#126 Why the cheapest legal advice is not the best
In this episode, I address one topic that I’m very passionate about and see come up a lot for business owners. That is, whether the cheapest option is really the best. Today I unpack why going cheap on legal advice may lead to unexpected and costly consequences down the road. I share my insight on navigating the often complex landscape of legal services, and discuss why I believe the cheapest legal advice really isn’t the best.
In many areas of life, it’s tempting to go for the cheaper option. I often experience the pull myself and admit that in some circumstances, the cheap option works. However, when it comes to matters that are truly important, it’s crucial to prioritise quality and lean on the experience and expertise of someone who understands your unique needs.
I explore the downfalls of skimping on legal advice, such as using legal templates or virtual advice platforms with enticing affordable rates, but whose services are often subpar. While they offer a cheap and seemingly quick solution to your legal matters, there is danger in applying generalised advice to your specific situation.
While there are many different areas in our businesses that require our attention, I believe there is none more important than your legal documents. For example, should your terms and conditions not be tailored to your business specifically, they have the potential to create misunderstandings or misaligned expectations. The repercussions of this could be significant damage to a business's reputation and financial stability.
I talk about the importance of addressing your legals before anything else, in order to proceed in your business with security. This means prioritising your legal documents over business coaches, web branding, social media and marketing. Once you know you have safeguarded your business with a solid legal framework, you’re able to put your energy into everything else that matters to you with confidence and peace of mind.
My aim for this episode is to give you the perspective you need to build a solid legal foundation and truly support your business’s trajectory for success.
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business Podcast. Today I am going to talk to you about something that I'm so passionate about and something that comes up from time to time. I want to dive in and spend an episode on it, and that is, why the cheapest legal advice is not the best.
Now, I don't know about you, but I personally don't think the cheapest of anything is the best. It might do. Every now and then, you might just need something el cheapo to get you by because whatever you're buying it for is not particularly important and doesn't really matter. That's not your legal documents though, is it?
And it's not your legal advice. So for the purpose of this podcast, when we're talking [00:01:00] about business, we're talking about something that matters, not a side hustle. And we're not talking about a situation where she'll be right. It doesn't really matter.
So that's the context that I'm sharing this episode on. On a podcast that I listened to by somebody who's really well established in business, she said recently, in what world is the cheapest the best? And that just resonated with me so much as you can imagine, because from time to time I'm asked by people, why is it more expensive to get you to draft my legal documents? I can buy a template for a hundred bucks or something similar. I'm only asked that by people who don't know me, by the way. Anybody who knows me and longtime listeners of this podcast know my answer and they know what I think about templates and they know what I think about the cheapest. But in what world is the cheapest the best? Yes. Exactly. I had a client on my podcast very early, one of the earliest seasons of the podcast, and we were talking about why it is that she does [00:02:00] what she does in business and why it is that she came to me for her legal advice and her strategies, and she made the comment that, which I hadn't heard before, I hear it a lot now, buy cheap, buy twice. And oh my gosh, yes, that applies here too. If you buy something that's cheap and I've done it, when I say to my husband, I need to duck out to Ikea, or let's go to Bunnings. I've got this you-beaut idea. I really wanna do this. No, it's gotta be now. I don't wanna wait. And sure enough, against his advice, I rush out and do whatever it is that I want to do in haste because hey, that's me.
And then yes, he's right a little bit later. He's actually going to have to go and spend the time researching to find something of suitable quality for the longevity that I want. But I was too impatient and I wouldn't wait. So buy cheap, you buy twice. Yes. I experience that in my household too. When it comes to legal advice, why is the cheapest legal advice not the best?
Well, let's think about what you're getting. It is important because proper legal advice and [00:03:00] the right legal advice in your business can make or break a situation or your business. Absolutely it can. It can be viewed as a lifeline. If you don't get it right, you can be headed down a wrong path, or you can be headed down a path ill-equipped, ill-informed, completely vulnerable or exposed if you don't get the right advice.
So when I'm thinking about this scenario, I think to myself, well gosh, if you're going to go and jump out of a plane for sport, are you gonna shop around to try and find the cheapest parachute? Uh, no. Are you gonna shop around to try and find the cheapest instructor? You know, the one that's just qualified?
No, my life depends on it. I'd like the best, please. I want peace of mind to know that the parachute and the instructor know what they're doing and I've got a good quality parachute. The same applies in business when you're talking about your legal advice. So you're going to want to go with the cheapest and someone who's just qualified and never really done all that much, and someone who's not seasoned and someone who doesn't necessarily have any experience whatsoever in my particular [00:04:00] area, but it's cheap, so I'll take it. I would think that most people listening to this podcast would be saying, no. Tracey, I agree with you. I absolutely don't want that either. I want somebody who is seasoned, experienced, who knows what they're talking about, someone who's niched, someone who can guide me, someone who can add value, someone who knows what they're doing.
It's much like the arena when we are choosing a player. So we're choosing a lawyer. In this case, we're choosing where we're gonna get our legal advice. I want to get it from someone who's been in the arena who's had the fight, who knows what they're doing, someone who's got the experience, not the person who perhaps has studied it and who's written about it, and who's sitting on the sideline offering their critique or their criticisms.
I want someone who's been in the arena and guess what? So do my clients. They want someone who's been in the arena and they know what the hell is going on, and they know what to look out for, and they know what to share. And what it is I need to be aware of, someone to [00:05:00] guide me. Absolutely. I get it. That's one of the reasons why the cheapest isn't the best, because what are you getting when you're thinking about it?
