EP 811- Difficult Clients

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Liz Lenivy:

Hello, and welcome back to Heels in the Courtroom. I am Liz Lenivy, and today I’m joined by Amy Gunn and Elizabeth McNulty. Hello ladies. Hello, hello. And we are going to have a conversation that I’m actually really excited to have this conversation because it is something that I have been really working on for the entirety of my career because we have such a direct client contact front facing client job, and that is how we have learned to navigate working with difficult personality types when it comes to clients. And I want to preface this conversation by saying that like in any other situation, our clients come in all shapes and sizes and different personality types. And what that means is that sometimes we work with people who have a type of personality that may make it a little bit more difficult to work through the litigation process with them.

And I want to make it very clear that we’re not going to be taking this time to complain about problem clients. We’re not here to just have a wine fest, but instead to have a conversation about how we have learned to approach these clients. What is the most effective way to serve these clients while also protecting our own professional and personal boundaries. So before we got started, we did a little bit of brainstorming to talk about who are these difficult personality types, how are we categorizing them? And within those categories, what is the best way to approach these different individuals? And the types of clients that we’ve talked about are the really needy client, and that’s in the context of this is the client that has a million problems and is always coming to you with them even when they are completely unrelated to the reason that you have that employment relationship with them.

It’s outside of the personal injury case. It’s outside of whatever matter you may be handling with them. The second client is the one who lies. And I think we’ve experienced this every now and then. I will say I don’t think this happens very often, but sometimes you’ll just have a client who maybe they don’t view it as lying. Maybe this is the genuine truth that they believe, but it does not comport with the evidence. The third client is the one who, we’ll call them the mean client. And this is just the person who every time you talk to, they just end up being real mean to you and it happens from time to time again. And then the last one we’ve talked about is unrealistic, meaning that this is the person who wants the sun, the moon, and the stars, and they’re not going to settle for anything less, even against your best advice.

And so I want to start with the needy client. Everything’s going bad for them, and you may be the only person that they feel they can talk to. And I’ve had this a couple of times. I’m the only lawyer that they know and they think anytime they have any type of legal problem or something that even slightly resembles a legal problem, they call me. If they have a bill that’s overdue, they call me, they’re about to get their food stamps cut off, they call me. And I’m curious, I’ve kind of got my own way of working around it. I don’t know if it’s the best way, but I am curious if you all have had an experience with this type of person and how you have best approached this individual again to serve their needs while also protecting your own boundaries.

Amy Gunn:

I can say yes. I have certainly encountered clients that fit that description over the years. And a couple of thoughts come to mind, be clear on what I can and cannot do for this client. So as you suggest, I try at the beginning of the case and I say, okay, here’s the issue as I’ve identified it, here is your cause of action. Here is how I can help. Here’s how this will probably go over the next few years and really explain that. And I mean obviously we want to be helpful. That’s the point of getting involved in these cases as we solve problems. But if they continue to call, I number one, employ my staff. So I’m not a chicken, I don’t mind talking to clients, but you do have to be judicious with your time. I will forward the call to my staff if I think it’s something my staff can answer, and if not, then I can also make that conversation.

But I also try to say, Mr. Or Ms. Client, this just isn’t my area of law. I would not be doing a good job for you if I advised you on this probate issue. I can give you the names of some lawyers that I know who are really good at this probate issue or at this benefits issue or whoever it might be. I’ll do my best to get you to that person, but I don’t want to tell you something that’s wrong and then create a whole mess for that. I think folks want to be heard, and the fear of course is that you don’t call them back, don’t answer their question, and then they morph from the needy client to the mean client. So we want to make sure that we head that off. But I also don’t mind having a conversation and have had conversations the past with clients that call a lot and say, look, I am not ignoring you.

