{"id":147,"date":"2020-03-18T15:16:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T22:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2021-07-10T22:48:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T05:48:31","slug":"h-o-lock-opines-on-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/h-o-lock-opines-on-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"H.O. Lock opines on litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I often tell clients, &#8220;litigation is a blunt instrument,&#8221; and encourage efforts to come to a fair settlement before the expenses of a lawsuit mount up.\u00a0 In 1946 Henry Osmond Lock (1879-1962), a Dorsetshire solicitor (his father represented the author Thomas Hardy), published a short volume entitled &#8220;Advice to a Young Solicitor,&#8221; distilling 40 years of experience at the bar into sound recommendations for the young lawyer.\u00a0 Here is his more elegant paragraph on the topic:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-148 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Empty courtroom\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Empty-Courtroom-1980x1320.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image from Shutterstock. Used under license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;You may take it that in almost all cases of civil proceedings, the commencement of litigation is preceded by a course of negotiation.\u00a0 Then is the time that it may be well to &#8216;agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him.&#8217; A fair and reasonable settlement is often more satisfactory than an action fought out to the bitter end, even though the outcome be a verdict in your client&#8217;s favour.\u00a0 A successful litigant has many expenses to shoulder himself, and many an apparent triumph secured in the Courts of Law has in the end proved to be but a Pyrrhic Victory.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I often tell clients, &#8220;litigation is a blunt instrument,&#8221; and encourage efforts to come to a fair settlement before the expenses of a lawsuit mount up.\u00a0 In 1946 Henry Osmond Lock (1879-1962), a Dorsetshire solicitor (his father represented the author Thomas Hardy), published a short volume entitled &#8220;Advice to a Young Solicitor,&#8221; distilling 40 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-business-of-law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}