This morning's was maybe number six in the past two weeks. Or seven or eight; I've lost count.
Client said this morning, "I don't care if the other side fights us hard on the business terms. I don't care if they're really aggressive negotiators. But if I can't trust them to tell us one thing and do it, not go aroundabout to someone else and try to bring about the opposite of what we just talked about, I'm not going to do business with them. That's not honorable, and I don't want any part of it."
Amen.
I think as lawyers we get really used to bad behavior, to seeing people splitting hairs about just what something means and how far they might stretch something without technically "lying." Some of my favorite moments have been when relatively unsophisticated clients have looked bankers or lawyers in the eye and said, "This is the right thing to do." Once I watched the other side back away from rights I knew they had because of the moral fierceness in my client's eye. Sure, technically they were right, but the technicality wouldn't fly with their mothers, or any person off the street with any sense, and took a law degree and a lot of research just to understand. I was amazed by the power of my client's staredown.
My dad once told me that when you have the moral upper hand in a situation, when someone's mistreated you or lied or whatever, you both always know that, and you carry a tremendous amount of power because of it. So even if the jerkball has social or financial or political (or legal) power way beyond what you have, they still know that you're right, that they did something wrong, and that knowledge gives you leverage.
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