Aug
7
A professional is not a mindless drudge yet, the world (e.g., consumer public) is so accustomed to the plentiful and inexpensive results of assembly-line manufacturing processes of industry that it is often unaware of how business actually gets done. Many of the decisions in business and industry require considerable insight and development.
Most of the tasks of business are not an automatic turning of a crank to output a predictable, almost immutable result as an output from a hopper full of standard inputs. Rather, priorities must be established, influences of various factors must be considered, outcomes must be evaluated and analyzed, data must be accumulated and reduced, and judgment must be exercised.
Producing parts by the millions from a stamping machine is reasonable in mass production. Some things are more routine than others. Nevertheless, in your life and its legal consequences, even determining an appropriate solution is a decision that cannot be bypassed. Even if execution were a standard task, determining what standard tasks should be executed is still another decision entirely.
The idea persists among some that a lawyer’s opinion is like a box of generic cornflakes on a shelf, wrapped in a label. The box can effortlessly be taken from the shelf and delivered across a counter. Such an attitude is utter nonsense. As well an individual might go to an engineer and ask for a blueprint, any blueprint off a shelf, and proceed to build any building to that blueprint. What if that blueprint is a fast food restaurant, and one needs a business high rise tower? What if that blueprint is a sewage treatment plant and one needs a restaurant?
One reason licensed professionals exist as doctors, attorneys, CPA’s, engineers, and the like is because they have learned to use a set of tools to gather ambiguous information, evaluate it, and establish probabilities of risk and reward. Their solutions will obtain results within a certain probability. Engineers may be the most fortunate in predicting their results with the most accuracy. Nevertheless, doctors have historical probabilities they can rely on for outcomes. CPA’s likewise understand the probabilities and the absolutes within their profession. Attorneys, often times have “black letter” law to rely upon. In other aspects, they have only probabilities with associated risks and rewards. Those must be navigated by a client, according to their appetite for risk and reward.
In summary, well established, predictable, routine tasks having a known output can provide many consumer products at inexpensive prices. That is not the model for unique, unpredictable, uncertain situations. A first step toward accurately assessing risk and reward is to see facts, and to see those facts clearly.
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