Nobody likes to pay more for something than it is worth, and everybody likes a bargain, which I interpret to mean paying less for something than its worth. Economists like to say that the worth, or value, of something is a function of supply and demand - supply being what's available and demand being how badly people want it. Whether we are employees or entrepreneurs, we are paid according to the value we create or add to a product or service. Failure to deliver value means loss of a job, customer or client.

I never cease to be amazed at how often this simple truth is ignored. When you start thinking about it, every time value is lost, the element of caring has disappeared first. Not necessarily caring in the moral sense, but caring in the sense of involvement and focus in the task at hand. I'll try to make my case with a few specifics:

- How much money must be spent to fully inspect meat to eliminate e-coli as a source of contamination? Five cents a pound or only two cents a pound?

- How much does it cost to cook meat adequately to kill any e-coli present? Is there any cost at all?

- How much more does it add to the cost of a home to frame it so it doesn't shake when you walk upstairs? Or to the cost of a shirt to use just a bit more yardage so the seams don't pull apart?

True, we live in a competitive environment, and without the discipline of a market pricing system any price might be justified. Yet the thing we all look for -that thing we call Quality - while impossible to measure in dollars, is the single most important factor in producing those dollars.

Without a doubt, a product can be "over-engineered", whether it be a mechanical device or a lawyer's output, so that its resulting price exceeds its value, or utility, to the buyer. On the other hand, no product or service should be sold, at any price, unless it is designed and built so as to be capable of performing the task for which it is bought. In other words, quality needs to be built in, and quality is built in when the craftsman is at peace with both the process and the final product or outcome. For this to happen, the element of caring is essential, and caring requires that the person building the product or performing the service be emotionally and intellectually involved with it.

A few years back, I went to an eye doctor who I sensed was responding by rote to a question I asked him. My instincts told me to get another opinion, and sure enough, he had misdiagnosed an abnormality in my retina which required surgery. He could have been the most brilliant ophthalmologist in the world, but he was on autopilot that day and was not paying attention to what he was doing.

I was amazed to read about the Everest expedition two or three years ago in which Scott Fisher and Rob Hall (plus several others, including one other Seattle-area climber) died, that at least one climber had showed up with new boots he had never worn and another arrived with crampons which did not fit properly because he had not tried them on before! This is a sterling example of carelessness, or lack of caring, and the results can be disastrous.

Some examples of common mistakes in the lawyer area include:

- failure to properly document and perfect a security interest in a real estate or business transaction

- failure to file pleadings within time limits set by court rules or statutes of limitations

- failure to maintain the client's file to show what the lawyer's task was and what the lawyer did.

Some of these lapses are due to perceived time constraints, inattention, or the lawyer's failure to ask appropriate questions.

You expect, and deserve, the full attention and involvement of anyone you hire as your contractor, physician or lawyer. If that person is not "fully involved" with your project or case, things will be missed and mistakes will be made. Although in a practical world we all have to deal with time constraints, I have learned by experience that almost every time I have done a legal task feeling "rushed", I was not fully satisfied with the work.

As a result, I have made it my goal to adhere to the following with every legal matter entrusted to me.

1. Schedule adequate time to deal with the matter, and conduct client meetings without interruption;

2. Ask enough questions to understand the context of what I am asked to do, so that I can be comfortable I am doing the appropriate thing for the client;

3. Maintain up-to-date skills in the areas in which I concentrate my practice and consult with qualified professionals (or advise the client to do so) where there are gaps in my knowledge;

4. Recommend only those tactics in a court case which have a reasonable chance of succeeding; and

5. To the best of my judgment, do only that legal work which will benefit the client more than the fee charged.

My goal for you, the Client, is in every case to increase your wealth, minimize your risk of loss and to help you accomplish your estate planning or other legal goals, with the same attention given to your matter as I would give to my own. Even if I have encountered a similar legal situation many times before, no two are exactly the same, and it is the satisfaction of helping someone I know accomplish something important to them that keeps this job interesting and rewarding.

The above is furnished as general information relevant in the State of Washington only and may not be relied on as legal advice, specific to any situation or otherwise, by any person, whether or not a client of the firm.