In-House Counsel

Lawyers are often tagged as reluctant to run risks

By Rees Morrison

The received wisdom is that lawyers are by personality, training, or position quite cautious. In two words, they are risk averse (See my post of April 12, 2006: risk aversion and personality styles; Nov. 22, 2007: research findings about lawyer styles; Oct. 18, 2005: generally on lawyer on risk aversion; Dec. 9, 2005 #1: SWOT review of large legal department discloses risk aversion; and Dec. 2, 2007: contradictory messages to in-house counsel about mistakes.).

Pronounced risk aversion has significant drawbacks, such as on client satisfaction, decision-making, creativity, and trust (See my post of March 30, 2008: flip side of innovation is risk aversion; March 31, 2007: client satisfaction surveys often disclose criticisms of risk aversion; April 12, 2006: hard to develop leaders from the risk averse; Dec. 17, 2006: decision-making and Type I and Type II errors; Oct. 18, 2005: scheissenbedaurn; and Jan. 16, 2006 on risk aversion and the principle-agent problem.).

Full post as published by Law Department Management on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).