Legal wit – and waste – Drayton Bird Associates

I have (and I apologise) bored you with moans about my divorce a couple of times, but one story about the changing attitudes in legal circles amused me no end.

I was asking my lawyer why it seems almost impossible to get really emphatic, no-nonsense advice. I found the constant request, “Can we have your instructions” without being too firm on what they should be, rather wearing.

If someone comes to me for my advice then they get it, hot and strong. That’s what I’m paid for. What if I just said, “Well, you could do this, or you could do that and this might happen or that might – what do you want to do?”

But apparently lawyers nowadays are so frightened of doing the wrong thing and getting the pants sued off them that they have nearly all turned into frightened pussy cats.

The difference was pointed up to me by a friend who was in practice for many years, but has now chucked it in. He told me about a choice letter sent by one solicitor to another in the good old days.

It read, in total: “In reply to yours of the 22nd, kindly fuck off. P.S. Rude letter follows.”

Good stuff. The world has gone downhill.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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