Legal workload aside, being a public interest lawyer is taxing. It requires an attorney to wear many hats — lawyer, social worker, therapist, sponsor, community organizer, follower, adviser, listener — and be able to switch between them with almost chameleon-like reflexes. Serving the under-served means sometimes you’ll be the only person who has ever offered to help someone. It means they may tell you things they’ve never told anyone before. It means they may cry on your shoulder and ask you not to leave, even when there is nothing you can do for them.
When these things happen, you might think to yourself: “lawschool did not prepare me for this.” And honestly, it doesn’t. I was lucky to go to a school that asked us to think about the different roles a lawyer can play, and encouraged us to decide for ourselves which role we felt comfortable in. Personally, I enjoy a multi-faceted, holistic approach. I can’t solve all or even many of my clients’ problems, but in listening and empathizing, I can at least acknowledge that they are problems worthy of being solved.
Norm Pattis recently wrote a post exemplifying some of the difficulties that arise in criminal defense. In it, he tells the mother of a hypothetical client:
I am sorry I cannot offer you the hope you need to face this terror. When you call, I hardly know what to say. I am empty and barren of useful suggestions. It seems naive even to ask you to trust the process. Innocent men are convicted. I know that to be true.
I felt this helplessness very recently when I went to say goodbye to a client. I am leaving for a new job and I wanted him to know another attorney from my organization would be assigned to his case. The client is a young man – in his 20s – and he’s dying of a very rare disease. He has just months to live, and in the time I’ve spent with him, we’ve grappled with what this means for him, what the value of his life has been, and what he should tell his family.
It hasn’t been easy to get to a point where we could discuss all these issues. And I suppose as his lawyer, I’m not required to work through any of that with him at all. But I’m all he’s got. I’m the only professional in his life that takes time to hear him, to hear his concerns, and while I have no answers for a young man facing death, I feel I cannot leave him alone to face it on his own.
Saying goodbye to him was especially hard because I know it’s going to be difficult for him to trust an attorney again. It took time for us to get to this place. He’s told me I’m the only attorney who has followed through with what I told him I would do. I know my coworkers will do the same for him, but it doesn’t matter how much I assure him. It’s a process that lawyers and clients have to go through. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much time to get through it this go-round.
Really, this story has just been a round about way of saying what this blog is about, and because I’m not entirely sure of the full subject matter yet, I’ll try to sum it up like this: this blog is about how we see ourselves as lawyers and how that plays out with how our clients’ see us , too. There will also be substantive posts on law and doctrine, but I want to talk about our relationships with clients and what we think we’re supposed to be doing.
Currently I’m in a state of transition. I’m moving from a job representing “the worst of the worst” to one where I’ll be only taking cases with innocence claims. This will be hard for me. I believe everyone deserves representation– good representation – and I’m used to trying to find relief for a client no matter how bad the crime or how guilty he is. It’s going to take some time for me to shift in thought about my more limited role. And for now, that seems as good as a place to start this blog as any.
I like where this is headed so far
I like. I get so tired of hearing “you’re not a therapist; you’re an attorney.” Most of my clients need both and often feel they’ve had neither because their attorneys apparently thought “I’m not a therapist; I’m an attorney.”
To help my clients, many of whom have made mistakes of judgment to get where they are in the legal system when I meet them, I have to be therapist, spiritual advisor, confidant — a person they can trust — as well as an attorney.
How can we advocate for someone without trying to understand? How can we understand without listening — as Spence would say, “without listening with our third ear”?
Listening and empathy, great to learn there are lawyers who value those tools. Can’t wait to read your future posts.
I found this post very interesting. I will bookmark it for later use.
It’s a delicate balance, this thing of being attorney and counselor. You can’t do the defense lawyer part right, I think, without something of the counselor role. But I at least am neither trained nor competent to do the counselor role in the ways I’d like it done. Team approaches are good, if you can put the team together. Beyond that . . . .
In any event, an auspicious opening.
Welcome.
Thanks for joining the fray. You work with your heart as well as your head, you don’t do this because you are a robot, its because you care. It also doesn’t hurt that you kick ass while doing it.
I struggle with a sense of futility and exhaustion and hardly know where to begin most days. This post shames me into aspiring to do better
It’s a delicate balance, this thing of being attorney and counselor. You can’t do the defense lawyer part right, I think, without something of the counselor role. But I at least am neither trained nor competent to do the counselor role in the ways I’d like it done. Team approaches are good, if you can put the team together. Beyond that . . . .
+1
My Hero!