There’s nothing to tell you. I have no new information for you. If they’re calling constantly wanting updates, and I try to say, I’ll try to be in touch with you every 30 days or so, but just know with this type of litigation, there could be a few months that I’ve gotten nothing to report. Doesn’t mean nothing’s getting done. It’s just means there’s really nothing to report to you of any substance. So I think that is the best advice I can think of right now for those folks being very clear about my boundaries on what I can do competently, but do it in a kind way and always just feel like the door’s open. But I also have had, I heard this recently, I heard this recently where, oh, it was a voicemail message and the message was, I am not able to answer phone calls as quickly as emails, so please email me. And I kind of liked that message because you can answer an email, it the most convenient time when you’re sitting in heels in the Courtroom episode recording, you could technically answer an email, but you can’t technically have a phone conversation with somebody. I kind of liked that. I don’t know if that would fit here. Maybe not with clients so much, maybe opposing counsel, but I do think that there are these little things that we can implement that could help that.

Liz Lenivy:

I will say sort of similar, something that I’ve realized I’ve had to do with my clients, and this is a technique that I’ve developed more as I’ve been practicing longer, because when I was first starting out, I answered every phone call. As soon as that phone rang, I would pick it up and say, hi, this is Liz, how can I help you? And I was just so excited. I was just happy someone was calling me, someone wanted to talk to me.

Amy Gunn:

How long did that last? Oh,

Liz Lenivy:

And I learned quickly that there are just some folks that when you see their name come up on the caller id, you got to let ’em go to voicemail. And I’m thinking of a couple clients I’ve had in the past in particular who I have to let it go to voicemail, tell me in the voicemail what their issue is. And this way I can take whatever’s in their voicemail, try to get an answer if it’s a resource they need, if it’s a referral for someone else, if it’s just for me to frankly say, yeah, that’s not an issue I can help with, but maybe I can have, here’s a couple recommendations or here’s what I might do in this situation. I can at least be prepared to have that conversation instead of getting blindsided by it. And again, it’s just certain clients that I say, okay, I got to let ’em tell me what their problem is, and then when I have a good moment for me, I can give them a call back, which

Amy Gunn:

Is another reason why an email is a better way to communicate sometimes. And that’s probably something that can be said to a client early on and it makes sense, right? Because we’re out taking depos and trial traveling. Phone calls are not convenient, just period. They’re not convenient anymore texts, but be careful about personal cell phones and whatnot. But texts and emails. Now, I guess the downside of that is it’s not very personal. We need to have personal communications and I understand that. But if it’s just a, I have an issue I need help on, then email me and I’ll do the best I can to get it solved probably quicker than I could return a phone call.

Elizabeth McNulty:

I also think one thing to avoid when dealing with a needy client, especially I would think for younger lawyers when you’re just starting out dealing with clients yourself is I think as lawyers we feel the need to, if we don’t know the answer to something, we’ll go and figure it out. And if it’s not your area of law and it’s not part of your contractual obligation with a client, not part of the area that you’re helping them with, you don’t need to go figure out the answer for them. You can guide them to someone that can help them, but you don’t need to feel personally obligated to help them. And I know that that can be hard, especially with the clients that you feel really personally connected to. And I think especially in the earlier years when you really get connected to a lot of probably your first couple of clients, you want to help with all of their problems, but you have to kind of create a boundary there or you’re going to just spend all of your time on the phone helping them with the myriad of problems. And I think if you help them with one, it’s kind of if you give a mouse a cookie, it’s like that and that will become your new job. Well,

Amy Gunn:

It’s not very efficient either to go down rabbit holes on topics that you’re not familiar with. And I feel that need too, because I do feel like I should know the answers to legal questions, whether they’re in my field or not. There are expectations about what we know and what we should know, but I have learned to say, no, that’s not my area and I would not be doing you any favors if I tried to give you advice on this. So yeah, I think that’s a good way to handle it. But let’s move on to the mean client.

Liz Lenivy:

You want to talk about the mean client?

Amy Gunn:

Let’s go mean,

Liz Lenivy:

Okay. Oh boy. This is something too that I did not know how to deal with when I had my first mean client. It feels almost like a personal attack little bit because they’re coming to you with a problem. You’re doing everything in your power to help them and they’re still not nice to you and you’re thinking, but I’m on your side here. We’re on the same team. This is not how teammates act.

