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How should lawyers deal with their mistakes?
“All lawyers make mistakes, but it’s how they deal with them that sets them apart,” says one director. She elaborates on the path lawyers should take when having made an error.
Jess Feyder
Recently on the Lawyers Weekly Show, Noor Blumer, director at Blumers Personal Injury Lawyers, discussed how lawyers should deal with mistakes and revealed some of the new mistakes coming about due to the fast uptake of technology.
“The important thing is to talk to someone about it; otherwise, lawyers get burdened with all this guilt and worry, and it’s not necessary,” she explained.
“I still go to an ethics officer at the law society if I’m dealing with some difficult issue, or I’ll speak to a senior practitioner elsewhere and ask, ‘What do you think of this? Should I do this?
“I think it’s really important to take advice and remain open,” she illuminated; dealing with mistakes wisely is a part of maintaining ethical conduct as a lawyer.
“The problem comes when you hide things,” she said. “We’ve got a rule in our firm; if you make a mistake, you have to tell everybody. You have to tell all of our solicitors.
“I do it myself,” she stated, “if I do something wrong, I say, ‘This is what I did wrong, this is how it happened, and this is how I fixed it”.
“A problem shared is not necessarily a problem halved,” Ms Blumer said, “but it certainly relieves some of the pressure on your own mental health”.
Ms Blumer gave an example pertinent to her own practice area: “One of the main issues for lawyers in our area of the law is missing limitation periods. We go to a lot of trouble to make sure that doesn’t happen; however, it occasionally does.
“What I’ve learned is, when you look at the case, there’s often a way around it, because there are some exceptions, and if people have been under a disability for a period of time, you might have some more time.
“All of these things can happen, and if you actually talk to someone about it, you might find a solution, and you then might be able to sleep well at night again.”
Ms Blumer also detailed some of the new kinds of mistakes that are arising from the uptake of online mediation.
“I’ve dealt with a couple of issues recently that arose from Zoom mediations,” she revealed. “We used to all be in the room together, and then we’d go into breakout rooms, but there would be a time when [we] would sit down together and talk, and we would put in our position papers and discuss what we think the claim is worth, and what needs to be paid back, and all of these issues would be dealt with.”
“In a mediation, usually, you’ll pass around a bit of paper and write the offers down there, so it’s all very clear, but that’s not been happening in Zoom mediation,” she said, “it’s led to some mistakes and omissions”.
“There are miscommunications as to the amount of settlement, and all sorts of things that don’t usually happen when you’re in the same room,” she explained.
