Why do we lawyers bother to get documents exactly right, spending many “happy” hours making sure that not only is the essence of the deal captured in the document but that all defined terms are capitalised and used consistently (even in the technical schedules) and that all of the cross references work. Surely this is just pedantic and everybody knows what the document means.
 
One of the most prestigious law firms in the world is the New York practice Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Its co-founder Martin Lipton was famous for inventing the “poison pill” in the corporate world - a key defence strategy used against hostile takeovers. This is a firm to go to if you are betting your company. They have a very low partner associate ratio and go the extra mile on every deal with a line of limousines outside their offices early in the morning to take their exhausted workers home. If you receive a draft from them you will know it has been carefully crafted and endlessly checked.
 
I think that without this attention to detail and precision in drafting and analysis you can’t ever truly master your job. Show me a draft legal agreement with spelling mistakes (that’s what spellcheckers are for!) and I guarantee I will discover a more fundamental failing.
 
Lionel Messi one of the greatest footballers ever said that In football as in watchmaking, talent and elegance mean nothing without rigour and precision.
 
I propose that clarity of drafting it is not pedantry but a necessary professional discipline which we can all aspire to and achieve. When I started practicing the only way to check one long document against another was to get two trainees to sit down opposite each other, with one reading the new version and the other checking the old. Nowadays we are very fortunate to be supported by document comparison tools and an ever-increasing array of technology that will increasingly go much further to assist us, but we ultimately are the arbiters of the document we send out and should take whatever steps are required to ensure this.
 
And it can really matter to your client. The London barrister and author Dr. Michael Arnheim cites this story: During the First World War, Sir Roger Casement was charged with treason. But the question was: Did the law apply to acts of treason performed abroad? The answer depended on whether there was a pair of commas in the relevant section. The Act was so old that this was not clear, but the judges went down to the Public Record Office and looked up the old parchment Statute rolls, where they found markings that they interpreted as punctuation. As a result Sir Roger Casement was almost literally "hanged by a comma." The moral of the story is: do not neglect punctuation.
​

One day this week I was listening to a complex legal lecture on a webcast, reviewing my emails and trying to build a folded origami paper box containing some corporate information that had been sent in a creative and constructive, but ultimately frustrating, format.
 
Guess what? The box remained flat with lots of random creases, I didn’t really deal with any emails and I missed some critical parts of the lecture.
 
Multitasking according to Wikipedia is an apparent human ability to perform more than one task, or activity, over a short period (1 hour). An example of multitasking is taking phone calls while typing an email and reading a book. It was originally a term applied to the ability of a computer to process several computer jobs concurrently.
 
It is an urban myth that men can’t multitask and women can. There is some scientific research supporting this – see this report on some Swiss research in which Scientists discover men's brains are impaired when asked to do a mental task while walking... but women were not affected.
 
However, as I discovered in reality it seems nobody does multitasking particularly well and that attempting to do so reduces our efficiency on all of the attempted tasks. See this article that suggests Research shows that it’s not nearly as efficient as we like to believe, and can even be harmful to our health.
 
And here’s another article headed Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain which postulates When we attempt to multitask, we don’t actually do more than one activity at once, but quickly switch between them. And this switching is exhausting. It uses up oxygenated glucose in the brain, running down the same fuel that’s needed to focus on a task.
 
As American entrepreneur and best-selling author Gary W Keller succinctly says: Multi-tasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.
​

I and a colleague were a couple of minutes late for a meeting this week. The organiser was clearly “waiting” to begin when we arrived. And rightly so. There is nothing more annoying than setting up a meeting whether on Skype or in a meeting room and people do not dial in or arrive on time.
 
The problem is that the latecomers miss the start which is often critical and sets the tone and the scene for the meeting. It means that the leader has to stop the meeting to introduce the new arrival(s) and then bring them up to speed.
 
It may be different if, for example, you happen to be a famous actress like Marilyn Monroe who said: “I am invariably late for appointments - sometimes as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.”  
 
But for most other professionals this approach just doesn’t stack up. Another very famous American, George Washington, was well known for practicing and demanding punctuality. When his secretary was late to a meeting and blamed his watch he quietly replied, “Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary.”
 
And it is not just about good manners and pleasing the organiser (or your boss). If there is more at stake and you are, for example, presenting at a conference then I suggest it pays to arrive not just on time, but early. How often have you seen a presenter rush out of the audience as the last session finishes clutching his or her laptop – which then obstinately refuses to connect to the screen, or sometimes unforgivably has no power. Doesn’t give a great first impression does it, however good their talk might eventually be.
 
I find it pays to check any venue well before speaking, and if I can to talk to the technicians organising the slides and sound to make sure everything works beforehand so the presentation can focus on content and not distract the audience with obviously poor preparation. This is especially if you want to use any complex slides, soundtracks or videos.
 
Benjamin Franklin summed it up nicely: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.
 
This matters even more if you are going to a potential new client when being late makes a very bad first impression. By contrast arriving early gives you a chance to get a feel for the organisation – it’s amazing what you can gather just by sitting in reception, and sometimes it provides an opportunity to talk to your new customer and get to know them and sound them out before the meeting proper commences.
 
As the American author Eric Jerome Dickey says: “early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable!”
​

​Ever been in a meeting or on a conference call when somebody talks all the time? It seems on Skype calls to be recognised good manners not to interrupt and to let the speaker finish what they are saying.
 
However what if one of the participants will just not shut up for some reason which may be tactical, a reflection of their personality or just an inflated sense of self importance. Nobody else can get a word in edgeways and the meeting gets side tracked. In the UK Parliament it’s called a “filibuster” when prolonged speaking deliberately obstructs legislative progress.
 
In addition to overt “bullying” tactics there seem to be some scientific reason for talking all the time. See for example this article on the Science of Why we Talk Too Much which postulates that Our brains are wired to reward us for talking about ourselves. But droning on about yourself is a horrible way to make a good impression.
 
This behaviour also severely limits the effectiveness of any meeting which must in some way involve an exchange of views. Everybody else gets bored and start to look at their emails. As the lyrics of the Harry Nilsson song in the title of this post go on to say “I don’t hear a word they’re saying”. So how can you stop this unwanted behaviour without simply being incredibly rude and telling the offender to shut up?
 
I recall a negotiation of a pan European agreement where everybody wanted to and did talk at the same time. Eventually the chair made a rule that you had to put your hand up if you wanted to speak and he would permit you, and tell you when to shut up. Bit like being back at school.
 
Here is an article suggesting 5 Steps for Dealing with People Who Talk Too Much. Another approach is to IM the speaker and just ask them if they would mind letting you ask a relevant question – or ask another participant to interrupt.
 
Anyway talking a lot doesn’t achieve much unless your aim is to sabotage the meeting. The actor John Wayne, famous for being the taciturn hero in many Westerns, got it about right in this context when he said Talk low, talk slow and don’t talk too much!