Legal Reflection
The Best Case May Be the One Never Filed
The best case may be the one never filed. Legal work is often judged by the cases won, submissions written, and judgments obtained. Yet an important part of legal practice never appears in court records. A carefully drafted contract may prevent a dispute, a discovered issue may avert a loss, and a timely settlement may end a dispute before it grows.
- Author
- Lawyer Omar Al-Baghdadi
- Published
- Read time
- 1 minutes
- Updated
The Best Case May Be the One Never Filed
A lawyer’s work is often judged by the cases won, the submissions written, and the judgments obtained.
Yet an important part of legal practice does not appear in court records.
A carefully drafted contract that prevented a dispute,
an issue discovered before signing that avoided a loss,
and a settlement reached at the right time that resolved a dispute before it grew.
These outcomes do not result in a judgment, nor are hearings recorded for them, but they may sometimes be more valuable than years of litigation.
With experience, a lawyer discovers that the role is not only to know how to manage a dispute after it arises, but also to foresee its possibility before it begins.
Legal success is not always measured by the number of cases that reach court.
Sometimes the best legal work is the case we succeeded in never filing at all.
— Omar Al-Baghdadi