As I often like to do, let me share two brief stories. The first involves a criminal defense lawyer. This lawyer represented a client who staunchly refused to allow the lawyer to call his girlfriend to testify at trial. There may have been other witness who the lawyer could have called as well; however, the client simply refused to ever discuss the matter. Here’s the problem, this client has somehow always managed to find his way out of trouble; but this time was going to be different and the lawyer knew it. This time the client was likely to spend a serious amount of time behind bars unless she could find a way to convince her client to work with her……

For the past 20 years, I have worked for an insurance company that insures lawyers for their malpractice. Trust me when I say I get it. There are going to be times when an insured doesn’t necessarily agree with every decision the company must make in trying to resolve his or her claim. That’s going to happen. What I don’t get is when an insured makes a decision to prevent us from helping at all.

There may be a time when a client wants to speak directly with the other side simply hoping to move the process forward. Truth be told, I’ve been there as a client. It felt as if my legal matter wasn’t progressing as fast as I thought it should and it seemed to me that the attorneys were the ones getting in the way. I started to wonder if I couldn’t move things along by just having a one on one with the other side. So, what does a good attorney do?

Solo attorneys sometimes land in an office share setting. And look, I get it. The reasons for doing so can be compelling. There’s the savings on overhead, the presence of others who can provide personal and professional support, and the list goes on. While I have no desire to quash anyone’s desire to work in such a setting, I do feel compelled to share a story; because sometimes it’s just too easy to minimize and even ignore potential problems.