Words to legally live by.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Cost of litigation - Brief Article - Column

BASICALLY I HAVE LIVED MY WHOLE life with a modest amount of dread: at the thought of getting hurt or sick, or of falling out of a window higher than a building's first story, or of being hanged by my thumbs or having my fingernails pulled out.

But I don't go around worrying about those fears all the time.

What I do worry about -- really -- are lawyers.

Now, I like lawyers, generally. I find them intelligent, articulate, interesting people. Some of my best friends are lawyers. I figure, though, that if I don't need to hire one, then I'm not really in trouble and my bank accounts are safe.

So I have made it a life principle to limit my professional involvement with lawyers to a minimum. I have never really assigned this principle to a labeled section of my brain, but I'm sure it resides wedged between the centers that control nausea and horror. Neither have I thought of a good way to put this philosophy into something like "words to live by."

But I have those words now -- thanks to Charlie Huang, the owner of Little Ollie's restaurant in Cherry Creek.

Mr. Huang has had a wonderful patio on his establishment for several years, and three years ago, for some reason, it became the object of a heated legal battle between the restaurant and the Cherry Creek North Business Improvement District.

I won't rehash all those details, but suffice it to say the situation has been settled, and Little Ollie's will soon have a new patio.

In press reports, Mr. Huang was quoted as saying he was happy, but he also added what I now consider my "words to live by."

"Lawyer cost more than patio," he said. Truer words were never spoken.

Now I see the cloud getting even darker.

A liberal group called Public Citizen recently issued a report stating that...