It depends . . .

When I was an attorney in government practice and clients showed up at my door or on the phone with questions, my customary answer was “Um . . . it depends.” It was such a consistent answer that clients began joking about me being sued by a certain adult hygiene product maker for trademark infringement.

Ha ha. Lawyers have been saying “it depends” a lot longer than people have been relying on said adult hygiene product. I don't know if practicing law is the second oldest profession but it's somewhere in the top ten.

And why does it depend? Better to ask “what does it depend upon?” Well, to start: 

• the events and people involved
• what you're trying to accomplish
• the consequences if you bend the rules to do it
• the damage that might occur if you don't do it
• the time you have to complete it
• the direction the political winds are blowing
• how much something bothers you
• how much it's going to cost to do something
• how much it's going to cost not to do something
• when things happened
• when things are expected to happen
• how badly you might piss off the powers that be if you do/do not do something
• how badly you've already pissed off the powers that be by doing/not doing something
• how badly you've already screwed up
• how badly, theoretically, you can screw up
• whether you've already contractually agreed to do or not do something
  
  

This is not an exhaustive list. It's not even close. There's so much a lawyer needs to know before giving an unequivocal answer, assuming such an answer is even possible in a particular situation. Which is why we always say, “it depends.”
 
People tend to think that lawyers learn some monolithic thing called “The Law.” Wrong. Lawyers learn how to spot issues, learn stuff really fast, and think down several paths at the same time. When you ask a lawyer a question and he or she gets that hazy look and says “well, it depends,” it's because there's a lot of different answers depending on a lot of stuff the lawyer doesn't know yet.