Lawyers are frequently faced with situations where they have to give a client advice based on assumptions, whether about facts, what the opposing party might do or how a judge or jury might react to something. This can get difficult because if they’re wrong, it can turn whatever they believe to be the right course of action into the wrong course of action.



Fortunately, there’s a trick they can use when faced with these situations: simply ask themselves, “If I am wrong about X, how does my analysis change?” Then they have to consider how likely it is that they’re wrong but by doing this you can, to a degree, immunize yourself against really fouling things up.



This isn’t just a helpful trick for litigators. It’s useful for anyone dealing with matters involving uncertainty. Including hockey executives hoping that a year out of the playoffs for their team was just a blip and not the start of a terminal decline who are faced with a...