Why Most People Hate BAD Lawyers

"Bad Lawyers Suck, BIG time"

By Louis Nogali:
 

The BEAST within:

 Regrettably, I heard of  a consummately uncouth and ill-mannered PERSONAL INJURY Lawyer. He reminds me of a cockroach in a cheap suit. His manner is so churlish, his presence so ignoble, that interacting with him is like suddenly discovering two-month old putrid leftovers in a refrigerator. Picture it. The only reaction is flight. 

When I hear him on the Radio on his weekend Radio show, I keep a fragment of stale bread in my pocket. When I hear him, I fling it into a corner. Then I can get away safely while he demoralizes another caller (neat trick, huh?). 

I'm not exaggerating. Well, maybe a little - sometimes I use old cheese instead of bread. 

Wonderfully, no other attorney I've ever heard of plummets even close to this creature's blackened depths. 

But most bad lawyers have pretty awful manners. In a Catholic grammar school, most would get many sharp raps on the knuckles with a ruler. Bad people skills always head people's hate-list for lawyers; and that's strange, because all legal problems involve people. If a Lawyer wants happy clients, but he is a bad lawyer, who is willing to pay for his/her services?  No One...Then it makes sense to have good manners. 

 

Hey, What's Your Name Again?:

At the root of this is that lawyers have a misplaced sense of self-importance. It starts with not listening. Most lawyers don't really listen to clients. Lots of them take turns talking with clients, but few carefully and actively listen. Most think clients are stupid people when they come for consultation and once a client utters anything even faintly recognizable as a magical legal Issue, they then interrupt them and begin their invocation. Often a lawyer doesn't even know the full extent of the problem first before the verbal flood spews forth. Sometimes lawyers do this when the poor client is visibly upset, or worse - crying. Lawyers should stop doing this to clients.. They should listen first before they say anything. They should make sure the client has told them everything about their case before they talk. 

The client is hurting. That's why they're in their office. They want the hurt to stop. People don't go to lawyers with little problems. Clients are in emotional pain, and they want the pain to go away. They suffered some type of physical trauma and it hurts...

Sometimes the pain is emotional...and it never goes away...Lawyers should try to remember how painful their first visit to a Dentist was... That's how the client feels all the time. This is even more pronounced for a Personal Injury client. These type of clients, are often strangers in a  legal system which seems very unfriendly and threatening to them because they don’t’ understand it. 

Many Personal injury clients have had their lives turned upside down for no fault of their own...A good lawyer should respect that.If a Personal injury client wants to talk for a while, a good lawyer should let them talk. If they want to cry, he should give them some tissues and let them cry. Better yet, a good lawyer should go over and sit or kneel next to them while they cry. It's reassuring, and comforting. If a client is  initially uncomfortable, a Good lawyer should not sit across the desk. He should sit in a chair next to them. He should read their emotions, and try to understand them. 

Do the client’s spoken words match the body language? Could there be something important they're not telling the lawyer? Sometimes the real answer is about five or six questions deep. Sometimes "yes" doesn't mean, "yes"; it means, "I'm too upset to tell you." If the lawyer is unsure, he should ask them. No client (or spouse, or child, or colleague) ever gets upset because a GOOD lawyer is sincerely trying to understand them.

 When a client has settled in, and the Good Lawyer has established some trust with them, then the Good Lawyer can ask them if they want to discuss legal matters. But until then, he should not.. First a Good Lawyer should make sure the client is comfortable and at ease. 

 The client doesn't really care how smart the Lawyer is, or how many awards he has, or  what groups he has spoken to, or how many senators he  knows. The client doesn't even care about a legal solution - until they're sure the Good Lawyer understands them.Clients aren't paper bags full of legal issues for the Lawyer to spot. Clients are living, breathing, feeling, and emotional creatures. Very often they are heartbroken as well.  

 A Good lawyer should keep his self-anointed legal brilliance to himself until he is sure a client has said everything they need to say. Otherwise a client will justifiably dislike him. It’s sort of like a doctor who started prescribing pills before the patient is even finished describing the symptoms. 

DO YOU WANT TO BE A GOOD LAWYER ? Do you want to be a superstar listener? Feed it back. Tell the client you'll repeat back to him/her what you think she said, so that you're sure you've understood him/her. Then do it...!!  clearly, point by point, in your own words. Very often and attorney will  find that a client has missed something. Even if the Lawyer hasn’t,  feeding it back will endear the Good Lawyer  to the client. His/her jaw may drop to the floor. 

When was the last time anyone, a lawyer particularly, took great pains to understand a client to his satisfaction? Probably never.A Good Lawyer should be a good listener that it's almost disarming. A Good Lawyer should listen to a client closely. Watch their body language and listen to them. Make sure the words match the demeanor. Get everything. Listen.

 

Teach Your Child (Or Lawyer) To Wait For A Pause In The Conversation:  

Here's another way Most Bad lawyers get clients - or anyone - to dislike them: interrupt them. Want to arouse resentment in someone, even another attorney? Interrupt them. 

