Indiana Takes a Beating

At my former blog (you can find my posts here), I often wrote about legal issues surrounding major sporting events like the Super Bowl and the NCAA tournament.

This year, the state of Indiana put it on a tee for me by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act shortly before the Final Four was set to be held in Indianapolis. The RFRA has been, to put it mildly, an absolute dumpster fire of an issue for Indiana. A major employer is helping its employees move from the state, college basketball coaches are boycotting the Final Four, and the front page of Indiana’s biggest newspaper looked like this. Due to the uproar, Indiana has decided to repeal, or significantly change, its version of the RFRA.

Much ink has already been spilled on the RFRA, but I think there is an important lesson in there for lawyers (and their clients). I think lawyers tend to be the metaphorical hammers that start to see everything as metaphorical nails. Litigators tend to look at disputes through the lens of the lawsuit, while transactional attorneys can look at disputes through the lens of the contract. But sometimes the solution is elsewhere.

With regards to the RFRA, the hammer-nail solution for opponents was probably to try the law out and let voters do their talking at the ballot box if they were unhappy with it–which would take months and years. Instead, opponents resorted to a plethora of immediate actions that led to the law changing within weeks.

This reminds me of a former case in which a custom home builder unfairly sought about $40,000 from a homeowner arising out of a house the builder had built. The builder filed suit and we litigated and litigated for months without either side budging. My client, however, knew that the builder wanted more business in his subdivision, so he put a big sign in his yard: “Acme Builder is suing me because I won’t pay him $40,000 in bullsh*t fees.” The case was dropped within a week.

Long story, short: attorneys and their clients need to think creatively to solve disputes, a lesson exemplified by the RFRA debacle.