Shades of Grey

  Life is not black and white, but shades of grey, and there are a lot of shades of grey.  No one gets everything they want; most things are a negotiation.  I know, whether or not one ultimately dies is not negotiable, but the timing and method often are.  Here in the Trenches, we spend the majority of our days navigating around the shades of grey, because contrary to popular belief, nothing in the law is a certaintly or a slam dunk. There are always multiple ways to view a set of facts, and to interpret a case or a statute.  Lawyers are trained to see everything as grey, and because we know the realities of the legal system, we're used to it.  Clients, not so much.  When a client enters the Trenches, they think in terms of legal rights and what's "fair."   "Fair" is not a thing, it is a feeling.  What clients don't see is that what's "fair" in any given situation depends on who's looking at it, and that no two people see any set of facts the same way.  Same thing with the law. Also, clients tend to see what's "fair" as the ultimate test of whether a settlement is acceptable.  Here in the Trenches, a sense of fairness is but one test of whether any settlement is acceptable.  We also look at:
1.  The interests and needs of the parties and any others affected by the settlement;
2.  The impact on the relationship of the parties moving forward;
3.  The law and the principles underlying the law;
4.  Practical and economic realities of the settlement; and
5.  Any agreements the parties have reached in the past.

You can't view "fair" in a vacuum.  Resolving a legal dispute is a careful balancing act of competing needs and interests of everyone affected, of which a sense of fairness is only one part.  If you only see a win or a loss and nothing in between, you're not seeing the grey and you will never be satisfied with any result, because grey is all we have - here in the Trenches.