Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
No.. more like this:
The church told us that the Earth was flat, so that if we tried to circumnavigate it, we'd fall off the edge of the Earth.
We sailed around the Earth and it turned out to be round.
Then we came back bitching because we were supposedly lied to.
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Actually, no. Aside from the apples to oranges comparison already noted, unless the church also
knows that the Earth is round, there is no lie involved. It is a mistake or ignorance (even willful ignorance), not a lie. As I remind my children, it's not a lie unless there is intent to deceive.
It's really like this:
You advise your client, who is trying to negotiate a property settlement, of the possible scenarios and risks involved in going to trial, making sure your client understands the possible worst-case outcome. Your client, against your advice, goes to trial. You do your best at trial, and your client gets a more favorable result than the settlement would have provided or than you had predicted as likely.
Did you lie to your client? Was your advice more spin than reality? Or were you doing what your client paid you to do? Only someone in the the-only-good-lawyer-is-a-dead-lawyer camp would say it was "prudent" to label your advice as more spin than reality, or as lies.