Every day lawyers make lots of decisions. Big ones and little ones. And we’re pretty good at it. We usually make them quickly and we’re right most of the time.
But what do you do when you don’t know what to do?
You’ve weighed the pros and cons, you’ve IRAC’d the facts and reasoned out all the “on the other hand”s and you still can’t decide. What then?
You can do more research. More information often helps. But sometimes, it does just the opposite. More information makes it harder to decide because there’s too much to evaluate, too many things that can go wrong.
So, you get a second opinion. You ask your partner or a colleague. You talk to your mentor or bring it to your mastermind group. You ask your wife.
Sometimes I ask people like Aristotle or Albert Einstein what they see about the situation and what they would advise me to do. “What would Abraham Lincoln do in this situation?”
Hearing what other intelligent, informed people say on the subject often helps us to know the best course of action. But just as too much information sometimes makes it harder to decide, too many opinions can do the same thing. Too many cooks often do spoil the broth.
When you have collected enough information, sought out second and third and fourth opinions, and still don’t know what to do, the only thing you can do is to ask yourself for a second opinion.
Put away everything you know and have learned about the subject, all of the information and opinions of others, and after a reasonable period of time, come back to the subject with fresh eyes. Just like editing a paper, the passage of time will allow you to see things you could not see before and give you clarity about what to do.
It is your decision, after all. The most important second opinion a lawyer can get is his or her own.