Amy Gunn:

An example, this is from a number of years ago, clients that just we’re never going to be happy with the settlement, but it was a good settlement offer all things considered. And it was my advice that they accept it and they did, but then got mad about it and hateful about it and tried to back out of it. But as you know, I had authority. I settled the case, the case was settled, and as you know, once the case is settled, there ain’t no going back. And so this client would call in and just be hateful to my staff and that’s not acceptable. So I finally decided this client lived out of town. I’m going to their city, I’m flying in, I’m going to sit with them, I’m going to explain everything again. And I’m basically going to dare them to be mean to my face because it’s easy to be mean in an email. It’s easy to be mean. Unfortunately, I think it’s easy to be mean to staff people. And we’ve all had clients who are mean to staff people, and then when you get on the phone, they’re not.

And so I, on my own or the firm expense, I didn’t charge it to the client, went up to their city, met them close to the airport, sat with them for a couple of hours, and it was a husband and wife and the husband had said something and had just been terribly hateful. And he said, why has it gotten like this? And I said, you know what? You’ve been hateful. You have been very disrespectful to me, very hateful. I don’t appreciate it. My staff doesn’t appreciate it. This case is what it is. I’ve been very communicative about it, and you frankly have been hateful to me. And he acknowledged it. And it was just so when we talked about before we started recording mean clients, I wrote confront because I think you have to do it in the right circumstance depending on the client. I think you have to start with where they’re coming from, from being hurt, injured, wronged, all the things that go into it physically, mentally, and emotionally.

And it is easy to lose track of that when you’re the target of their anger. But I always try to make myself go back to why they hired me to begin with. And so I try to have that empathy. But then if it crosses over from just hurt and angry about the situation to being rude and disrespectful to me, I have learned to confront that and say, I just don’t appreciate this. I don’t appreciate how you’re acting. If you don’t want me to be your lawyer, I won’t be your lawyer anymore, which is code for I’m getting ready to fire you. So I think you have to look at it all circumstances, but I believe that confronting a client is an important option. And in my experience, it’s very similar to confronting a bully more likely than not. Once that’s done, the bully backs down.

Liz Lenivy:

This makes me think of a particular situation I had with, and it was a little bit complicated, but I’ll just say that the person that I was dealing with, I had tried multiple different strategies and I knew ahead of talking to this person that they were going to be difficult. I had already been warned by another person who was familiar with them. And so I employed several different strategies and I would try to be so nice and so understanding and really gentle. And I would say things like, I’m really sorry. Thank you for letting me know about that, but I’m really sorry to hear about that. And they would flip and say, well, I don’t need you to be sorry. I don’t need your sympathy. I need you to do your job. And I go, oh, oh, okay. And then of course that comment just opened up the floodgates to all of these other horrible things that they wanted to say to me.

So then I decided, well, let me try to be incredibly blunt. I guess being soft and gentle is not going to work. So let me try to be really blunt where I would just get to the point, get to the facts, not go into the sympathy stuff, and just give them what I think that they want, which is information. And that wasn’t enough. And then suddenly I was so cold and callous because I didn’t understand how they were feeling, and I can’t possibly put myself in this person’s shoes, but I’m not trying to. And I’d say, okay, well that’s not going to work. And again, floodgates would open and just a stream of awful things said to me. So then I tried something that I found, I found it online called Gray Rock Theory, which is where you literally just don’t respond. You just let the person talk to you until they tire themselves out.

I’m a fan and become bored. And that worked for a little while. It did work for a little while until I think they caught on that I was just not engaging with them and it would devolve into awful, horrible things. And then finally, Amy, I did take the same approach that you did with the client that you talked about where I just confronted them and I was very blunt. And I want to say that the things that they were accusing me of had actually nothing to do with the case. They were completely weird, random, awful accusations that were really hurtful but also incredibly untrue and made no sense in the grand scheme of things, made no sense in reality. But they would just accuse me of it. And I really think it was because they were angry at their situation. They were angry at lots of other people at the world, but I was sort of a captive audience because I was the attorney.

