I have compiled some rules of the road for dealing with your adversaries if you wish to maintain a solid relationship. There are those attorneys who prefer to make everything adversarial. In my estimation, life is too short to make every step of the process difficult.

1. Don’t offer a ridiculous, unsupported position that everyone knows is preposterous. If you must take a position that is not supported by law or facts, then at least, acknowledge it. To do otherwise is to insult your adversary’s intelligence.

2. Don’t be arrogant, pompous, or pretentious. That demeanor does not win favors. It only begets a contentious relationship. Show some humility.

3. Don’t have your secretary make your phone calls for you. Call the number yourself and show some respect for the other attorney.

4. When you do make the call and get the voicemail answering machine, don’t leave a pissy answer deriding the answering system and the office. Use the system, feel the force. Ask your question or leave an adequate message so that someone can respond to your needs.

5. Put all of your claims on the table up front. Don’t piecemeal the problem. Come to the table with your complete claim. Adding claims as you go will only infuriate the other side.

6. Ethics provide that you may not telephone the adversary’s expert witnesses directly without the adversary’s consent. You also may not indirectly contact them by having your experts call them without consent. It is especially unethical and dishonest to mislead or fail to advise the expert who your client is.

7. Be a good winner. Don’t gloat when you have won a good motion, verdict, or settlement award. What goes around, comes around.

8. Don’t lie or intentionally mislead. If you say you will do something, do it!

9. Don’t burn bridges. Create lasting relationships.

10. Agree to disagree, but don’t be disagreeable.

Source: www.floridabar.org

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