Practice Management

Weak/wimpy local counsel: the next lawyer-centric epidemic?

By Dan Hull

Weak or wimpy local counsel are local counsel hired for litigation (or other contentious matters) who, after the engagement has begun, instinctively and consistently put local relationships ahead of the interests of your shared client.

They are legion, and some of your best friends. They are not bad people. They are often very smart and nice. Others may even call them good lawyers, and invite them to bar functions, family cookouts, church groups and wine-and-cheese parties. Or to more unruly places like Daytona, the Hamptons, or saloons with boozy names like Bullfeathers or the Tune Inn. They are Everywhere, and mostly men. They are in the wrong profession (or practice area). They don't know that yet, may never know, or want to know.

Replace weak/wimpy local counsel quickly at the first sign of hesitancy to put your client first--even if it's supremely awkward, or involves "old ties". Clients do come first. In an ongoing contentious matter especially, you live and breathe it. Neither you--or your local attorneys--should even have to think very hard about that one.

You can serve a client without hurting relationships between lawyers in or out of their own provinces. One of the advantages of local counsel in litigation is a knowledge of, and rapport with, the locals, and their folkways. But those relationships come second to a mutual client. Anything less is at best "unprofessional" and, at worst, a conflict of interest. The following, from our "Sensitive Litigation Moment"/Federal Courts series, are among the most visited WAC? articles: Is "Professionalism" Just A Lawyer-Centric Ruse?, The Client's Professionalism Rules For Litigation, and "Professionalism Revisited: What About the Client?" (also in San Diego Daily Transcript, April 29, 2005).

Full post as published by What About Clients? on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).