More JPM & Bear -- working too fast can hurt you

I pride myself in working efficiently so as not to run up client bills and to keep a deal moving. But I've had to teach myself over the years to slow down sometimes to try to avoid mistakes. We are all human, and now I often finish a task, let it sit overnight and then look at it again before sending something to the client just to be safe.

Of course, when you are under the gun you cannot always do that. That came up for me Friday when a client leaving town for the holiday needed a full set of documents for a deal in pronto. I got it done and correctly, too.

Now we're hearing there may have been some mistakes or inadvertent language included in the JPM/Bear deal. Here are links to Overlawyered and Above the Law about some language that may have helped lead to the retrading we're seeing. I'm not accusing anyone (I've read nothing, after all), but we're talking the best of the best law firms working on this, and reading this is a reminder that no one -- I mean no one -- is immune from doing something that could come back to bite you later.

Lesson: whenever you can, take your time. I even used to put a Post-It on my PC that said "SLOW DOWN." It's something good to remember.