A lawyer who has not studied economics is very apt to become a public enemy” Brandeis J. Law schools do not generally teach anything about business, as opposed to business law. As a result, lawyers learn about business legal forms and contracts, but nothing about the non-legal imperatives of running a business like corporate finance, marketing, or corporate strategy. Furthermore, as members of an inherently conservative profession many lawyers resist engaging in any topic that goes beyond the four corners of their legal brief (“I only give legal advice”).

This is highly problematic for business, because every legal problem comes within a business context, and lawyers who are not willing or able to understand that context cannot give good advice; Brandeis J.s dictum is as applicable with respect to business knowledge as it is with respect to economics, and there remains a significant knowledge gap between the practice of law and the practice of business.

In some cases lawyers address this knowledge gap by specializing not only in a particular field of law but also in a particular industry, and in this way they develop industry expertise in substitution of more general business knowledge. At the same time the scale of the knowledge gap can be masked by the natural hubris of the legal professionlawyers who are at the pinnacle of every information and decision making-tree they are associated with can suffer from the illusion of knowing more, not less, than their clients.

A great deal has been written about alternatives to lawyers billing by the hour, or lawyers working from home instead of at a desk in a big law firm, but in my view these topics are relatively trivial. A much more significant topic is bringing business financial and strategy tools into the practice of law in order to develop a multi-disciplinary approach to the delivery of legal services.

In a litigation context for example the focus of lawyers should not be on winning their clients case but on solving the underlying business problemsthe disputes which were the reason clients came to them in the first place. One very simple example of this would be to compare the cost of litigation with the cost of buying the other sides companyif the two numbers bear some similarity then a rare opportunity for a litigator to participate in value creation instead of value destruction may exist.

Business clients want to know how much their case will cost, how long it will take, what the risks are, and the probable result. These four basis elementscost, risk, time, and reward, are the foundation of the financial analysis of any business proposal, and there is no reason why lawyers cannot make reasoned and reasonably reliable assessments of these elements in any given legal contextthe law is no more uncertain than many projects undertaken by business, and in many cases is substantially more certain.

Once we have attached numbers, or a range of numbers, to the four elements then we can financially model them the same way we can model any other business proposal. We can start with a simple spreadsheet comparing cost to risk-discounted reward, or add time to give a net present value calculation (which will show how high the reward would have to be to justify the risk over time, all other things being equal). Nor does it stop therewe can go on to decision tree modeling to assess the value of certain choices and options, and use sensitivity analysis or tornado diagrams to identify the assumptions in the model around which most of the risk in the model revolves; this in turn allows us to go back and further assess the assumptions.

I am aware of no lawyers anywhere in the world who consistently adopt this multi-disciplinary approach in their practices. Discovering such lawyers, and developing a framework with readers to put some flesh on the bones of this theoretical multi-disciplinary approach, is a key objective of this Journal.

I was sent this story as a PowerPoint presentation today by a friend. I thought that it was wonderful and I needed to share it with all of you. .

Two men both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the rooms only window.
The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roomate all the things he could see outside of the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst folwers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene. One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his minds eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As son as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn and look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a brick wall.

The man asked the nurse what would have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.

Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all things you have that money cant buy. Today is a gift that is why it is called The Present

There are so many points for you to take from this story:

We are all so busy trying to make it in life that we often miss how grateful we should be for the smaller things in life, like, having someone to talk to or someone to share our day with.
What a wonderful thing it is to make someone elses day a little brighter, no matter what is going on in yours. If you take on this attitude then you will attract more of the same into your life. It really is a win-win situation.
The power of visualisation to change our lives completely. You can take yourself to a different place, where life may be as you want it. You can take yourself to a place where you are feeling different emotions. It shows that through visualisation you have the power to create a different life for yourself. If you want something different in your life and you want it immediately then visualise yourself having it.
Today is a gift that is why it is called The Present. You want to be visualising your future goals, but dont forget to live in the present, in the moment. Be grateful for all you have and enjoy the time you have right now. It is said that a year in the future is closer to you than 10 minutes ago because you can never go back to that time, only forward.
Grasp life with both hands. Be grateful for everything you have right now, big or small. Use visualisations to picture what your future will be.

I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did.