What are the lawyers thinking

What your lawyers are thinking?

Your lawyer does not want you to jump out of the window when you get his bill. So if you are just chasing a few thousand Ringgit, he probably hopes that the debtor will make some acceptable offer before the trial. He knows this would be to your advantage. Your legal costs would probably then be reasonable, measured against the amount you will collect. It is not always advisable to sue for the recovery of a debt.

The debtor’s lawyer is thinking the same thing. Sure, the debtor has some kind of defence, but his lawyer does not know if it will stand up until he looks at all the details. These things are always more complicated than the client can imagine. In law, practically everything is arguable. There is no way the debtor’s lawyer wants to spend huge amount of time on this either, and run up a sky-high bill, if there is some hope it would not be needed.

You see. The lawyers on both sides tend to do the minimum, just shadow-boxing for a while. To both of them, it is a fight about a small sum (a few thousand Ringgit). They cannot afford to sink a lot of their client’s money into the sort of pre-trial preparations you see in L.A. Law dramas.

Usually, very little happens until about a week before the trial is due to begin. Even if the trial looks like going ahead, the lawyers still would not do as much technical preparation as they could.

For a debt of say RM12,000, their clients just could not afford it. So your lawyer is not going to look into every possible ‘cause of action’ and the debtor’s lawyer is not gong to spend his evenings pondering subtle and sophisticated defences.

I want help FreeAdvice

Please contact Alvin For Advertising & Sponsorship Information

FINMART FreeAdvice® is the leading business advisory site for business people doing business in Malaysia. It provides advice relating to most common business problems and to help business people to understand the way how business should be properly conducted, but is not a substitute for personal business advice from the respective professional and experts. You are welcome to view FINMART FreeAdvice® for your own personal, non-commercial purposes, and subject to our legal disclaimer and conditions of use.