A professional career is not a parade of victories. Sometimes your worst opponent is yourself.
This story is fifteen years old. I was already an experienced lawyer — years of practice, proven processes, a real track record. The case: recognise a property as residential through the courts and register the client’s permanent address there. We did the work — months of collecting documents, expert reports, approvals.
Then came the finishing line. The court announced: claim upheld. Victory.
My assistant suggested going to pick up a copy of the decision immediately. I stopped him: “Why spend the time? It comes into force in a month — we will pick it up then with the enforcement stamp. It is done.”
The mistake: flawed wording in the court decision
When we collected the final decision a month later, I walked into a catastrophe. The wording was wrong. The operative part was drafted in a way that made it impossible to do the one thing that mattered — register the client’s address.
The result:
- The window for clarifying the claim and filing an appeal had closed.
- The original documents were inside the case file at the court.
- The client faced a second full round: collecting everything again, spending money and months.
The client was justifiably furious. I refunded the fees and apologised. The professional residue stayed with me for years.
Two rules for handling court documents
Take any court document immediately. While there is still any room to manoeuvre. “We will wait until it is final” means risking that window closing permanently.
Keep originals yourself; submit only copies. If the case goes to a second round, you must not depend on the court archive and its timelines.
Victories are easy to analyse. Defeats are hard. But defeats are what actually build a real practice.