One Bad Apple

You know the saying "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch?" Well, I saw that in action this past weekend.  As I might have mentioned, I was in Anchorage, Alaska for the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association's spring continuing education conference. Everyone stayed at the same hotel.  As you might have guessed, everyone also checked out on the same day - at the same time.  It's off season in Anchorage, so the hotel was a bit short staffed.  That meant there was one bellman.  That's right, one bellman to take everyone's bags to storage, arrange for cars and taxis, answer the phone and send everyone off on their way.  He was overwhelmed.  It was obvious.  Most of us saw it and patiently waited our turn with good humor.  A few, very few, were nasty - really nasty.  When I got to the front of that long line, where I had been right behind one of those very nasty people, the bellman looked at me and asked me if all lawyers were that mean.  Ouch.  It didn't matter to this man than 99 of 100 of us were kind to him; it was the one nasty one who stood out and painted us all with that brush.  This whole situation reminded me of something I read in one of Stephen Covey's books - in the relationship bank, each good deed adds a coin to the balance on account, but one bad deed can wipe out years of deposits in one fell swoop.
How many lessons can we take from this, here in the Trenches?  First, to try to remember that each of us who toils here represents us all, and the good and bad deeds of others are projected on us.  Second, to remember that our clients have likely had the entirety of deposits in their relationship bank account withdrawn before they meet us, and we are tasked with helping them increase the balance on account.  Third, if our clients might be the ones who made the withdrawals from their relationship bank account,  we have to careful that they don't bankrupt ours as well. Here in the Trenches.

(BTW, read the book pictured and you'll understand why I picked it for this post)