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Doing Business: The Management of Uncertainty in Lawyers' Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

John Flood
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Abstract

Apparently naive, but in fact not, is the question: What do lawyers do? Many scholars assume the central role of the lawyer is that of the advocate, but among lawyers working in law firms advocacy consumes little of their time. Similarly, the term lawyer provides hardly any meaning in itself. The research presented here is based on a participant-observation study of a corporate law firm. The central thesis proposed, in the light of case studies of the selling of shopping mall and the arranging of a bank loan, is that business lawyers are engaged in managing uncertainty for both their clients and themselves. Managing uncertainty is accomplished through interaction rather than appeals to the law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1991 , pp. 41 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

Earlier versions of this article benefited from the advice of others. I would like to thank especially Douglas Maynard, who gave me several pages of extremely pertinent comments, and Jack Katz, who has given my work generous readings. Others I would like to thank for their comments are Jack Heinz, Bill Hicks, Jeff Kennedy, Hans Micklitz and Eleni Skordaki. Shari Diamond and the two anonymous reviewers were very thorough as was Bette Sikes's exacting editing.

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