BY WARREN BOROSON
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
BOROSON ON MONEY
Irwin Edman, a philosophy professor at Columbia, once told his class that there are two types of people in the world: those who divide the world into two types and those who don’t.
I myself divide the world into two chief types: people with lawyers and people without lawyers.
Having a good lawyer on call is a really good idea in today’s world. I mean, if your neighbor makes too much noise at night, or a merchant refuses to take back your non-working big-ticket item, or someone has been spreading rumors that you are in the FBI’s witness-protection program, a tough letter from a lawyer can work wonders. I had a lawyer write a letter to someone who was annoying me, and he began it this way: “I am going to sue you unless …” Very effective. (A lawyer comments: “But sometimes all it does is heighten the antagonism …and the legal fees!”)
I was thinking of this the other day when I learned that a young friend of mine was unhappy about paying a $300 hospital bill. He had already paid a few hundred to physicians relating to the same incident.
