Once there was a foolish young lawyer. He hadn't been practicing law very long but he knew all the rules. Whenever another lawyer filed a pleading against one of his clients he would file lots and lots of responses if he saw any rules weren't being followed perfectly. He never called the other lawyer and asked him if he made a mistake or if they could agree to resolve the issue. The foolish young lawyer thought it made the other lawyers see how smart he was and he could show his clients all those pleadings to explain why he deserved to be paid so much.
One day, a wise older lawyer filed a case against one of the foolish young lawyer's clients. Now the foolish young lawyer knew that his client had done the wrong thing and stayed in a house too long and had not paid his rent. However, the wise older lawyer who filed the case asked for more money than the Judge in the Court he filed it in was allowed to award. So the foolish young lawyer filed lots and lots of pleadings that showed that the lawsuit should not be in front of that judge because that judge couldn't award that much money.
When the wise older lawyer got the pleadings, he realized that the way he wrote the suit it did look like he wanted more money than the current court was allowed to award. If the foolish young lawyer had called him he would have explained he only wanted the smaller amount of money, but since the foolish young lawyer hadn't called him he called his client and explained he had made a mistake and suggested what he thought they should do. The wise older lawyer's client agreed, so the wise older lawyer filed a piece of paper with the Court that said he agreed with what the foolish young lawyer said and the lawsuit should be moved to a judge who could award more money.
And when the case came to Court the judge did award the wise older lawyer and his client more money than they intended to ask for. After the case was over, the wise older lawyer took the foolish young lawyer aside and told him that if he had just called him he would have corrected his mistake and have not asked for more money. The foolish young lawyer was defensive and angry and didn't tell his client what had happened, but the wise older lawyer's client told the foolish young lawyer's client who was very angry with him and told all his friends what a foolish young lawyer he was. The wise older lawyer also told all the other lawyers who all laughed at the foolish young lawyer.
Morals: 1. Be careful what you ask for; you might get it. 2. When you've done something wrong, try to resolve things without going to court. 3. Always talk to your clients and admit when you've screwed up. 4. When someone makes a mistake, give them a chance to fix it. 5. Sometimes loosing small is winning big.
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