Chapter III Workload of a Lawyer

Work tasks of the practicing lawyer

1. Advisory

2. Negotiation and conciliation

3. Drafting, whether of pleadings to be file in court, or of documents and written

contracts

4. Litigation

5. Financing

6. Property Management

7. Acting as executor or trustee of a will or special administrator in the case of

intestate succession

8. Specialization

Advisory

2.1. Focus on what the client wants.

- The lawyers role is to stand foursquare with his clients interests, but only to
such limit that will not allow him to compromise your professional and moral
standards, by advising on a course of conduct bordering on ethical principles.

- This task is usually based in a large measure on the lawyers conception and
learning of relevant substantive law and doctrines applicable on the particular
facts and subject involved.

Negotiation and conciliation

- Dealing with another or potential adversary in an effort to reach an accord

between the client and the other party.

- Essential Factors:

a. Proposal to the other client

b. Counter- proposals

c. Reconsideration

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 d. Compromise

e. Advice to clients

f. Client instruction to counsel

- The lawyer must equip with a Special Power of Attorney (SPA) before sitting at
the negotiating table. The essence of a lawyer and client relationship is likened to
that of agent and principal in a contract of agency forging out a compromise
agreement. Compromise agreement without SPA or special written authority from
the client, renders the judgment null and void.

- Article 1878 of the Civil Code provides: Commented [AMGD1]: Cge.

Commented [2]:
Should we remove the provision on SPA? - ia

Art. 1878. Special powers of attorney are necessary in the following cases:

(1) To make such payments as are not usually considered as acts of

administration;

(2) To effect novations which put an end to obligations already in existence at the
time the agency was constituted;

(3) To compromise, to submit questions to arbitration, to renounce the right to

appeal from a judgment, to waive objections to the venue of an action or to
abandon a prescription already acquired;

(4) To waive any obligation gratuitously;

(5) To enter into any contract by which the ownership of an immovable is

transmitted or acquired either gratuitously or for a valuable consideration;

(6) To make gifts, except customary ones for charity or those made to employees
in the business managed by the agent;

(7) To loan or borrow money, unless the latter act be urgent and indispensable
for the preservation of the things which are under administration;

(8) To lease any real property to another person for more than one year;

(9) To bind the principal to render some service without compensation;

(10) To bind the principal in a contract of partnership;

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 (11) To obligate the principal as a guarantor or surety;

(12) To create or convey real rights over immovable property;

(13) To accept or repudiate an inheritance;

(14) To ratify or recognize obligations contracted before the agency;

(15) Any other act of strict dominion. (n)

- Most common subject of negotiation

a. Closing

b. Coverage of Title

c. Insurance policies

d. Eminent domain awards

e. Conflicts between real estate brokers over sales commissions

f. Mortgages

g. Real estate tax adjustments

h. Lease terminations

i. Tenant relocations and settlement litigations

- Effective negotiation techniques

a. Delay

A lawyer should prefer to have his client absent during the process of negotiation
if the other side is pressed for time, because this prevents him from making on-
the-spot decisions and enables the lawyer to always postponed further by saying,
I must consult with my client before giving you an answer.

-Further delay in going to trial will in the long end redound to the benefit of all
parties concerned, as well as lawyers, as the plaintiff may need money and be

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 willing to take less now from a settlement than more later from a judgement after
protracted hearings with attendant mental anguish and emotional stress.

b. Concealment of Facts

It is not unethical for a lawyer to lawfully conceal from the other side the least
favorable terms that their clients are willing to accept, as long as it is done with
the primary purpose of forestalling the possibility of a court litigation or of
abbreviating a court trial already started.

This technique should be distinguished from suppression of evidence in a full

dress trial.

c. Fair Dealing

Another approach which a lawyer-negotiator should adopt in order to rake

beneficial results is by not asking more than what you think you can get. This
makes negotiation faster and increases the chances of getting what you want
because of the aura of trustworthiness that this approach creates,

Drafting

A practicing lawyer may be called upon to draft many kinds of instruments, including
originally phrased documents tailored to a single transaction or series of transactions
and standard forms adaptable to various transactions.

The ability to write with clarity and precision and to anticipate all relevant legal and
factual considerations is a lawyers skill of high order. The simpler the language used,
the better, rather than the use of obscure language which often confuse the client as
well as the courts.