And so I did need to talk to them for information. And they knew that. And so they knew that ultimately we did have to have some type of relationship and I could not walk away. I could not fire them. It was not a situation where I could fire them. And so one of the last conversations we had, I was very confrontational, still trying to be professional, but saying, you’ve been accusing me of all these things and if you’re going to accuse me of these awful things, then I’m going to end this conversation. But it’s just something that I have recognized that this person and I are never going to get along. It’s not my fault. I’ve done everything I can. I’ve worked as hard as I can on this case, and there’s just going to be some people like that. And the best thing you can do is just try to get the case wrapped up and get ’em off of your case list.

And then if they got a problem in the future, not to take that case, they’re never going to be okay. But I think that that particular situation has taught me a lot, and I do still think that my approach of trying different tactics with them before getting to confrontational, I still think that that was the right approach. And I’m glad I went through this in that I feel more confident in the way that I handle these situations. But obviously if I can avoid it, the goal is to just never get to that point. But Elizabeth, I’m curious, what are your thoughts? What are your experiences?

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, so I’ve obviously dealt with a handful of clients like this, and I think probably as women, younger lawyers probably deal with this more often than men do, just because clients like to see what they can get away with. That’s why sometimes confronting it kind of nips it in the bud, but also this can just sometimes be a manifestation of what brought them here in the first place. I think. So number one, you kind of have to just acknowledge the pain, what they’ve gone through. And I think apologizing for it, just obviously you’re not the one that did it to them, but that’s a lot of the times what they’re looking for. They just don’t feel like they’ve been heard yet. And maybe they, they haven’t. And so that’s just what they’re looking for. A lot of times they don’t feel like anyone’s listening to them, and even if you have been, they just want somebody to listen.

So a lot of times I’ll just let them yell or whatever until it gets to a point where it becomes a personal attack. I think there’s a difference between them yelling and them yelling at you. And once it gets to that point, it’s like, alright, I don’t think this is a good time for us to be talking anymore. We can catch up later. And that’s kind of just when I hang up and then it becomes maybe just an email communication from there on out for a little while. But obviously I think these are some of the more difficult clients to kind of deal with just because it feels so combative and we deal with that enough on the other side of cases. So I think sitting down with them and being like, look, we’re on the same side here. I’m fighting for you. I do not want to fight against you. And kind of a calm conversation that can be really helpful. But an acknowledgement, Liz, obviously there are some people that you’re never going to be able to reason with them, and that’s just the nature of this kind of work. We unfortunately deal with somewhat unreasonable people and sometimes that’s how they got into these situations in the first place or that’s just kind of what has happened to them, has led them to this place,

Liz Lenivy:

Maybe altered their personality.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah,

Liz Lenivy:

I do like your point though about sometimes if the relationship has broken down, just keeping everything in writing and no more phone calls, I think that that is a way to, one, be both an effective communication tool, but two, limit the interaction, at least soften some of the interactions. And also a third point, because I’ve had this issue before where I’ve had clients accuse me of, well, you never told me this or you never explained this to me. And I’m thinking, yes I did. But then by putting in writing now it’s confirmed that we’ve had these conversations. So maybe you didn’t remember it, but I did talk to you about it. So maybe that’s a good segue into moving to the lying client. But I don’t know if that’s necessarily the best way to label some of these individuals because sometimes I think people, they’re not telling the truth, but they may not recognize that they are lying. That may be the wrong word to use, but I’ve had this situation where a client will tell me something and it is so outside the bounds of reality, it doesn’t follow the evidence that’s been produced in the case. It doesn’t follow other witnesses who are around them who can say, yeah, that’s not what happened, but it’s what this person’s reality tells them what

Elizabeth McNulty:

