I am committed to building a practice which is proactive in determining the real needs of my clients, who are businesses and people in business; and finding the most efficient way to meet those needs.
For some time I have been concerned that legal practices often do not deliver the right services to their clients to maximise the value for their clients. For instance, disputes are a part of life for people in commerce. Over the last century or so, we have developed a way of dealing with those disputes based around our court system. In my opinion the litigation based dispute resolution simply does not meet the needs of many people who wish to resolve problems. It is disproportionately expensive, resource sapping, and inefficient. I have been staggered at the number of cases in which the result (even successful) has not justified the investment of time, energy, and money, made by a client. In its quest for justice the system has become so cumbersome that it simply does not work in many cases. It is backwards looking, and its results are based upon litigants' rights and positions, not the best possible solution for them in their particular commercial circumstances.
I am committed to assisting my clients, and other people, to find the most appropriate solution to a problem; one that recognises the true interests of the parties; that enables them to use their resources to move forward, and to get a prompt resolution to a problem. I am also committed to putting my clients' interests ahead of my own, and the interests of the other players in the system.
Even the positive issues dealt with by commercial lawyers (of which I am one) are often not commercially handled by lawyers. As a profession we have been guilty of imposing our view of the world upon our clients, rather than creating arrangements and documents that allow businesses to achieve what they want in an efficient way, tailored to take appropriate legal requirements into account.
I help my clients achieve their commercial goals by structuring their affairs as simply and flexibly as possible, taking into account the relevant legal requirements. I am committed to using simple solutions if they are available, adopting good sense and pragmatism rather than complexity and mystique. I am also committed to simple comprehensible communications with my clients and others.
In this practice I desire to build strong partnerships with my clients. I want my clients to receive strong value from my services. I want us to work together to achieve your commercial goals. I want you to have fun on the way (you may not think that your legal challenges and problems can be a forum for fun, but with the right attitude they can be). In exchange for my commitment to you, I want to receive good quality, intellectually stimulating commercial work. I want to charge you a fair price for that work (see Creating Value for Clients), and to be paid promptly for it. And I want to have fun too.