Re: What the lawyers and suits think

["Anne P. Mitchell, Esq." <amitchell@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 13, 2004, at 1:06 PM, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
>
> I don't recall ever having a lawyer advise me to take a particular
> course of action for anything other than purely defensive reasons.
>
> Lawyers are rarely true decisions makers for that very reason, give
> them four alternative choices for action and they will provide you
> with reasons against five of them.

<laugh>..only five?

Seriously - I can guarantee you that what is going on up in Redmond 
right now is that the _lawyers_ are figuring out what to do about this 
situation (as no doubt are others).  Now, it's likely that they will 
make a recommendation to other suits, so if that's what you meant by 
their not truly being decision-makers, well, yes, I don't disagree - 
perhaps "decision influencers" would be more appropriate a term, but 
don't underestimate the influence of those decisions. I certainly have 
been in situations as an in-house counsel where buy-off on my 
"recommendation" was a formality only, and I was actually the one 
making the decisions.

I'm not about to put words in Harry's mouth here, but I wouldn't be at 
all surprised if people in Harry's position are frustrated by what is 
going on with legal, and would conversely be very surprised if they 
have the ability to do a blessed thing about it.

Anne