Do clients really need to read the entire legal advice/opinion letter that has multiple pages including the law firm’s disclaimers, a list of all the applicable laws and the factual background and procedural history? Does this additional information add any value or is it just a “generally accepted best practice”? From the law firm’s standpoint, speaking from experience, part of the rather obvious reason is to showcase or perhaps justify the amount of work put in by the law firm. From the client’s standpoint, part of it is just human nature, attaching more value and giving more weight to a more voluminous document that is structured in a more professional and rather familiar manner. It has the look and feel of a more serious, carefully crafted and reassuring work-product. But neither all clients nor their specific needs are the same which is why law firms should look beyond this one-size-fits-all approach to giving legal advice/opinion.
For instance, time is of the essence sometimes and budgets may not be large so cutting to the chase and getting right to the point is exactly what the clients need sometimes. In order to meet these very specific needs of certain clients, Triage Law is launching the “One-page legal advice/opinion letter”, a document that will contain only our firm’s legal advice/opinion on a particular issue without any references to the factual or procedural background, a list of the applicable laws and of course, the rather unnecessary disclaimers. Although the final work-product, a one-pager, may not look like a time-intensive effort, it would still require legal research to arrive at the conclusion and the legal advice/opinion in the letter. Ironically, it may well take a bit more time to make the legal advice/opinion concise so it fits on one page. We find support and validation of this view in the famous and rather appropriate quote by Mark Twain “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”