When I joined the Bar, I had this romantic idea about working with other lawyers. We would "strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." During a summer of depositions in Waterloo, Iowa, we actually did that. A group of defendants would question witnesses by day then have dinner with plaintiff's counsel each night. To this day, I've never been on a large case where things ran more smoothly. No games, no sniping, everybody finished what they needed to do and our clients spent less money.
Much more often, practicing law looks like professional wrestling. Lawyers trade nastygrams and use other bully tactics. A few years back, I had an attorney bellow into the telephone, "this is not Law School 101! I Want Indemnity!"Lawyers are competitive people. Much of what we do is a competition. But like any any good sport, the competition works better with collaboration. In your face tactics like screaming for indemnity are more likely to inspire a smack down than a back down. Letter writing campaigns take valuable time and rarely accomplish anything useful. Worse, they contribute to a "gotcha" atmosphere: things get harder to schedule, phone calls go unreturned, simple stipulations die on the vine.
Lawyers fighting these little battles lose the bigger picture. Before long, you've spent twice what you should have fanning the resentment that blinds everyone to compromise. If a case should be settled for $30,000 then don't run up $3,000 sparring over your place or mine for the deposition. You'll get a better result, for less money and you might just get better dinner conversation.
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