On Fabrics, Threads, and Legal Services

Sometimes, with the best of intentions, clients send us a contract they’ve found online or “stitched together” themselves, thinking it will save us time and them money. In reality, quite the opposite happens. Such a contract is often patched together from various parts that don’t fit, and we must take it apart, measure it anew, and stitch it properly so that it holds together.

Quality legal work resembles fine tailoring. Every good tailor has their trusted pattern and a fabric they understand. They know how it behaves, how it stretches, what it can bear, and where it needs reinforcement. From such material, they can make a jacket that fits. But if you bring them scraps of questionable cloth, no matter how skilled they are, the result will never be something worth wearing.

A lawyer, too, has their thread — one that runs through the story of facts. The legal thread is both thin and strong, holding the whole text together so that it has meaning, logic, and purpose. But for that, clear facts are essential.

It is a fact that the decision was received on October second and that the client prefers option A. It is not a fact that the decision arrived sometime in late September, nor that the client is unsure what they want.

Once we have the facts, we can begin to sew. We take the right pattern, our trusted fabric, and a strong legal thread. The result is a document that fits, holds, and protects.

We acknowledge that artificial intelligence, when prompted correctly, can now provide answers that often surpass ordinary searching. Yet in essence, it works much like those old templates found online. If you don’t know how to ask properly, or if you don’t understand the answer, you easily end up with another scrap of cloth. And from a scrap, as everyone knows, you can’t make a suit.

And that is the essence of all professions. They didn’t emerge on their own but from human experience — from the work of hands and mind, from understanding one’s craft. Just like a good tailor, a lawyer knows where to guide the thread so that the whole holds together.