Attorneys should know better than to lash out at lawyers taking every available advantage when serving clients.
The post Lawyers Should Not Be Mad At Other Lawyers For Defending Their Clients appeared first on Above the Law.
Most people understand that criminal defense lawyers should not be judged when they make every argument available to them in order to defend their clients. Even if lawyers make arguments on behalf of criminal defendants that involve procedural mistakes and small errors, most people understand that this is important so that clients get the best defense possible. However, in the civil context, sometimes parties and even lawyers do not cut other lawyers slack when they use procedural errors and similar arguments to defend clients. Nevertheless, lawyers who employ these tactics should not have it held against them, since this is usually just part of the civil justice process.
Throughout my career, I have developed certain tactics to defend my clients in the various types of lawsuits I frequently encounter. For instance, some jurisdictions in which I practice require extra steps to validate affidavits that are notarized outside the jurisdiction. If lawyers do not follow the correct procedure, I may use this deficiency to defend my client. In addition, in a jurisdiction in which I practice, certain types of businesses need to publish certain information about the company in newspapers in order to finalize their organization process. If they do not complete this step, the business cannot sue, and I can get a lawsuit dismissed on that basis.
In other circumstances, I might challenge service of process if a lawyer tried to effectuate service through the mail or other insufficient means without going through the process outlines by law. Sometimes, I might also try to get certain causes of actions dismissed since they are duplicative of other causes of action that are also included in a given complaint. I can usually use various other procedural issues to my advantage when defending my clients.
Often, adversaries do not take kindly to such tactics. In certain circumstances, I get accused of playing “legal games” in order to divert from the substance of the matter to be litigated. In other circumstances, people accuse me of being discourteous for using such defenses for the betterment of my client.
I do not understand such behavior. When lawyers use such tactics against me, I never accuse the lawyer of playing “legal games,” and I understand that the attorney is just trying to do everything in their power to advance a client’s interests. Most of the time, I am happy to see lawyers advance such defenses since this shows me methods that I can improve the way I practice to avoid such defenses being advanced by adversaries in the future.
However, some lawyers probably get their egos bruised when they mess up some procedural aspect involved in litigation, and they do not like such mistakes exposed by other lawyers. Rather than look inward on ways that they can improve their service to clients, attorneys may lash out on adversaries and accuse them of wrongdoing in how they conducted themselves during a case. On a superficial level, I understand this response as a reaction to an assault on the lawyer’s abilities, but attorneys should know better than to lash out in this way.
Civil lawyers, like attorneys who defend criminal defendants, should benefit from the assumption that everyone deserves diligent representation, and lawyers should take every advantage available to them when serving clients. Of course, lawyers should not advance frivolous arguments or conduct themselves in a way that has no purpose other than to delay the resolution of a case. However, lawyers and others should know that lawyers must advance every substantive argument available to them even if this exposes errors made by the other side in litigation.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at [email protected].