Happened. Well, I think it depends on how important those things that they seem to be perhaps misremembering are. Because if they’re to a certain extent that it’s like the entire case, I think it becomes an issue of can you be my client still or not? Because I think a lot of times you take the case and they say one thing, you get all the actual documentation and it says a completely different thing. And you have to have a conversation where, look, we have to reject your case. It doesn’t add up here. You’re free to go tell your story to somebody else. But if it’s about other stuff, I’m just like, yeah, that’s not what the medical records say. But I don’t think it really matters. I find myself saying that kind of a lot because people just think that they know things that just aren’t true. But I find that a lot just because in your own life, I am sure there are tons of things that I think happened that probably didn’t, but no one’s following me around with records being like, no, this is what happened. But unfortunately in our client’s lives, that is a lot of time what’s happening. So that sucks for them. But if it’s inconsequential, I’m not going to confront them about it and make it a big deal. I’ll just tell them that I don’t think it really matters and just try to move on.

Liz Lenivy:

I’m reminded now of a situation I had where a client came to me with a situation, client came to me with the case that on its face sounded pretty good, definitely worth investigating. And he had said that he had already looked at his own medical record, which had indicated that he had left a MA against medical advice. And he said, I never left a MA. That record is a lie. And I’m thinking, okay, if we can prove that that record is a lie, then that might be a pretty good case there. If the doctor has intentionally altered the medical record to cover themselves, that’s a pretty good case. But that’s a case that we have to prove that’s on us to prove. So I got the records and luckily now with medical records, we have audit trails so I can show exactly when all of these entries went in and that’s what I ordered.

And I had the audit trail reviewed by someone who has an expertise in that. So it’s not just me looking at these documents and sure enough what the doctor recorded was correct. And look, I can’t prove that the client’s misremembering things and the discharge, but I had to have a pretty frank conversation with him of I can’t prove the opposite. And the other problem was other providers in the record had noted it as well. It wasn’t just the one doctor. I did have to have a very frank conversation of, well, there’s your truth, his truth, and then what we can prove in court. And those can be different things sometimes, and I have to base my decision to take a case on what we can prove in court, but I think it is important to never out and out call anyone a liar or anything like that. I think there is a way to gently handle these things. And I think nine times out of 10, they’re not intentionally lying. It is from their perspective, it’s how they viewed the situation, it’s how they remember the situation.

Amy Gunn:

So I want to talk about the unrealistic expectation client. To me, this is something that we can prevent, should prevent, should try to prevent by setting expectations at the beginning or at least being communicative about what is going to happen in terms of timeline, in terms of potential result. Because you always have clients, sometimes even in the very first conversation who say, what’s this case worth and what are our odds? And I have tried very hard to be non-committal for that. Not to be evasive, but because I don’t know, you can’t know that in an initial conversation. I don’t have the records yet. I don’t know the full circumstances, I don’t know how much coverage is available. I dunno what the defenses are going to be. And so I say, any lawyer who tells you what your case is worth and the first time you meet them is not a lawyer you want because I just dunno how they could know.

Now, there are obviously some circumstances in more precise cases like a motor vehicle accident and you know what the limits are. I mean, okay, sure. But the kind of cases we deal with largely medical malpractice product, that kind of thing, because a lot of the liability is going to depend on the acts of the defendant and whether I can make a jury mad about something. And that doesn’t come until you get all the records. And so I try real hard to set those expectations in terms of length of time, but also the value of the case. And for length of time, I don’t know why it always feels terrible when I say it’s going to take two or three years, it just always feels like I’m delaying things. But I say, here’s all the things that have to happen between right now and when this case is resolved and I go through everything.

And then you also just have to tap into everyday events, how long it takes to get cases to trial. There’s a lot of trials in the news these days and for events that happened four or five years ago. So I think really most people that I say, this is going to take a lot of time. Most people seem to understand that and based on what they see in the world around us, but it’s worth repeating in order to prevent the numerous phone calls, what’s taken so long, why haven’t anything, I always just try to set those expectations as soon as I can. Then it’s also fun. How many of you have had clients Google something and say, oh, I found a result that this person got 20 million for a hangnail. That’s always fun.