The following are the typical of such instruments creating legal rights and non- legal
matters that occupy the day to day activities of the practicing lawyer, as well as
constitute as lucrative sources of his life-blood, to wit:

1. Usual contracts and deeds

2. Sales

3. Leases

4. Mortgages

5. Wills

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 6. Partnership agreement

7. Articles of incorporation

8. Pleadings, compromise agreements

9. Decisions and resolutions

10. Press releases

11. Letter of demand and various kinds of written communication

12. Staff memoranda

13. Advertisements

14. Special powers of attorney

15. Petitions and motions to be filed in appellate courts

16. Appeal briefs

17. Appeal memoranda

18. Letters of administration

19. Letters rogatory

20. Letters of publication

- Compile sample copies into loose-leaf volumes or in a separate cabinet duly

marked in chronological order within reach, so that when the need arises, do not
have to grope or cram for them especially when you are preparing for trial.

Litigation

- it means proceedings before any tribunal, whether judicial or quasi- judicial or

administrative body vested with jurisdiction to decide issues involving parties who
are entitled to appear before the decision- maker and prosecute their cause.

- Litigation vs. Negotiation

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 In litigation, a third party decides issues involving others; whereas, in negotiation,
parties with conflicting interests seek to resolve or accommodate to them by
mutual agreement among themselves.

Property Management and Leasing

This is a lawyers task, especially patterned for small law firms and solo practitioners,
focusing on property management for clients.

These work tasks include:

a. Leasing

A lawyer who is skilled in this kind of specialization, can save his client from
liability under the rental law, by the employment of appropriate language in the
lease contract to suit the terms and conditions more favorable to clients in the
leasing from the interpretation of contracts of lease, the job of a lawyer pay more
dividends than that of an ordinary layman.

b. Rent collection and eviction

There is more than meets the eye in a demand letter signed by a lawyer
accompanied by threats of eviction. A demand letter giving the lessee a specified
period within which to comply at the risk of being dragged into an unlawful
detainer suit for failure to comply,comply creates a feeling of insecurity and
mental torture that can compel the delinquent tenant to comply and comply
speedily. But in the case of stubborn tenants, an ultimatum should be the tenor of
the demand letter to comply, in which case the lawyer should be true to his words
in making good his threat by filing an ejectment case in court upon the refusal of
the tenant- lessee to respect the ultimatum, without prejudice to making your
options open for an amicable settlement during any stage of court proceedings.

c. Arranging for maintenance services and insurance

d. Payment of taxes and other expenses of clients

3.c. Acting as executors and trustees

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 Drafting of wills requires such thorough investigation and gathering of facts,
records, date and documentary evidence, and familiarity with the nature, kind
and extent of the estate of the testator, so much so that it would be difficult for
one who did not participate in the drafting of such will to act as executor thereof.

Also, the lawyer who drafted the will and had acquired sufficient knowledge and
identification of the testators properties and nature of his bounty, should be the
logical person to discharge the task of trustee in the management of the real and
personal properties of the decedent in his fiduciary capacity.

A lawyer who drafts and acts as executor of a will should possess a vast
knowledge of the law on wills and succession.

Specialization

It refers to the work task of a practicing lawyer who specializes or has vast expertise or
is highly competent at performing a specific kind of work or practice.

Examples:
1. Specialize in trial work
2. Corporation lawyer who specializes in dealing with legal problems involving
corporations.
3. Specializes in insurance cases or legal problems involving insurance.
4. Specialize in particular field of law, e.g. criminal law, civil law, naturalization
proceedings, immigration law, tax cases and SEC registration.\

Trial lawyers may specialize in a particular field of law, such as criminal law, civil law,
naturalization proceedings, immigration law, patent law titling of properties, labor cases,
special proceedings, agrarian law, transportation law, tax cases and SEC registration.

General Practitioner refers to a lawyer who engages in general practice of law,

incompatible with specialization, even though there are a few kkinds of clients and
causes unacceptable to him.

Reporters:

Aguilon, Marie Gene D.

Ambas, Kat

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Atian, Ia Dulce

Reference:

Barte, R. P. (2015). Legal Counseling for Practicing Lawyers. Quezon City: Central
Book Supply, Inc.