[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey, everyone. It’s Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. How are you? Classroom 2 Courtroom is dedicated to law students and those who have recently graduated, those who are studying for the bar, those who have passed the bar, those who didn’t pass the bar, and are planning to take it over again, and those Who just got ticketed as an actual attorney.
[00:00:26] Scott Benton: Congratulations. Your parents are proud of you. And actually I’m proud of you too, even though we don’t know each other. Maybe we do, or we will in the future.
[00:00:34] Scott Benton: On this episode we’re going to answer the question of do clients want your opinion?
[00:00:44] Scott Benton: I’m going to save you some time. The answer is no, they don’t want your opinion. Now go ahead and turn off this podcast. You don’t have to, but you can if you want because that’s the answer. They don’t want your opinion. No one wants your opinion. I don’t want your opinion. Nobody wants my opinion.
[00:00:59] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Absolutely no one in the history of the world has ever wanted anyone else’s opinion. Nobody wants your opinion throughout the universe in perpetuity in any format or version by any means and in any media. Now that’s a typical clause in IP contracts, but I thought that it really helped to underscore the idea that really nobody wants your opinion.
[00:01:22] Scott Benton: So if nobody wants your opinion, How come a client is hiring you? What does a client want from you if they don’t want your opinion? What a client wants from you is to help them achieve their legal objectives. Now they are coming to you because of your expertise. You’ve had an enormous amount of education.
[00:01:42] Scott Benton: An enormous amount. You went through primary school. You went through high school, college. Maybe you got a master’s degree and now you have a JD. You have three years. in law school, which everyone knows is extremely demanding to get through. Not everyone makes it, but you did. You made [00:02:00] it through, and by virtue of making it through, you’re either about to become an attorney or you already have just become an attorney.
[00:02:07] Scott Benton: And maybe you’ve even worked for a few years as an attorney. You have a very specific specialty in the field that you are working in and you have an enormous amount of knowledge behind you and clients are hiring you for exactly that, for those years and years that you spent studying and not giving up and completing your goals, they are hiring you to help them navigate you The legal world and achieve their legal goals.
[00:02:34] Scott Benton: So that’s what they’re doing. Your job as an attorney is to not offer your opinion to them. No, your job is to help them reach their legal goals. And the way that you do that is they are paying you for your expertise. They’re paying you for your background, your education, your intelligence, and you are going to understand what their legal goals are.
[00:02:54] Scott Benton: And then you’re going to probably do some research, figure out what the different strategies are they can [00:03:00] take. You’re going to put all that in the writing, you’re going to give that to them. And you’re also going to have all of the pros and cons. So in other words, there’s really no place for your opinion in that work that you’re doing together with them, you are advising them, you are giving your client their options in order to achieve the goals that they’ve set for themselves, but you haven’t imposed your opinions on them in any way at all
[00:03:32] Scott Benton: You are letting them make their decisions and letting them decide if they want to move the case forward or not. Once you give them your recommendations in terms of case strategies, they could look at those case strategies and evaluate your. Assets and liabilities, your sort of pluses and minuses, and they can look at those and realize that there really isn’t a good strategy and drop the pursuit altogether.
[00:03:58] Scott Benton: In which case then you [00:04:00] would draft a disengagement letter, send that to them and you would officially end your work together. But more than likely what’s going to happen is they are going to look at your strategies that you’ve come up with, that you’ve written and given to them. They’re looking at the pros and cons.
[00:04:15] Scott Benton: of each one of those strategies. They’re probably gonna ask a few follow up questions to you, probably just for clarity. Maybe they’ve come up with some other angles that they just want to, check with you or cross off their lists or whatever they’re doing, and then they’re probably gonna sit with it for a while and think about it.
[00:04:34] Scott Benton: They’re going to decide if the financial commitment is worth the pursuit and what will Often happen is they’re going to come back to you and say great. This is the strategy that I want to move this case forward with. So they are continuing, in other words, to hire you as their attorney to pursue that particular objective through this particular strategy.
[00:04:58] Scott Benton: You are now again [00:05:00] in that work that whole time and that whole, Sort of interaction that you have with them. You are not imposing your opinions on them because they don’t want to hear them. They just want to know how do I get from point A to point B. So that is where that transaction takes place.
[00:05:17] Scott Benton: That is where you’re going to really be a strength for them as you guide them. through the legal world with your background, with your expertise and with your speciality that you are working in the law firm that you’re at. But trust me, no one, whether it’s the client or anybody that you’re working with or anybody that you’re going to be working with, they don’t want your opinion and frankly you don’t want theirs either.
[00:05:44] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s been helpful. My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. And if you’d like to get an alert, if you’re enjoying this material, you can always go to our website. Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two courtroom. com. [00:06:00] You can leave us your contact information.
[00:06:01] Scott Benton: We will send you an alert whenever we put out a new episode. And if you do like this material, feel free to share and subscribe. That always helps us. And that helps you get the word out of material that you’re finding to be very valuable in terms of launching your career. As an attorney for the first time or the second time or the third time but right up front those first few years as you’re learning how to practice as an attorney in the real world as opposed to the academic world of law school, we’re hoping that this podcast is going to get you there faster and more efficiently than any other way.
[00:06:33] Scott Benton: A subject, by the way, that law schools do not teach you. They do not teach you. They how to practice law. That is not what they’re in business for. They’re in business of getting you to graduate law school. And they do that very well as evidenced by the fact that you graduated law school or you’re about to, I know you will.
[00:06:48] Scott Benton: So that’s it. I hope you’ll join us for the next episode of the classroom to courtroom podcast. And in the meantime, I also hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place. One client at a time. Thank you so [00:07:00] much.