Liz Lenivy:

I’ve had that case a couple of times where someone said, well, so-and-so got this in. And I say, okay, well can you tell me the facts of the case? Can you tell me what happened, where it happened, how it happened, who it happened to? Well, no. Yeah, but it’s the same. Yeah, you’re not going to get that out of a five paragraphs on Yahoo News or wherever you got this from. I, but I have to have those same conversations like you said, Amy, where we talk about the timeline. I think it’s especially important in med mal cases to talk about caps. Early in Missouri, we have caps on medical malpractice cases, and I have to have that conversation early that way if we are in a situation where we’re heading towards trial or we’re heading maybe into a mediation or talking about settlement, I say, Hey, you remember when we talked about those caps?

I don’t know how many months ago? Well, those still exist and they’re still in place and we’ve had this conversation and you know about it. Sometimes I have clients who say, I don’t remember anything about this. And I go, okay, well, I know we talked about it. I talk about it with everyone, but we have to keep in mind that we’re working up against a number sometimes and the highest our best day in court. And you know that and I know that, and unfortunately the defendants know that. So when you tell me that you want 3 million on a case that’s going to be capped at 500, I understand you can want for that all day, but it ain’t ever going to happen, at least not in this state.

Amy Gunn:

I think that’s a real good point. When you do have caps we do in med mal, I think it’s really important to start that conversation early, and that’s part of managing those expectations. And so when I say, I dunno what your case is worth, I think that is a caveat to that. Well, I know what it’s not worth. It’s not going to be worth over this amount. And I always say, well, we will look at the records. We do still have punitive damage potential in med mal and those types of things. And then you also have to add, well, there might be a lien. And so yeah, I think there are things that does go with the expectation setting regarding the value of the case for

Liz Lenivy:

Sure. I think too, sometimes you’ll have a client who says, I don’t care what they’re offering. I want to go to trial. And that’s just, you have to have a very frank conversation with them about the risks of trial. And so I think frankly, out of all of these people, I think the unrealistic expectation client might be the toughest. I don’t know.

Amy Gunn:

You don’t think so? Which one do you think is the worst the mean client? Oh, that one I just ignore. Well, I don’t know. And here’s why I say that. Because what does the most damage to us of these clients? Because part of what we talked about before we recorded is identifying these clients, learning how to deal with them, but then sort of picking up the pieces afterwards and clients with unreasonable expectation. That feels like that’s something we deal with every day, lying clients, unfortunately, I think that’s something that can also happen and we can get ahead of, and if they’re really lying to us and it’s consistent, fire ’em, right? If they’re misremembering Elizabeth, like you said, just it may not even matter. Then the needy client, I don’t know. I think that we all have the idea of we’re here to help people.

So it’s kind of annoying sometimes, but it doesn’t harm me when I have a needy client, but the mean client, the one that’s the one where even if you’re, what’d you say? The Gray Rock theory. Oh my God, I love it. Okay, I do it all the time. Didn’t even know what it was called. But thank you for naming it. Even when I’m listening to the vitriol and you’re trying to go to your happy place and whatever, still your heart starts racing, right? I mean, I’m sitting here right now getting hot on the collar, remembering, and not in an angry way, but in a very disturbed way, remembering being yelled at over the years for stuff that most of the time I had nothing to do with, couldn’t fix, didn’t. Cause it just takes a piece of you. It just takes a piece of you to be able to put that somewhere and not let it affect you.

So you have to absorb it all and then laugh about it later, sometimes a long time later. And that’s rough. I know it’s rough. And it kind of goes back to what I think has happened, I know has happened to me over the years in this work is you just build up walls. You build up walls, and you let in a little bit of stuff here and there. But mainly what we do is create defense mechanisms all the way around us that are hard to penetrate. And the trick of that, it’s great because I can now listen to someone yell at me and do the Gray Rock, love it.

