Decide if you want your Attorney to be an expensive pitbull or a thoughtful advocate.
In litigation or in a transaction, you and your counsel may find that the attorney on the opposite side is less than cordial. Personalities being what they are, this is not unusual and typically not a problem for the practitioner who is used to dealing with multiple personalities. Diverse experiences, diverse cultures and a multitude of styles are the norm in the practice of law, not the exception. Creative arguments, creatively expressed, is often the hallmark of a skilled attorney.
Issues unique to the practice of law will often seep into the activities at hand. Most lawyers have an ego. This is good, as it is useful when necessary for the attorney to be a zealous advocate for the client. But it is often the case that large egos need to be fed or flattered, and sometimes the ego-driven lawyer needs to “win” every court battle and needs to win every comma, semicolon and clause of the lease or the contract.
Then there’s the fee conundrum.
When an important deal is being negotiated, or a case is being litigated in court, several concerns may arise that put a spin on the issue. The saying “Time Is Money” has a real meaning for the lawyer and client, because in many instances the attorney fee relationship is based upon an hourly fee agreement. The need for unnecessary dialogue, court appearances or document drafting (and re-drafting) that result from a troublesome opposing attorney can become, well, tiresome to the attorney and financially frustrating to the client.
Does the client expect to be billed for the back-and-forth? Or does the client expect that their attorney will take the high road and pick the battles carefully? Some clients want to battle as much as the pompous lawyer on the other side, but later do not want to pay the additional hours for the experience! Attorneys will fight to every last drop of the client’s money, if that is the client’s direction. Cents and sensibility often win out.
Is there a strategy that can accomodate all of these considerations and turn lemons into lemonade? Most times the experienced attorney can do so.
The seasoned attorney knows that if the situation is made known to the client early and often (without whining), then the tactful display of fending off the offensive lawyer can be a boone to the attorney-client relationship. The attorney can demonstrate to their client a greater familiarity with the area of law, can demonstrate their strategic use of legal tools and practical experience, and can even display the attorney’s enhanced problem-solving skills. In court cases, every attorney knows that you win some and you lose some in the continuing press for the settlement or verdict, and if the client is properly advised then the client’s expectations and own feelings will often be reasonably addressed. The result is frequently a more solid attorney-client relationship and a mutual respect for the way that the situation was handled.
Then there is the occasional time, when the bombastic opposing lawyer demonstrates in living color in the courtroom or the conference room, and perhaps even in the presence of their own client, that the lawyer’s style (or personality flaw) and the absence of a volume button has done a disservice to their client. The lawyer cannot stop. They need to have the last word. The lawyer cannot realize where their excessive argument has taken them because their personality must view every encounter as a cage match where the opponent (or Judge) needs to tap out as sign of total defeat.
The lawyer is too wound up in their own bluster to see that those with them in person or on a zoom video conference, with others present (including their own client), are rating the argument a 5 out of 10 but the lawyer’s tactics and presentation a minus 3!
Even if the Judge or others in the encounter select their words and approach to mollify the bombastic lawyer, you know and your client knows and even the opposing lawyer’s client knows that the arrogant, blustery lawyer has lost.
When I see or hear of these situations, it is in that moment that I know what was meant by a thoughtful attorney who aptly explained to me forty years ago when he said to “be careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…”
