Old People

Old Lady Lawyer: Confidence In Legal Advice Comes With Time

Learning how to give good advice comes with time, but here are some tips to get you started.

By  
on

Ed. note: It’s not the battle of the sexes, but the battle of the ages, between the graying of the legal profession and those lawyers not yet eligible for Medicare or even an AARP membership. Can they co-exist in the legal world’s new normal? Please welcome our newest columnist, Jill Switzer.

I had breakfast with an old client (yes, old like me) recently and we talked about, among other things, how difficult it is for some lawyers to answer questions from their clients. It seems to be hard to give answers that aren’t buried in a multi-page memo and even then never reach a conclusion useful and usable to the client. Another old client (yes, another old person like me) would regularly call me up to rant about the uselessness of advice, which wasn’t really advice, but more a legal memorandum about the law that would blither for pages, but just wasn’t helpful in solving the client’s problem.
Those clients to this day still remember the frustrations working with lawyers who seemed oblivious to their needs. To these clients, what that demonstrated was, among other things, a lack of confidence in giving advice.
Since giving advice, counselling, is a lawyer’s stock in trade, how does a newbie lawyer get that confidence? It takes time and a willingness to work with the client to understand the client’s business and its needs. What are the client’s goals in a particular situation? What’s the end game? Those should be the first questions.
One thing that lawyers need to know and understand, especially baby lawyers, is that while the law is still a profession (at least in my mind it is), it’s a service profession — that is, we serve at the pleasure of the client. When a client calls for advice or, as was my case when in-house, drops by for a chat, it’s usually because the client needs an answer then and there and can’t wait a day, two days, a week, or whenever for a response. (Have you ever known a client who called “just to chat,” especially given today’s billing rates?)
Thus, the need for every lawyer, especially the newbies, to be able to learn to multi-task. I’m talking about a different kind of multitasking than texting while driving or drinking a latte while working on a laptop. I’m talking about the ability to shift gears, to drop what you’re doing and respond to the client’s need there and then, to be able to handle more than one matter at a time. In other words, to juggle more than one demand simultaneously.
A caveat: some clients definitely take advantage of this service aspect and pose everything as an emergency that must be handled at the moment. This is what I call feeding a monster. Not everything is an emergency, not everything needs to be handled at that instant. Sometimes the client just needs to simmer down and be talked off whatever ledge he is presently on.
How to decide what needs to be handled at that precise moment? Some of it comes from maturity, from practice, the acquisition of knowledge over time. Part of being a counsellor is learning to suss out what is really at issue at the time, to be able to discern what the client really wants and/or needs at that moment.
Ask questions and then ask some more. Is the customer physically present wherever the client is and refuses to leave until an answer is provided? Has the client just been handed a search warrant and law enforcement won’t leave until the documents are turned over? Is the client calling from a closing where there’s an error in a document that is critical to the deal? Has the client just been served with summons and complaint and an ex parte application for a restraining order to be heard the following morning?
In order to give good advice, observe Rule Number 1: Don’t just accept at face value what the client tells you. Rule Number 2: When in doubt, see Rule Number 1.
An example: a client called me to read a letter he had received. I asked him to fax it to me (this was in the days before scanners and Adobe… yes, that time did exist) and he argued with me about why he couldn’t just read it to me, why that wasn’t good enough. We verbally arm-wrestled, and I won. Of course, I won. He faxed it to me.
Later on, I explained why I was so insistent about seeing the letter. I’m sure the answer is clear to everyone reading this column, but it wasn’t to the client until I explained that my ability to give informed legal advice requires that I see everything he’s looking at, that I have to do my due diligence. Sometimes clients omit facts when attempting to put a particular gloss on a matter. We hate surprises.
Push back and make sure you get the information you need. I always tell newbie lawyers not to be bashful. It’s your reputation on the line if you don’t get all the information you need to give informed advice. Granted, sometimes, you have to make the best call based on the information you have at the time the client is on the phone, sitting in the visitor’s chair in your office, or at the departure gate at the airport. Do the best you can under the circumstances.
The client does not want pages of legal mumbo-jumbo; the client needs an answer. The client is paying for your advice, not a law review article. Remember that the client makes the business decision; your job is to give her the best advice you can so that she can make the best decision. Give her options.
I can still remember perseverating about advice I gave as a newbie lawyer, but what happens over time is that your confidence in your ability to give advice grows; the more advice you give, the more confident you become.
However, even after all these years, I still encounter the completely new, totally foreign, the “what the hell is this?” The law is constantly changing, the service delivery models are changing just as the business models are changing, but the need for responsive, prompt legal advice never will.

Jill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

Sponsored

Topics

, , ,