Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with one of my buddies.  He is an executive with a Fortune 500 company out-of-state and he was expressing his frustration with lawyers – actually his own lawyers.  He just got off the phone with one of his outside counsel when I called.  After talking with him for less than 30 seconds I could tell the last person he wanted to talk with was another lawyer. 

Although not word for word his frustrations could be summed up in a post from Dan Hull called the 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers.   This post is right on the mark and should be required reading for every corporate lawyer in America.  The biggest frustration?  No. 3 – Taking a stand.  Nothing seems to frustrate business people more than a lawyer who comes down squarely on both sides of the issue. 

The cure:  try listening to your clients.  You might be surprised what you learn.