“Think simple,” as my old master used to say- meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles. - Frank Lloyd Wright
It’s a constant battle to achieve simplicity. Complex organizations have a tendency to over-complicate matters. I think we in the legal profession, analytical by nature, are often the culprits. We become enamored of fiendishly clever arguments (e.g. Section 4 read in conjunction with Section 5(j) and buttressed by the language in Section 17 (b)(iii) clearly vindicates my client’s position), but in my experience, having fewer dots that need to be connected make a more compelling narrative. And whether the task is to convince a judge, a juror, a business counterpart, or the CEO, success is all about creating a forceful narrative.
Life will impose its own complications, so our job is to distill critical information to its clearest essence. I tell my team to make things as simple as possible, and then find a way to make them simpler still.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
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If you think back to the teachings of law school, mired in the Socratic Method, every prospective barrister was stripped of all previous notions of learning methods until we were down to the most basic one of all, and taught how to focus our minds on the core issue at hand. We were then schooled in how to pose the right questions in our quest to determine the core issue because, if we weren't asking the right questions, how could we find the Answer?
ReplyDeleteIn my humble opinion, the practice of overly complicating matters with "wherefors", "theretos", and compound sentences that refer to as many previous statements as possible are done, in part, out of laziness and in other part out of the need to "cover one's ass". It is not always easy to discipline one's mind to decipher out of a jumble of facts and noise the one or two key issues in the mess. It is usually easier to throw in a memo or contract as many canned legal disclaimers as possible, in the event an issue or fact is overlooked which could result in liability later on. (There is also a third view which believes that complicated legalese is practiced to confuse the matter as much as possible, thereby guaranteeing the need for more legal work and more billing opportunities. But we won't go there).