This article highlights something rarely considered when choosing or assessing litigation counsel. It could help clients judge not only knowledge and experience but the ability to apply them. What is it? Read on.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Imagine a law firm\u2019s client: a business owner or company manager. Usually resourceful, competent and knowledgeable about their work, but not law. How can they assess whether counsel entrusted with an important case is performing well\u2014or, more importantly, will perform well before being appointed? Lack of legal knowledge and courtroom experience makes assessment difficult, yet that is precisely why professional help is needed. How can this trap be escaped?<\/p>\n
A client may use familiar methods: a recommended lawyer, a specialist in the relevant field or a reputable firm within budget. These overlap and often complement each other. Recognised specialists often work at reputable firms; recommended lawyers often specialise. Yet each method has weaknesses and guarantees no good choice.<\/p>\n
A friend or business associate usually recommends a lawyer because they won a case. It may not resemble the new client\u2019s case. Even if similar, success may not result from excellent representation. Outcomes depend on facts, available evidence, settled case law and other factors. Counsel quality is one factor, often not the most important. It matters: strong representation can win an uncertain case, as most are, while poor representation can lose a clear one. But the recommender usually cannot know which factors produced victory or whether counsel was good. On what basis could they assess it? We return to the original question.<\/p>\n
Perhaps hire a specialist? How do you find one? A publicly recognised expert is one option, but few lawyers have that visibility and cost may be prohibitive. A specialist recommendation is another, with the problems above. Third, the client can rely on lawyers\u2019 own information, particularly websites. These readily claim specialisation but less readily explain its basis. Often the claim is simply experience of many cases. That may mean something, especially where experience outweighs theory, or nothing: one can do something badly a hundred times. Better if the website also shows substantive publications, including professional ones. That makes expertise more likely, but not certain: publications vary in quality and a non-lawyer cannot assess them, even if willing to read them. And how many cases is \u201cmany\u201d: five, ten, fifty?<\/p>\n
What about reputation? The best-known firms are generally the largest. Their size reflects commercial success, usually supported by quality and marketing skill. Their principal advantage is scale: handling more and larger matters. They need not be substantively better than everyone. Hundreds of lawyers cannot all be stars; nobody has a magic recruitment formula. Alongside stars, usually partners, are average lawyers. A famous brand and high price therefore guarantee nothing, especially for a case other than a multimillion international arbitration attracting stars\u2019 daily attention.<\/p>\n
So much for traditional methods.<\/p>\n
What else can a client do? Something simple: listen to the lawyer and read what they write. Is it understandable? This means the legal substance, rather than marketing or general assurances of winnability. Counsel should explain the case legally. Which facts must be proved? What evidence, particularly client materials, is needed? Why do those facts determine success? What legal questions must the court answer? Where might it doubt? How will counsel resolve those doubts favourably? What is the overall argument? After a conversation, opinion or email, these should be clear.<\/p>\n
Why does this matter? Tangled \u201cprofessional\u201d language does not prove professionalism. It often conceals poor understanding or inadequate legal knowledge. It may show the lawyer has not thought the case through and lacks a clear concept of what to say and why\u2014in blunter terms, mental chaos. Both problems may coexist and be masked by jargon suggesting membership of a magical initiated circle. The client should supposedly accept advice on faith, without understanding. If arguments seem chaotic or inconsistent, the client is encouraged to blame their own inability to understand, like someone unable to fathom a shaman\u2019s rain dance. Usually nothing lies behind this smoke screen: apparently confused arguments are confused, and the court will see them that way.<\/p>\n
This is not about avoiding necessary technical terms. Claims, limitation and due dates are unavoidable, but can and should be explained. They need no four-part subordinate sentences stretching three lines in passive voice, bureaucratic filler such as \u201cin the matter in question\u201d, or pretentious words that add no legal meaning.<\/p>\n
Conversely, clear, simple, coherent and comprehensive communication strongly suggests understanding and a considered strategy. Clear communication generally reflects clear thinking. The converse is not universal: some people think clearly but cannot express it. Clients have no way to verify that, so in choosing counsel the answer is unfortunately \u201cthat\u2019s too bad\u201d. Explaining a difficult matter accessibly and concisely also requires understanding its essence. The very process improves counsel\u2019s understanding. Above all, the lawyer must realise what the case is about. As the saying goes, teaching others teaches ourselves.<\/p>\n
The same applies to explaining matters to a court, easier after explaining them to the client. Leading US Supreme Court advocates often say they first explain arguments to spouses, family and even children. If they understand, a court surely will. Without understanding there is no persuasion, and advocacy fails its central purpose. Usually counsel need go no further than ensuring client understanding.<\/p>\n
The client should therefore be able to read a pleading and understand its essence: what counsel wants the court to accept and why. Detailed case law and scholarship may be complex, but the basic argument should be understandable and assessable as coherent and persuasive. That is a positive signal; inability is a warning.<\/p>\n
This does not apply to absolutely every client: simplification has limits before meaning is lost. It does apply to every business owner and manager. Everything in law can be explained understandably to someone with higher education or substantial life experience. Everything\u2014provided the client is interested, which matters greatly, and counsel understands and makes the effort.<\/p>\n
The conclusion is important: counsel who does not communicate clearly either cannot or will not make the effort. Neither recommends entrusting them with a case. Listening and reading therefore make choosing good counsel easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This article highlights something rarely considered when choosing or assessing litigation counsel. It could help clients judge not only knowledge and experience but the ability to apply them. What is it? Read on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"294","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"iawp_total_views":0,"_djp_featured_image_mode":"full","footnotes":""},"categories":[{"term_id":294,"name":"Articles","slug":"articles-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":294,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":100,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":294,"category_count":100,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Articles","category_nicename":"articles-en","category_parent":0},{"term_id":292,"name":"Dispute Resolution","slug":"dispute-resolution-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":292,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":51,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":292,"category_count":51,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Dispute Resolution","category_nicename":"dispute-resolution-en","category_parent":0},{"term_id":291,"name":"General","slug":"general-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":291,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":153,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":291,"category_count":153,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general-en","category_parent":0}],"tags":[322],"djp_center":[],"coauthors":[238],"class_list":["post-4811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-en","category-dispute-resolution-en","category-general-en","tag-featured-en"],"acf":{"djp_promote_now":false,"djp_promotion_days":7},"images":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pexels-pedro18-2828014-scaled-1-150x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pexels-pedro18-2828014-scaled-1-199x300.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pexels-pedro18-2828014-scaled-1-768x1157.jpg","large":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pexels-pedro18-2828014-scaled-1-680x1024.jpg","full":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/pexels-pedro18-2828014-scaled-1-djp-web.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5459,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions\/5459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"djp_center","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/djp_center?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djp.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}