What are you getting? Are you getting a template? Are you getting a tick-a-box box answer? Are you getting advice from a textbook or that someone's Googled or are you getting a lawyer who is going to invest their time and their energy to understand your business and know your business, to dive in and ask some questions to make sure that you know what it is you are after, and to make sure that they're guiding you on anything else that you need to know.
And somebody who has the experience and the expertise that you need to answer your question. To guide you on your path in your business. I'll bet you it's the latter. When it comes to legal advice, I do see, because people have drawn my attention to it over the years, but I do see some virtual online legal platforms who offer express consults [00:06:00] with lawyers, some template documents, subscriptions for something like a hundred dollars a month and you can get 24 months of on-tap legal advice. But what I've come to realize from clients who have reached out to me after going down that unfortunate path is that most of what they're able to access is limited severely or significantly limited to particular questions only. If it's anything out of the ordinary, we can't help you. Tick box templates provided you're not doing anything particularly unique or different in your business, so really is limited. So what you're getting with that cheap legal advice is very limited. It's very restrained and you don't know whether it's going to meet your needs and suit you because you are not a lawyer and you don't know what it is that you need, so you're still feeling exposed and vulnerable. So the idea, in my view, of reaching out to a lawyer to be part of your team and [00:07:00] to give you the advice and support that you need is because you need somebody who's got the expertise and who knows all the things that you don't.
If you are asked by a lawyer on one of these virtual online law firm arrangements, what is it that you need? Fill out this form and we will give it to you, how do you know? How do you know what to tick? Because as I understand it, they need more than, I need terms and conditions for my service offering.
Well, yes, but then they ask you a series of questions that you have to fill out so they can complete their template. And if you don't know the answers to those things, too bad, so sad, they can't advise you because that's specialised. So really the theme here, as you can hear coming through, is when you are getting something so cheap, there's a reason for it and it falls short of where it needs to be and of where you deserve it to be.
In my experience, anybody good at anything in their professional life, niches in. So I'm sure you've heard the phrase, a jack of all trade and a master of none. So we don't want a jack of all [00:08:00] trades and a master of none when it comes to something so specialised like legal advice. If it's something specialised that you need, you want somebody with significant expertise in that particular area.
So if you need a business lawyer, you don't go and see someone for conveyancing or for a will. And similarly, if you need a will, you don't come and see me. You don't come and see a business lawyer. Those of us that are really good at our craft don't dabble in other areas. We respect other professionals and we are aware of what our boundaries are.
So I wouldn't do a will for you any more than I do your, your property conveyance for you or your mum and dad. But there are lawyers who do, because they're good at it and they niche. So if you think about a situation of, you've got a health issue and you know that it's in relation to your neurological function and it's really worrying you, and you go to your GP and you ask for a referral and you end up needing a brain surgeon.
Who do you want to operate on you? Your GP or the brain [00:09:00] surgeon that's had loads of experience at putting people under the knife and who's got a stellar outcome. I know which one I'm going to, and it's not the GP, not for that. It's horses for courses. Same thing goes when you're reaching out to someone for legal advice.
It was only very recently that a client came to me and said, look, the other side, I handed over our agreement. I won't go into any more detail than this, but I handed over our agreement and the other side gave it to their friend who's a newly admitted lawyer. And she's got these comments, and I read those comments and I was really worried because the comments made it very clear that the person reading it, i.e. the new lawyer, didn't understand what she was reading.
And these poor people who had gone to her to get advice because she had the label lawyer, she had the title lawyer, thought that she must know all the things, but she didn't. And it was very clear from the comments she made. So when you are seeking professional advice, that's what the cheapest is gonna get you.
You're gonna ask yourself, what is the cheapest getting here? When it comes to cheap [00:10:00] legal advice, what you are getting is vulnerability and exposure when what you should be getting is confidence, peace of mind, and a solid legal framework to move forward. That, my friends, is why the cheapest is not the best. Because somebody with the experience, with the expertise, who is seasoned, who's been in the arena, who knows what it is that they need to know to be able to do what it is that they're doing, they will charge for it. They charge their worth. As you charge your worth in your business, they will charge their worth in their business.
I see it too often. I think it's scary, and I'm hoping that this episode, it will shed a little bit of light on what it is to look out for when you are seeking legal representation. When you are looking for a lawyer to be a part of your team, what else do you need to be focused on other than the price?
This is not a podcast where I'm saying to price is not important. It is, budget is a reality of any small business. Cashflow is real. We've gotta balance it out. But when you're [00:11:00] triaging and you're working out where to spend your money and when, my view for the reasons I've outlined on this episode and previous episodes is that the legal advice needs to be at the top, most definitely above business coaches, web branding, social media, marketing. Because if you don't get that right, you could be setting yourself up for failure. And if you end up in a situation which is a result of cheap or no legal advice, it can cost you big time. It can cost you a lot in terms of the ability to continue trading.
It can cost you a lot in terms of the risk, your reputation, the whole lot. It's not worth it, and it can be avoided.
That's it for today's episode. That's my take, and that's what I wanted to share with you on why the cheapest legal advice is not the best.
It's clearly not. After listening to this episode, if you were ever in any doubt, you know now why it's not. If you think that you need legal help, if you're not [00:12:00] sure if you've got the right legal documents in place, if you're not quite sure what you need, please jump over to the website and have a look at the masterclasses on there.
I've recorded a series of masterclasses to help business owners like you spend some time on your own to work through, just to listen to all the things that I share in these masterclasses so that you know where you sit with your business, what you need, what you've got, and you can work it out and get some real clarity then, so that you're a little clearer when you do reach out to someone like me or your business lawyer to get some help on upleveling or next steps with your legal documents.
As always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time.
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