Marketing guru Seth Godin has an amazing ability to reduce troublesome notions into bite-sized chunks, easily digestible for those with an attention span of 8 seconds or less.  That, of course, is what good marketing is about, but more importantly, it provides a better quality fortune cookie answer to deeper questions.

He’s done it again about saying the word few of us want to say.

• If you’re not proud of it, don’t serve it.
• If you can’t do a good job, don’t take it on.
• If it’s going to distract you from the work that truly matters, pass.
• If you don’t know why they want you to do this, ask.
• If you need to hide it from your mom, reconsider.
• If it benefits you but not the people you care about, decline.
• If you’re going along with the crowd, that’s not enough.
• If it creates a habit that costs you in the long run, don’t start.
• If it doesn’t move you forward, hesitate then walk away.

The small inconsistencies notwithstanding, as well as the inexplicable inclusion of “hesitate” in the final bite, there is an important point in there for lawyers, particularly given the proclivity of some to test the water by putting in the minimum possible effort and waiting to see whether it’s good enough.

It’s not.  It may suffice, and that will empower you to do a half-assed job of it, but you have failed yourself if not your client.

It’s remarkably easy to convince a client that you’re doing a great job representing them.  After all, few have ever seen, no less written, papers of more than three pages in length, so when you produce that 20 page motion, they think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.  You know, of course, that you cut and paste it from the pro forma motion someone else sent you a few years back, and that the bulk of it is generic crap having no bearing on the case and of no use to the client.

The judge will know it, but then, it’s not like the judge will embarrass you in front of your client, as it’s not in the court’s interest to create problems that will prevent the forward momentum of the case. The last thing the judge needs is to delay cases she wants off her docket.

The prosecutor will know it, but then, they do the same thing, putting in worthless generic responses that similarly have no bearing on the case. And given that they have less experience than you do, they likely assume that’s just the way it’s done, so no big deal.

But you know it.  Remember you, the young lawyer so full of zeal and promise?  You weren’t going to be like those old farts who wandered the hallways of the courthouse, wearing black sneakers that they thought looked close enough to real shoes to get away with it?  Whose clothing smelled of having been worn a few days in a row?  Whose shirt had a stain from lunch two days ago?

There they are, desperately seeking the crying mother of some unrepresented defendant, the mother with a couple hundred dollars in her pocket. You will never be them. You will be Clarence Darrow. You will be Johnnie Cochran. You will be a star, because you are not just smarter, but you will never allow yourself to be that pathetic, awful old lawyer.

Guess what, kids?

If you’re not proud of it, don’t serve it.

Your mad rationalization skillz won’t change the fact that you produced work that, ahem, was less than the best you could do. You were busy?  You wanted to meet some friends at the bar?  You truly believe that spending your time on self-care is your right, your duty, to yourself?

That’s nice. You’ve put your own needs and desires first, and that left you without the time or desire to do your best work for your client.  There are people who pander to lawyers like you, who rub your tummies and tell you that it’s okay for you to obsess about your own happiness, your own needs.  After all, if you don’t take care of you, who will?

But who takes care of your client?  Remember the client? That’s the person who came to you with a problem, whom you promised to help, from whom you accepted money in exchange for providing zealous representation?  Your client. Who gives a shit about the client?

If the problem is that you lack the experience, the skills to effectively represent a person, then you have no business doing so. Your need for money is not paramount to your responsibility. I know, it’s hard to turn away a fee, but the fee comes with the responsibility of competence. If you can’t fulfill that responsibility, then taking the fee is a fraud.  No, it isn’t any less of a fraud because you really, really need the money. No, clients don’t exist to provide you with income.

But even if you have the chops to do the job, that’s just the first step. You then have to actually put in the hard work of doing excellent work. Not just the work you can pass off as good to the clueless client. Not just the work that will be adequate, maybe even sufficient. But your best work. Every time. Every case. Every client.

Of course, there is a good chance that you may not be as brilliant as you think you are. You may not have the chops you tell yourself you have.  That means you have two choices, either get better or get out. No one gives a damn about your excuses, your inexperience, your sad feelings about how you really want to be a good lawyer but it’s so hard.

That old, pathetic, aromatic lawyer hunched over on the bench?  The one you’ll never be?  Guess what? That’s you in twenty years, mumbling the same excuses you make now to justify why you took the case you weren’t capable of doing, did work that you knew was mediocre but had reasons why you didn’t do your best.

The old platitude is that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Or as Godin says,

If you can’t do a good job, don’t take it on.

There are no excuses that matter. Just say “no.”