As I write my first ever blog post, and perhaps as you begin reading it, we may both wonder:
- “Why another legal blog?”; and
- Aren’t there enough lawyers using big words to explain simple concepts, or even bigger words to explain more complex concepts in a seeming effort to write and speak in a way that complicates rather than simplifies the topic or transaction?
The answer to the second question is “yes” – there are enough of those blogs. The answer to the first question is, I hope I can present something different – a business blog written from a business perspective that happens to address the legal issues that arise in businesses and business transactions – hence the name, “BizB4Law.”
BizB4Law will follow a consistent theme – that the business aspects are ALWAYS more important than the legal aspects. Therefore, I will focus on business issues before legal issues and try and explain how the legal strategy and approach must always follow from the business objectives and realities.
With that introduction, let me make my first substantive point – it is critical in any business or transaction that from the outset the lawyer fully knows and understands:
- the client, whether individual or corporate, and if corporate, the individuals who the lawyer is working with;
- the business/industry that the client is in and the most important business and legal issues for that business/industry;
- the client’s objectives for the particular situation and the risk/benefit to the client of achieving or failing to achieve those objectives;
- the leverage and positioning of the various parties; and
- the value that the client places on the lawyer’s role in the transaction, and the importance of the lawyer in achieving the client’s objectives.
In other words, the lawyer needs to know his or her stuff from a business perspective before the legal strategy can be defined – BizB4Law.