of them, I really, really thank those who didn't) wisely replied: «This is how it is done here» or «Who the hell are you do doubt my expertise?» or «I expect the draft done MY WAY by tomorrow, get lost now!».

I went on asking questions and finally found out that I was in a really, really good company. Many lawyers including positively big names have asked pretty much the same questions. More excitingly, they found some answers. And for the answers they had to resort to Psychology. So did I.

In this blog I will discuss some of the questions and answers to them. In fact it is a draft for a book on legal writing I hope to finish one day. Bear with me and enjoy your free early access!