In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, an idealistic high school teacher gives his students these words to live by: \u201cSeize the Day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary!\u201d\u00a0 That is good advice for anyone, but lawyers have an extra incentive to make the most of each day.\u00a0 When lawyers sit on their hands, not only is it impossible for them to do something extraordinary, they can run afoul of the Rules of Professional Conduct.<\/p>\n
Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.3 says that a \u201clawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client. \u2026\u201d\u00a0 The commentary pulls no punches with respect to how the rules view unnecessary delays:<\/p>\n
“Perhaps no professional shortcoming is more widely resented than procrastination.\u00a0 A client\u2019s interests often can be adversely affected by the passage of time or the change of conditions; in extreme instances, as when a lawyer overlooks a statute of limitations, the client\u2019s legal position may be destroyed.\u00a0 Even when the client\u2019s interests are not affected in substance however, unreasonable delay can cause a client needless anxiety and undermine confidence in the lawyer\u2019s trustworthiness.”<\/p>\n
Even the best-organized, most motivated, and zealous lawyers will sometimes shuffle off some unpleasant bit of business to the end of the day.\u00a0 And from there, it is easy to put off to the day after, and then the week after, until the task is out of sight and out of mind.\u00a0 However, when a lawyer puts off the little problems on his or her desk, those problems can sometimes blow up later, with nasty consequences.<\/p>\n
Similarly, delaying the delivery of bad news to a client, or putting off conversations with difficult clients can also lead to trouble for a lawyer.\u00a0 Rule 1.4(a) says a \u201clawyer shall keep a client reasonably informed about the status of a matter and promptly<\/em> comply with reasonable requests for information.\u201d<\/p>\n The Massachusetts Attorney Disciplinary Reports are replete with recent examples of attorneys who, by putting off dealing with clients or courts, or by simply failing to do what they were engaged to do, found themselves in disciplinary trouble.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n In all these cases, the lawyers could have helped themselves by simply getting down to business and doing what they were hired to do, as well as keeping their clients fully informed as to what was going on \u2013 for better or worse.\u00a0 Having an uncomfortable conversation or performing an unpleasant task today, is almost always preferable to dealing with the consequences of delay down the road.<\/p>\n Who knows \u2013 if those lawyers had seized the day and gotten to work, they might even have pulled off \u201csomething extraordinary\u201d for their clients and themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, an idealistic high school teacher gives his students these words to live by: \u201cSeize the Day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary!\u201d\u00a0 That is good advice for anyone, but lawyers have an extra incentive to make the most of each day.\u00a0 When lawyers sit on their hands, not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,7,5],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-client-communications","tag-ethics","tag-rules-of-professional-conduct"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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