This is the post from last week that I waited to post:
Here in the Trenches, our best cocktail party stories are not our usual clients. Most of my clients and their spouses are decent, hardworking people in a bad place who need help finding their way to the other side. There are notable exceptions. I have spent the better part of this week and all of last weekend dealing with one of those exceptions and getting the minor child to camp. With some people, it's always something. You can't give them one thing without their deciding they want another. You kind of feel like the boy with his finger in the dike, except more and more holes appear. I spent a ton of my client's money that really should never have needed to be spent, except that the other side was uncooperative. It's frustrating and exhausting.
Being a glass half-full kind of girl, I looked for a silver lining. Sometimes, I don't find one. This time, I found a platinum one. Not to provide too many details, but as part of my work this week on this case, I had frequent and lengthy communications with an attorney representing the camp. To take us back a bit, we attorneys get a bad name. People call us sharks. They say we are worse than used car salesmen. They say we don't care. You all have been reading this blog long enough to know that I'm not one of them. Neither is the attorney for the camp. First, he impressed me by how thoroughly he reviewed the situation and came up with a protocol to not only protect his client but also to create a safe place for the child in question. Next, when lots and lots of glitches presented themselves, he gave up his weekend and his evenings to deal with them. He took it as a personal mission to make sure this child got to his client's camp. He spoke to both parents and the child. He attempted to find middle ground. He acted as a mediator in the midst of the malestrom of chaos that enveloped this child's appearance at his client's camp. Did he have to do any of it? No. Could he have just said it wasn't his job and enjoyed his weekend? Certainly. He didn't. Why not? One, he's a good man (obviously). Two, he cares about his client and believes in its mission. Three, he can't stand to see a child suffer. Four, he's compassionate and caring. In other words, he's a great human being...and a great lawyer. People like him make me proud of my profession. Here in the Trenches.
As David Maister places it in The Trusted Advisor, "there is no more prominent wellspring of doubt than consultants who have all the earmarks of being more intrigued by themselves than in attempting to be of administration to the customer. We must endeavor to demonstrate that our self-introduction is under control."
ReplyDeletePutting customers' hobbies before their own can be truly hard for legal counselors in light of the fact that they're generally under gigantic weight to record chargeable hours and hit charging targets (and obviously those things are truly critical).
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