I know your worst client.
It is not the one who calls at 11:47 p.m.
Not the one who wants a 12 page memo by tomorrow morning.
Not even the one who sends you a contract called final_final_v9.
It is worse.
It is you.
You see other people’s problems with extraordinary clarity.
Your own?
Suddenly there is context.
History. Politics. Loyalty. Budget.
And seventeen excellent reasons to do absolutely nothing.
That is the irritating thing about wisdom.
It works beautifully on other people.
Another senior lawyer tells you:
Their best lawyer is buried in work that should sit elsewhere.
The business only calls Legal after the commercial terms are fixed and the signing date is in every calendar. Buff..so familiar.
Everyone knows the operating model needs to change.
Your advice takes ten seconds:
Change it.
Then you look at your own team.
And suddenly the obvious becomes more difficult than a constitutional reform.
In 2014, psychologists Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross tested this with 693 people.
People reasoned more wisely about somebody else’s problem than their own.
They considered more perspectives. Accepted uncertainty. Looked harder for compromise.
Then the researchers asked them to think about their own problem from the outside.
The wisdom gap disappeared.
They called it Solomon’s paradox, after the biblical king who was brilliant at resolving other people’s disputes and rather less impressive at managing his own affairs.
Try this before your next ugly decision:
“What should Manuel do?”
Use your own name.
Solomon is taken.
At Ambar, Fractional Counsel for retail asset management can bring that outside view to one shopping centre or a portfolio of twenty.
Leases. Rent reviews. Service charges. Works and permits. Tenant defaults. Claims and litigation.
Embedded enough to understand the asset.
Detached enough not to inherit yesterday’s excuses.
The inhouse core team keeps the strategic calls.
And today’s loudest tenant stops becoming the entire portfolio strategy.
Sometimes you need to stop being your own client.
Stay cool,
Dr. No
Before you go: how Ambar can help
We help GCs access senior independent legal talent when their teams need more range, more speed or more specialist judgment.
1) Fractional counsel for capacity gaps
When a key lawyer moves role, goes on leave, or gets pulled into a strategic project, we help cover the gap without adding permanent structure.
2) Specialist expertise for new areas
Privacy, AI, technology contracts, payments, cybersecurity, energy, regulatory or new jurisdictions — senior lawyers who bring knowledge into the team, not just hours.
3) The layer between in-house and traditional firms
For work that is too senior for junior execution, too close to the business for a law firm machine, and too temporary for a permanent hire.
4) Legal AI that learns your standard
We help legal teams turn senior judgment into playbooks, model answers, red flags, evals and error-analysis frameworks for the AI tools their teams already use.
Not generic AI. Your legal standard.
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Stay cool,
Dr. No