🪧 Signposts: The Advocate’s Dilemma

13 April 2025

There’s an old legal saying — “An attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client.”
A sharp little truth often whispered in legal circles but far more universal than it first appears.

You see, when something matters deeply to you — when you’ve lived it, funded it, felt every bump and bruise — it’s tempting to believe no one else can tell the story properly. Not the accountant. Not the doctor. Not the lawyer. Certainly not a stranger with fresh eyes.

But when you stand too close to the fire, you sometimes miss the shape of the flame.
You over-explain. You defend. You try too hard to frame the facts with feeling, and somewhere along the way, clarity gets clouded.

You become the advocate and the accused. The narrator and the rebuttal. And it shows.

As a tax practitioner, I’ve seen this pattern too often. Someone walks in with a spreadsheet, a theory, and a lot of internet confidence — ready to challenge 35 years of experience. A little knowledge may be dangerous, but a little more often comes with an attitude.

And in those moments, I don’t just think educate them — I think: stay in your lane.

It’s in moments like these I remember something I once heard from an airline pilot:
“If you think training is expensive, try ignorance.”
It’s not the cost of expertise that sinks you — it’s the arrogance of believing you don’t need it.

Which is why I recently had to remind myself of a truth I already knew: Let the advocate be the advocate. Let the story speak for itself. Hold the truth — but don’t smother it with your own hands.

Sometimes the wisest move isn’t to shout louder, or explain longer, but simply to trust the process — even when every fibre in you wants to take the mic.

Because we may know our stories best…
…but that doesn’t mean we’re always the best one to tell them.

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