Excerpts from Everything I Needed To Know I Learned After Law School Client communication tools cognizant of the emotional strain inherent in family law matters, and presumably took that into account in choosing this specialty, you still must maintain the boundaries and refuse to spill over into a therapist’s role. Ditto for your staff. How to keep communication flowing Poor communication is the number one reason for sour attorney/client relationships. It’s a snap to communicate good news to someone. It may be easier to give even bad news to someone you like. As professionals, we are often called upon to give very bad news. And sometimes we don’t like the person we represent. That’s when things get sticky. Look the client in the eye. This is especially important if the news is bad. You have to tell them the truth, even if it’s hard. Even if they really, really, really don’t want to hear it. Even if they fire you for telling them the truth. Better that they fire you (or even blame you) than that they sue you for not telling them the truth or for putting a positive spin on the unspinnable. Human nature being what it is, they will always want to put the most positive interpretation on what you tell them. That means that if you tell them bad news in a wishy-washy way, they will latch on to the positive implications and disregard the negative. An important part of your job is to tell them what they should concede and where they should draw the line and stand firm. If they haven’t gotten the message that they are going to lose something because you said it in an equivocal way, they are certain to blame you, not themselves. Of course, even if you tell them the truth and they refuse to believe you, they may still blame you. But at least you’ve done your professional best. There’s always a gentle way to tell the truth, though you may have to be creative to find it. And if the reason the news is bad is that your client was lying through his teeth, don’t “explain” it by telling him the judge screwed up. That just makes him wonder why you didn’t try to get the case to another judge. It’s ok to say “The judge apparently didn’t believe you.” It isn’t necessary to add that you didn’t believe him either. Always keep clients informed about what you are doing on their case. Copy them with correspondence and pleadings. When you send your client a copy of the other side’s pleadings, don’t just leave them to wonder what it means. Send a letter explaining how you recommend responding and what information you want them to gather to assist you in preparing the response. Don’t waffle. If a client is likely to lose, tell him so. And when you give him the bad news about why he can’t win and he asks the question “Whose side are you on, anyway?” tell him, “Yours. I’m not paid to lie to you. My job is to tell you the truth, even if we both wish it were different.” When waiting around the courthouse for a hearing, we frequently get to observe other attorneys in action. We may be sharing a bench with an attorney who is in the process of telling bad news to his client. I’ve said before that I’ve often added and deleted attorneys from my referral list based on how they handled this one task. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard an attorney telling a client that the judge isn’t buying their position, whereupon the client asks “Does this mean we’re going to lose?” Now, that’s a perfectly straightforward question, and deserves a similarly straight answer. All too often, the attorney waffles at this point. Mind you, it usually isn’t because the attorney is a jerk who wants to fleece this client for the fees he will charge to try the unwinnable case. Rather, he wants to convey good news and nobody taught him how to convey bad. The correct response is to look the client in the eye, and say “Yes, it looks that way,” followed by suggestions for alternate strategies or compromising the losing issue in exchange for something else. And don’t forget that someone else is always listening and forming judgments about you when you are talking to your client in a crowded hallway at the courthouse. All of these rules are ten times more important if you don’t really like your client and don’t think he should win. We don’t get to interview both parties to a case and decide which one we would prefer to represent. We’re stuck with the one who called us first. And the truth is we don’t always get to represent the good guy. That’s no excuse for poor communication. The unfortunate fact is that the harder it is to communicate with a client, the more important it is that you do it clearly, honestly and carefully. Tools for success with the disorganized client If you suspect that the client is disorganized, it is a good idea to give them an empty file folder, with instructions to put all of the correspondence and other paperwork they get from you in the file for easy reference. That reduces the number of clients who bring you documents in shopping bags, and file folders are cheap in relation to the frustration of trying to communicate with someone who throws your letters into the junk drawer or a pile of mail on the dining room table.
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