Sage legals tips - in case of need

An interesting collection of legal tips from Smartcompany.com.au.

In case of emergency, break seal and implement contents:

Ian...barister...pointed out to me that about only 1% of legal disputes actually end up in court. Therefore the other 99% are getting resolved by effective negotiating. And unfortunately, negotiating with law firms doesn't get taught in any MBA course in Australia.

So here's six pointers I have learnt along the way: 

1. Don't get scared by nasty letters. In fact, most of the time you can safely ignore them and the deadlines they contain, especially if they are arbitrary – eg. "you have seven days to respond".
2. Conversely, don't send scary letters to people. They are mostly a waste of time. I prefer to sue as fast and as hard as I can. It was once said to me "never threaten, just punch the opposition as hard in the back of the head as you can".
3. Never offer any additional information to a lawyer you are not paying for. It just creates more opportunities to get yourself in trouble. I like "yes", "no" and "maybe" as answers.
4. Never assume that a lawyer has commonsense. Lawyers have great knowledge of the law and see plenty of deals going bad, but their experience is vicarious, not first hand.
5. If the other guy is the instigator of the action, make sure meetings are at a location of your choosing. You want the other guy to be paying $300 an hour plus for his lawyer to travel about. Funny how this can add up.
6. If you tell a law firm "sorry I didn't read you letter, but we don't have a commercial relationship so I assumed it was marketing cr*p from your firm" - it generally makes lawyers angry. Guess how I know this?

 Strange isn't it. We don't actually teach in business school the skills that are used most of the time.