But then you got that wall up and you go home and it’s harder to take it down. So I mean, I like having the conversations about it because sometimes there’s comfort in numbers. You know that when you have a client that is hurt and has found you to take it out on, you shouldn’t take that personally, but it’s hard not to, right? It’s very hard not to. But if you know that it kind of happens to all of us without any fault or cause on our part, I don’t know. I think you find comfort and familiarity and somehow can be able to deal with it a little bit better.

Liz Lenivy:

I think for me, my perspective of unrealistic being harder to deal with than mean is because when someone’s mean to me, I can look at that and say, well, that’s a personality defect with them. There’s something going on that’s

Amy Gunn:

Healthy with that

Liz Lenivy:

Person.

Amy Gunn:

Yeah, that’s right.

Liz Lenivy:

It ain’t got nothing to do with me because every time when I’ve got someone who’s mean to me, they’re mean to everyone else in their life. Yeah, that’s true. And I know that with the Unreasonable expectations client, I kind of take that one a little bit more personally because it makes me wonder, am I bad at my job? Was I ineffective at communicating? Was I not upfront enough? Did I not do enough to explain this to you? Or sometimes I’m wondering, are they right? Am I not being reasonable with what I’m telling them? But then I think back to all of the experience I have, and I go, well, no, I’ve been here before. I’ve been in this situation before. I know what I’m telling them is reasonable. But that’s where I struggle with is I think out of

Amy Gunn:

All

Liz Lenivy:

Four of these, the unrealistic expectations, one is the one that I have the most control I should theoretically have the most control over, and that’s the one where I struggle the most with them.

Amy Gunn:

Well, I think that’s interesting because in my mind, I was saying the exact same thing to myself, but we control that, and I understand owning it if you feel like you’ve done something to create those unrealistic expectations. But I looked at it on the other side of that, which is I can fix that. If I control it, I can fix it, which is Mr. Jones, I’m sorry that you believe that or that I mentioned that even if I didn’t, right, maybe I heard that, whatever, but here’s the reality, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so I can fix it. Maybe they’ve lost a little bit of trust in you, but you can get that back. Just be open upfront and tell them, but I can’t really fix mean and hurt. And I think that’s why I would put the mean at the top of the problematic clients, because I can’t fix that In order to get through the day, I have to be able to control and fix things. And if I can’t, it bothers me.

Elizabeth McNulty:

I think unfortunately, people can be more than one.

Liz Lenivy:

Oh my goodness. Now you’re complicating it when they’re all four.

Elizabeth McNulty:

I’ve certainly had mean clients with unrealistic expectations, and those are very fun people to deal with. But I mean, at the end of the day, it’s part of our job to kind of deal with this, and that’s why we have the expertise that we do, and that’s why we get paid the big buck some days. Although some days it doesn’t feel like enough, but that’s why we come together to talk it through and vent about how to deal with it to each other. And I think that’s probably one of the most helpful things. These things are really hard to deal with, I think especially the first time that you get yelled at by a client. It feels so weird. But it gets easier the more you do it, I think just like anything else. So hopefully if you’re out there dealing with this alone or you think that you’re the only lawyer that’s been yelled at by your client, I’m sorry to say that, you’re very wrong.

Liz Lenivy:

You’re welcome. Yeah.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Whatever comfort that might bring you.

Liz Lenivy:

Well, ladies, thank you again for what I thought was a really helpful conversation. I feel better now. I feel better, and I hope our listeners are hopefully feeling better about whatever situations they may be having with clients. You are not alone. And if you have any questions, any comments you want to make, you can reach out to us at heels in the Courtroom Law new episodes, drop every other Wednesday now, and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye guys.

Announcer:

Heels in the Courtroom is brought to you by the Simon Law Firm at the Simon Law Firm pc. We believe in the power of pooling resources in order to create powerful results. We often lend our trial skills and experience to lawyers around the country to achieve better results for their clients. Our attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you on your case, offering vast resources, seasoned litigators, and a sterling reputation. You can contact us at 3 1 4 2 4 1 2 9 2 9. And if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with Amy, Liz, Erica, Mary Elizabeth at Heels in the Courtroom Law, and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.

Continue Reading