Pick Your Battles

Years ago, when I lived out east, I raced bicycles near Boston. It was a weekly club race — a Sunday morning loop, roughly a mile around, through an industrial park.

I was near the front of a pack of about 200 riders, holding my line to the right. To my left, I heard an exchange;

"Hey, watch it, a---hole."

"F--- you."

Two riders were jockeying for position, each fighting to be the one in front. A second after the second rider's reply, I heard the clink of metal on metal — this was back when race bikes were made of steel, not carbon — as their bikes banged together and both went down.

They had more than 150 riders behind them.

I looked over my left shoulder and the middle of the pack simply seemed to disappear, a wave of riders and bicycles folding on top of the two who started it. I was just far enough to the side to miss it.

By the time the rest of us came around the loop again, the wreck had been cleared. What was left behind was broken bikes, bleeding riders, and some blood on the pavement. Luckily, no ambulances had to come out.

What does this have to do with the law?

The legal system is about conflict—when to fight, and when not to.

Sometimes, even when you are in the right, the consequences of the fight are not worth it. Maybe Rider One was right to stand his ground. Maybe Rider Two was right and was being cut off. In the end, it did not matter. Both of them wound up at the bottom of a pile that wrecked their bikes, banged them up, and could easily have sent them, and many others, to the hospital.

There is a time to fight, and there is a time to compromise.

The consequences of a legal fight are not as immediate or as painful as crashing in a race, but they can be every bit as damaging: months of emotional strain, thousands of dollars spent, and in a family case, relationships with children and relatives left strained, sometimes beyond repair.

The Lawyer's Job

When it is time to fight, your lawyer will fight with you and do their best for you. But it is also their job to tell you when a fight is a good idea and when it is not.

If I think a fight will do my client more harm than good, I will say so and urge them to avoid it. That is one of the most important parts of my job.