Basic Organization and Legal Advice

By Michael J. "Mike" Emling

The fundamentals of lawyering are (1) to teach your clients how to use lawyers, (2) to deliver better legal advice to avoid problems, and (3) to recognize and resolve problems early.

Better legal advice to start with means fewer problems down the road. To deliver quality legal advice, you first need to teach your client how to use a lawyer wisely. Your client needs to understand when to ask questions, and how to convey to the lawyer his or her goals.

Sometimes, lawsuits happen anyway. At that point, the goal is to bring the lawsuit to closure in the most economic way. That might mean early settlement, or taking the case to trial, or engaging in some amount of litigation to put the heat on and get the case to a settlement posture. The art is to be able to tell which kind of case is which.

There are many reasons to believe that the fundamentals are not being adhered to in the City Attorney's Office. Some of these reasons and solutions are discussed in following papers.