There was an attorney in the San Diego area once who recently talked and talked and talked about some post-conviction relief one of his clients needed. It was almost an athletic event trying to get a words in before he would interrupt. You've been through this. Finding yourself rushing your sentences so you can convey a complete thought before the other fellow starts talking. It's like the other person's mouth is a twitching racehorse in the starting gate. A conversation with an Interrupter is unpleasant and difficult for anyone much more for a client... Is hard to imagine how this Bad Attorney can keep clients if he interrupts them like that. 

Good salespeople know how irritated prospects get when they're interrupted in mid-sentence, and avoid doing so at all costs. Bad Lawyers, unlike good salespeople, think they're irreplaceable; and that no matter how churlishly they act, people just have to accept it. Most BAD lawyers never stop to think about how inconsiderate it is to interrupt people and that's a big mistake. The Client is the ULTIMATE BOSS. He can fire you at any time simply by finding another attorney who is polite and considerate. An attorney is  a fool when he loses clients through thoughtless behavior. So a Good Attorney must be  considerate. Don't interrupt.  Specially a client !!
 

Stupidity: The Deliberate Cultivation Of Ignorance:  

A Bad attorney can still be a boor without interrupting people. How about not giving someone their full attention? Treating them like they're less important than a housefly flitting across your desk. There are many  attorneys who are very skilled at making people feel incidental. When a client is talking to them, they perpetually and on purpose seem to be doing something else. 

When a client is in their office they check their e-mails and tap on computer keys - while the client is  speaking to them. Or when the client calls them, The Bad Lawyer  immediately puts them on the speaker phone, so that it sounds like he's talking from a megaphone across the street. And while he does this a client can hear papers shuffling and more keyboard tapping in the background.

A Bad Lawyer should not do this either. It’s academic. When a client is in an attorney’s  office, he should give them their full attention, even if the client it's only the cleaning lady.  A Good attorney should turn his computer screen off. That will remove any temptation to look at it. And a Good Lawyer should not use the speaker phone for a conversation. Speaker phones are for waiting on hold, not for talking to people. 

If a Good Lawyer must do something else while their clients are on the telephone, they should use a headset. Or Better yet don't do anything else. If they do, chances are very good that he might miss something very important, and it may be something critical. 

A Good Lawyer should never take telephone calls when he is with a client. He should not even take a quick glance at his cell phone. It's very rude and inconsiderate. How would a Bad Lawyer  feel if his doctor was watching television while he was examining him?In law school a Bad Lawyer develops habits of trying to cram as many things as possible into every millisecond of his available time. That's what leads to all these bad habits. And clients dislike it intensely. 

So if an attorney wants to be liked by his clients, he should be considerate and polite: He should give other people his full attention; listen to them actively, not casually; he should be eager to understand other people and make them feel valuable. He should not  be a self-involved boor; everyone else is at least as important as he is.

Inebriated With The Exuberance Of Your Own Verbosity…:  

Here's another beautiful habit by a Bad Lawyer.  Along with poor listening, interrupting, and not giving people their full attention, Bad attorneys seem to think it's their divine right to lecture people; even to other lawyers. This is a terrible practice destined to cost a client  money and make that Bad Lawyer even more unpopular. Most clients couldn't care less about the "why"; all they want is the "what." That is, what the law means to their case. A Good Lawyer should tell them that. And he should tell them in language they can understand. A good Lawyer should not lecture a client. If client wants legal clarification or elaboration, then a Good Lawyer should go into more detail. But make sure a client asks first. 

Most Bad Lawyers sometimes think that whatever they say sounds like music, so they give a client  a four-hour Wagner opera rather than a short, catchy jingle. A Good Lawyer should keep it simple; keep it brief. 

A Good Lawyer should always speak in plain English, completely devoid of legalese. A Good Lawyer should avoid all Latin phrases and legal buzzwords. Talking like that actually diminishes his standing. A Bad Lawyer might think it makes him sound like an experienced, battle-tested lawyer; but in reality it actually it gives the impression that he doesn't know what he is talking about but is desperate to sound like he does. The client (or boss, or prosecutor, or judge) might think a Bad Lawyer  talks like that because in reality he is not a very good lawyer. A Good Lawyer should speak plainly, so that any fourth grader can understand him (and then most law professors can too… maybe). 

And of course.. A Good Lawyer should have respect for other attorneys. A Good Lawyer should give them credit for having half a brain. If a Good Lawyer is discussing a case, He should not lecture a fellow attorney. Most of them already know the law and   talking about it anyways, won't impress them by being an unflagging windbag. A Bad personal injury lawyer speaking to a non-personal injury lawyer often launches into a ten minute speech outlining the difference between damages and inadmissibility, or the difference between MRI results and deposition techniques. No one cares. No one is impressed. When a Bad Lawyer  does it, he seemingly paints the other lawyer as a dummy. A Good Lawyer should know when to keep his mouth shut.

