Thinking Like A Transactional Attorney


I was looking for some information on how to think like a Transactional Attorney when I ran by a blog post by Professor Orin Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy entitled "What Does It Mean to 'Think Like a Lawyer"? And How Does The Socratic Method Help?" While it's not directed specifically at Transactional Attorneys, I think the following quote is a good place to start:

..."thinking like a lawyer" means having a brain that focuses on what is legally relevant and that puts aside what is not. Legal thinking is a practical art that relies on a set of principles and relationships, and a person thinks like a lawyer when they master that practical art.

As a fairly recent graduate of law school, I can vouch for the fact that I learned a whole lot more about the adversarial nature of the practice of law rather than the transactional nature of the work we do here at the Studio (Doing Deals!). I discovered right away that I needed to make a seismic shift in my thinking. I had to come up with a methodology to help me approach each new deal - while this is still a work in progress, I thought I'd share a little of what I've learned so far.

  1. Learn about your client and your client's needs - Seems kind of a like a "No Duh!" idea, but it is really easy to assume you know what your client wants without taking the time to understand the deal in the larger perspective of the client's deal portfolio.
  2. Understand the transactional context - It's almost impossible to do a deal (or amendment or even a review) without having any context. Who? What? Where? Why? When? Answering these questions is a great place to start.
  3. Use precedents to guide your work - No need to reinvent the wheel each time you do a deal. Think about making a deal library with exemplars for common phrases that you will want to use over and over again.
Obviously there are loads of nuances that will be encountered along the way to getting better at thinking like a Transactional Attorney, but the longest journey begins with a single step, right?

0 comments: