Role of Attorneys
Lawyers are great. Many are brilliant and they serve a real purpose, but they need to be brought in at the right time, for the right scope of services, and under the right terms. Just as you would not hire a plumber before you had any plumbing matters to fix, nor should you bring in attorneys before other necessary steps are taken.
In our opinion, before you engage an attorney, you need to first assess the situation critically and carefully. What is it that you really need.
Under our system, the first steps must always be methodical fact gathering and issue assessment to establish what is really going on. Next, you need to determine what type or types of attorneys you really need.
For example, what may seem like a wrongful termination suit, may actually involve many things – it could involve securities matters, if you were a shareholder; it could involve corporate issues; if you were a board member; it could involve civil rights issues, if your civil rights were violated, etc. Most clients do not understand the complexity of their matters and have little to no experience in engaging, managing, directing, or working with attorneys; and that can make both the clients and the attorneys uncomfortable which can lead to confusion, misunderstandings, additional costs, and bad outcomes. But most importantly, it can lead to a lack of a harmony which is critically important in a time of Crisis. "A house divided, will not stand."
Instead of a client properly assessing what type of attorney they really need, many times they end up engaging an attorney they “know”, or “just met”, who at best, may fall into one of these categories, and at worst, may be unqualified, or may simply practice in an area completely unrelated to their issues.
So what does that mean for you, the client? It means your team could either be incomplete, vastly inexperienced, and unprepared for the matter at hand and that could hurt you and cost you in many ways. There is an old saying, “for good plans, you pay now. For bad plans, you pay later.” We could not agree more.
That is why at JMD Consulting Group, we believe that it is imperative that you properly assess your situation, understand all of your options (not just some), and devise the correct plan and strategy to go forward. Then, and only then, should certain attorneys or professionals be engaged.
Case in point.
Would you ever engage a cardiovascular surgeon to perform surgery on you if you did not even have a heart issue? Of course not, you would not need one. Without any blood work, MRIs, CAT scans or the like, would anyone ever say, “I had a pain in my chest yesterday, so I just hired a surgeon and scheduled myself for surgery.” No one would ever do this in the medical field, yet they erroneously do this all the time in the legal field.
With attorneys, people typically engage one of the first attorneys they meet without even assessing what their needs really are, and if this person or firm is even the right fit for them.
So, why do they do this? Two main reasons. They just do not know any better, and they did not engage JMD Consulting Group to assist them with this area. In the case of "Issue Management", and especially in "Crisis Management", many of the “real issues” are often hidden and hard to spot, and because of this, clients often make costly mistakes.
JMD Consulting Group can help you figure what additional teammates you need. We would then start the process to engage them by narrowing down the issues, to keep the story short and relevant for the interview; establishing the appropriate criteria for such engagement; search the necessary firms under the strict criteria that we have established; conduct the initial interviews; narrow down the candidates; discuss fees; negotiate fees; and then make our recommendations to you. Our recommendations are most always made based upon objective criteria and not based solely on past relationships.
When JMD Consulting Group is done with this process, your team just got better, and your odds of a better outcome, just increased.
JMD Consulting Group loves all professionals. We just believe they need to be brought in at the right time, for the right services, and under the right terms. That creates Harmony which helps get successful results.
Give us a call. We would love to help you with your issues.