An open letter to lawyers in firms of all sizes:

You need someone you don’t have. You need someone who is not burdened by politics, either the internal politics of the firm, or the external politics of client relationships. You need someone who can keep you from tunnel vision or confirmation bias. Frankly, you need some who can help you stay “on budget” for the client by being a lower cost provider of discrete services. These are just some of the needs I have met for lawyers and law firms coast to coast and north to south; for firms of less than ten lawyers and for firms with hundreds of lawyers.

Here’s what I’ve done for them, and can do for you:

Ghostwriting, including exhaustive research and writing. The end product of course is your responsibility because it’s your signature. I will brag a little — in a case where was brought in mid-strean to work on the briefs, another lawyer in the case (in a different firm) remarked “It was clear to me that these briefs were not being written by [redacted] anyore.” And the briefs won.

Extra eyes and ears. Even in instances where I have not been the comprehensive ghost writer, I have been brought in at the end to make sure nothing was missed, or role play “the other side” in attacking the work product. This directly relates to the confirmation bias / tunnel vision concept. Sometimes you just need someone to listen and react. I’ve done this at every stage from pre-filing to post-trial.

Informed investigation. While it is certainly true that an experienced private investigator can find things that lawyers can’t find, those are sometimes facts in a vacuum. Useful facts are often delivered in large piles of facts of the less than useful variety. When I’ve handled investigations, my training and experience has streamlined things greatly.

Training: There are so many reasons to outsource your training. Your skillset is not that of a teacher. You know many things, but do you know how to convey that to employees without it sounding like closing argument? Then there are employee-relations issue. Your role as teacher is different than your role as supervisor. Oh yeah. Those hours you spend prepping and teaching? They don’t make you any money.

I know I can help you. Give me a call, or an email.

Sincerely,

Eric C. Lang