You’ll take my advice and please yourself!

When I was younger (although, of course, I’m still young) a friend’s mother was fond of that saying, meaning that people should make up their own minds about things, and shouldn’t worry too much about other people’s input. Given that this was many (many!) years before social media, I often wonder how the ability to get the opinions of friends and strangers at the push of a button (whether you wanted it or not) has blown her mind!  It certainly blows mine.

Given that I’m in an industry where I’m actively encouraging people to seek advice (preferably from me, obviously) you’d have assumed that I’d be all in favour of people reaching out to me for my opinion.

Whilst I would never tell people NOT to take advice, it’s still not that straightforward. Simply taking advice on its own isn’t enough.

Firstly, you have to make sure you are taking advice from the right people. Pick your expert wisely!

Secondly, you have to give those people all the right information to ensure that they can give you the right advice.  Half the story means half the advice.

Finally (and perhaps most important), you have to take the advice, even if you don’t necessarily like it.

That might all sound perfectly obvious, and yet still this was a significant part of a long-running (nearly 10-year) legal battle between the directors of BHS (which obviously I’m far too young to remember!) and the liquidators.

The bottom line was that the liquidators were arguing that the Directors were trading insolvent. The Directors said that they took professional advice (they did) and that they followed that advice (also true). However, the advisers said that they hadn’t been given the full story, and the court agreed, meaning that the Directors were still personally liable for the acts and omissions of the company.

This demonstrates that when it comes to taking advice, my advice is to advise the experts on everything and trust their advice.

Kleyman & Co Solicitors. The full-service law firm. Giving good advice.