If your client was your significant other…

As attorneys, we have relationships with clients. Some of these are good, some of them are bad, and then the rest vary in between. The parallels between the professional relationship and the personal relationship are telling. At least I think so:

The Basic Personal Injury Client: A College Sophomore dating a High School Freshman. There is little to no intellectual connection between the two. The High Schooler worships the ground that the college student walks on, but as the time goes by, the college student cares less and less. Until they only care one-third.

Immigration Client: Think ‘hot foreign exchange student’ with the sexy accent. Then you get to know them and their intimate details. As the relationship develops, and the nose dive begins, their flaws begin to annoy the hell out of you. They think that by having you, the attorney, that they don’t need anything else. As your relationship progresses, and the client fails to pay her bills or do what she is told you openly question if this person really deserves to stay in the country. You stay together for a little while longer, but, at the end of the day, this was a relationship based on lust mutual wants.

Divorce Client: Rebound relationship.

Catastrophic Personal Injury Client: This is your first true love. You fall deeply in love with this client and she is your end all, be all. This is like the relationship that starts one day and by day 15, you are de facto living together: seven figure contingency fees dance in your head as you work non-stop to prepare this case for settlement and/or trial. And just as quickly as it began, it ends. You are a changed person usually for the better after this client, wiser, wealthier and more focused on how to improve your future relationships. You will look back on her as the ‘one that got away’ but as the one that set your standards for the rest of your clients.

Residential Real Estate Client: Think online dating. Lots of communication about a shared vision, but none of this happens face to face. Then, finally, the first face to face meeting occurs. There are some sparks but nothing serious. The closing is a success, but there is no long term future here. You remain friends and maybe will get together again in five or ten years time. But the same fate will result.

Corporate Litigation Client: The dominating individual who ‘wears the pants in the relationship.’ Nothing you do will satisfy this client. You will be constantly seeking their approval, yet you will get nothing but intellectual and emotional abuse. Their business savvy will trump reason, common sense and your legal education. They are always right. In order to get them to see the light, you have lie through your teeth to focus the truth so that they believe that they came up with the ideas that you have carefully crafted. People will stay in these relationships because they are convenient and you occasionally get what you need.

Probate Client: Necrophilia disgusts me.

The Habitual Criminal Client: This is the guy that constantly cheats on their significant other but keeps getting taken back. The attorney knows that they have a bad streak in them, but they are going to change (and the attorney thinks that they will be the one to change them). All of your friends look at you and wonder, “Why do you think they will change?” but you see the good in them. And you will be there to bring it out in them. Or be there to remind the judge during the sentencing mitigation phase of all of the good in them.

Corporate Transactional Clients: This is The One. You both are educated and focused individuals. You love and cherish each other. You both have fervent beliefs in what is right and wrong. You both know your path in life and respect each other. You will occasionally drive each other nuts, but you both know that this is the real thing and it will be a successful, long-term partnership. Except, due to those damn ethic laws, you cannot consecrate the relationship. But that’s why you have a secretary and they have a tennis pro.

And when things turn south with your client, just read what I wrote yesterday. You’ll be fine.

Ending a (client) relationship

I’ve spent the last few minutes staring in front of a blank page on Microsoft Word, I’ve got a file spread in front of me and I know what I have to do. There is nothing worse than the awkward silence that falls over you because you just don’t like being the bearer of bad news. Baby….we need to talk…

I’m not a person that likes to hear about these things but I’m also not one that will tell a client that they are wasting my time. I have to care. This particular case is one where the client calls all of the time to detail the pain, the suffering and overall misery that she is going through. It’s a sob story. Really it is. You are such an amazing woman…you deserve the best.

But, I can’t and my firm can’t retain clients that don’t have a case. If we were charging two-hundred fifty dollars an hour to act as counselors therapists maybe we could keep her on board. But, we’ve concluded our due diligence and there is no liability for anyone. It’s not you, it’s me.

It’s an accident where she is at fault. Working on contingency says that this is a no brainer. I don’t want to hold you back from the great things that you can accomplish in your life…

Thus, I stare at the screen, realizing that I must fire this client. My firm has a form letter for this, but that just feels cold. Sweetie, you have been an inspiration to me…

But I only have so many free minutes in the day and my prose for this letter will not assist the bottom line. Thus, I open the form letter. I love you, but I’m not in love with you…

Us Lawyery Types, We are…well…we just are.

Newbie Attorney: Come here! [As he is running away from his office, he waves me over]
Me: What’s wrong?
Newbie Attorney: I’m on a new protein shake and it is making me gassy as all hell. I just ripped a giant fart in my office and I can’t stay in there it smells so bad.
Me: [After I stop laughing] What about the attorney that you share office space with?
Newbie Attorney: Oh, she knows.

The Next Day:

Me: How’d your dinner go?
Newbie Attorney: Dinner-Date.
Me: How’d your dinner-date go?
Newbie Attorney: I had to keep excusing myself to go fart.
Me: [Laughing so loud that another attorney tells me to shut up]
Newbie Attorney: I told her of “my condition” and then I paid for dinner by gift certificate.
Me: Suave, Debonair and gassy. The date obviously went well then.
Newbie Attorney: What can I say? I’m a true romantic.

Partner at 26, Married at 28, Divorced at 28 and 2 months

There's a clerk in my office. A 2L that will be summering at a big law firm out east this coming summer. I believe that she will, in fact, hate her life take over the entire world. Right after she gets her offer, passes the bar, gets sworn in, and begins work as a practicing lawyer in a big law litigation department, her plan is simple:

"My plan is to bill 3000 hours my first year at the firm. That is, unless, I am dating someone. Then I will only bill 2500"
2500?
"I figure that it takes 700 actual hours to bill 500, and that's a lot of quality time with a boyfriend. Like time spent sleeping"
You realize that 700 actual hours is less than 30 days
"I'll end a first date in 30 minutes if it isn't going anywhere"