Being A Woman Lawyer is Supremely Difficult, Mostly Because They Must Deal With Bad Men Lawyers: 

 Professional Women think they have a superior ability for lawyering. They think they're naturally good at critical people skills: listening, empathizing, reading body language; and feeling, sensing some one's sincerity. Yet somehow an idea has gotten around, perpetrated by law schools, that female lawyers need to act more like men: tough, insensitive, rude, and haughty. Nothing can be further from the truthSome professional Women attorneys  certainly know how to be strong, whether to a spouse, a child, to a another attorney, or a jury. Men may be a little more thoughtless than women, and more often run their mouths off without thinking; but they certainly aren't any tougher. Being male guarantees nothing, certainly not good lawyering. Lots of male attorneys are terrible litigators.  And "being tough" is really a last resort, like scolding. It cleaves away hard-earned good will very quickly.

Some Female attorneys - intuitively and without thinking - are wonderfully competent because good lawyering is wholly dependent on people skills. Women can read emotions better than men can, they fully trust their intuition; and women naturally are more considerate and polite than men are. People have an easier time trusting women attorneys. Here's what's powerful: giving a client such full attention that within five minutes they trust you as a Good lawyer, or being able to read a person so well that you know immediately when they're lying. What's powerful is achieving such a deep trust that someone will unflinchingly follow a Good Lawyer. Women lawyers can intuitively do that more easily than men can. Why would anyone want to change it? Frowning and using clipped speech and being abrupt isn't powerful. It's bad manners, and it's also bad for business. Who'd want to pay a Bad Lawyer to be rude to them? 

A female attorney should  forget all the law school twaddle, and the tough acting, fast-talking, domineering, power-woman nonsense. All that does is make her less effective. The greatest skill any attorney can have is being able to build trust, and that happens when lawyers listen well and sincerely try to understand their client. Boorish, inconsiderate behavior isn't the least bit powerful. It's just bad manners, and all it does is piss people off, specially their clients . Bad Men Lawyers seem to be naturally good at that. If you're a woman Lawyer , it's best not to copy it. 

A Little Neglect Breeds Great Mischief:

A Good Lawyer should NOT neglect clients. Neglecting anyone - a spouse, children, friends, and clients - tells them that they're unimportant. A Good Lawyer should remember that a client's problems are big problems. Even if a Good Lawyer is  working ten hours a day on their case, if you don't keep in touch with them, they'll resent it. They'll think you're ignoring them. The problem is very common, 

The second most common complaint against attorneys is neglect. Either the lawyers fails to return telephone calls, fails to meet deadlines, ignores your letters, repeatedly forgets critical facts of your case or passes you on to a clerk or paralegal each time you call or visit the office. 

How do you feel when a grocery clerk ignores you when you're looking for a particular item in a grocery store? Irritated? Imagine how a well-paying client feels when you don't contact them for two months? 

With any case, a good lawyers should notify the client whenever something happens. If a court clerks alerts you to something, or if you discover a relevant memo, or if a new idea occurs to you about the case, tell the client. 

Even when nothing is happening, keep in touch with clients. A hand written note every few weeks is enough to ease some one's mind a bit. And don't be e-mail happy either. E-mail is quick and easy, and too often indelicate and sloppy. Clients know that. Writing a letter or jotting a quick note shows that you took the time, and that you care. A Good Lawyer’s time  is valuable, but clients are more valuable. A Good Lawyer should Let them know he regards them as important and should not neglect them. 

The Honorable Brian Sullivan said, many years ago, that the highest compliment an attorney can receive is to be called a “Good lawyer”. Every lawyer should make it their goal to have Judge Sullivan one day call them that. So even if a Good Lawyer has  a lousy case, with terrible facts; and even if he loses the case, your client may still regard you as "a good lawyer" if you take proper care of them. A Good lawyer should stay in touch; make sure they know  he cares. He should not neglect them.

Love And Compassion Are Necessities, Not Luxuries:  

A Good lawyer should return phone calls and all other inquiries promptly - immediately if possible. When a Bad lawyer doesn’t return calls, he is telling people they're unimportant. How would he like it when he leaves messages to the court clerk and no one calls him back? Also, a good lawyer should not argue small matters. If something is of trivial importance, a good lawyers should  just let it go. Allowing people to like or love a Good lawyer may consist of little more than biting his tongue about a half dozen times a day. 

A Good lawyer should always be patient with everyone: clients, first year associates, interns, paralegals, and secretaries. He should not bark at them, but help them. He should be agreeable. Smile at people, and help them fortify their spirits. He should strive to make people eager to be around him because he is so nurturing, pleasant, and encouraging. 

A Good lawyer should do this, not only because it pays well, but also because it's proper, it's right. Why else would a good lawyer do this and  work so hard and for so many hours?  When a Good lawyer fails to do a good job for his client,  the public at large will detest them, and scatter when they see them coming.. That Bad Lawyer has become...The Creature. 

There is an old story about God and the devil discussing repairs on the pearly gates. God wants the devil to pay half because the devil's tenants continually damage the gates trying to get into heaven. The devil refuses to pay anything. God says, "I'll sue you." The devil says, "Where will you find a lawyer?" 

By being a GOOD LAWYER TO ALL CLIENTS,hopefully  God will  hire him. 

( DISCLAIMER: No portion of this post should be considered as giving legal advice, but is to be used for informational purposes only. The publishers of this post are NOT lawyers and strongly urge its readers to consult with a reputable legal professional or to contact the State Bar Association for a proper referral)