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What’s it going to be, positive or a negative?

I’m constantly amazed at the treatment I see whether first or second-hand in my day-to-day law practice. And it’s often brushed off as so-called “gamesmanship” or different sorts of intimidation tactics…I’d mostly just call it “being a jerk” or plain rudeness. At a surface level I’m not surprised because sadly there’s much rudeness outside the legal profession too. And I’m not going to spin off into some rant regarding our great cultural moral decay because that’s not my purpose here. Nope, the question we deal with in this space is, how do you build a great entrepreneurial legal services business.

The focus of this post is purely a lawyer’s self-interest:  The critical impact between your relationships as lawyer with opposing counsel, opposing client, and the other players in the legal world AND the flat-out success of your business whether defined by client outcomes good old “dollars in your pocket.” I’ve had several eye-opening examples just this week and over the last month where good relationships meant success for my clients. And there have been a few jaw-dropping displays by opposing lawyers in terms of their treatment of me that just has me thinking, do you realize what you’re costing your practice due to your behavior.

First, just recently having a good relationship with the clerk in a courtroom likely saved my client a big headache. Here the opposing pro se client was a good hour late for the scheduled court date so by the time she got into the courtroom our case had been called, and an order favorable to my client’s interests was set to be entered, and essentially the court clerk had the orders in her hand set to be entered when the pro se litigant asked to have the case re-called and to speak with the judge. The clerk asked me if I wanted the case re-called, I said NO, it wasn’t, and the order favorable to my client was entered. I’m as big of a critic as anyone regarding the general functioning of some of the circuit court clerks’ offices but most of the specific individuals in single courtrooms are pretty reasonable people and more importantly, it’s in your (and your client’s) self-interest to have a good relationship with those people.

Second, having a good relationship with opposing counsel can often save you in a pinch. I recently had a death in my family that required me to be out of town for about 1 week (see this post regarding handling vacations as a small firm attorney). This was unexpected so I had a few court matters set that I simply couldn’t make. But simply by have respectful and really a friendly repertoire with the opposing two lawyers in these cases made my conflict just a non-issue. In one case the other lawyer gave me some dates and I was able to step-up before a judge on an earlier date and set the matter like we wanted to on the date I had to now miss. In the other matter, the lawyer was nice enough to cover the case for me. This ain’t rocket science but I surely could have envisioned having to pay some lawyer to cover these matters for me and that hurts my practice. Of course this is a most simplistic benefit of having good relationships with other lawyers on a grander scale…think referrals and court coverage and having people to discuss legal questions with and the list goes on and on and…

Conversely, having a poor relationship with opposing lawyers hurts your clients and your practice. If you want to hurt your client’s case by shutting down communication with the other side, motive your opponent to win at trial, create utter disrespect and ill will on the part of your opponent and simply eliminate all the potential positives that other lawyers can provide (see above…referrals/favors/expertise) treat your opponent like crap. I finished up a case last fall where my opponent absolutely despised my client and sadly his feelings flowed onto me. I got a few vile and profanity-filled phone calls from this guy that leave me to this day having about the lowest opinion of this guy of any lawyer I’ve dealt with in 8 years. As an aside, what made this guy’s behavior most ludicrous and laughable is that the case we had together was a court-appointed matter where I had zero control in my client selection. What does this type of person gain by shredding his lawyer relations?

Lastly, sometimes having the trust and respect of an opposing client pays big dividends. The obvious point that is often forgotten is that opposing clients are potential future clients or referral sources…likely not in that particular case due to conflict problems but who sees your work more closely than the opposing client? But, particularly in transactional matters sometimes your relationship with an opposing client can help your own client’s matter right now. Recently we had a dicey real estate transaction with no real estate agents on either side so it was just was lawyers and clients. So I had to be involved in some things I normally wouldn’t be like a pre-closing walk-thru. But having that little extra relationship with the opposing client may have saved the deal. We ended up needing to make some totally unwritten side agreements to get this deal closed. That good relationship (and the clients’ good relationship) might have been the difference between my Sellers seeing $250,000 versus having to re-list the property for sale and who knows what.

I heard that accusation made recently by a lawyer to an opposing counsel in court. And to be honest I don’t often step onto the civility soapbox because that’s not an agenda I care too much about. My philosophy is rooted in serving our clients’ best interests which frankly is usually served by being civil.

Yet I did find the above statement rather galling as it was made directly to a judge in open court. In Cook County these days you can get something file-stamped at the no fee drop boxes w/o really filing something and perhaps avoid paying a fee. But the issue here is that the fee issue is a Circuit Clerk problem and not a substantive issue in the legal matter and thus not of the lawyer’s concern.

What does the accusing attorney here gain by such a reckless comment?

I saw a couple things in court recently I didn’t love and thought I’d write about them here.

First, a lawyer who doesn’t appear on a client’s case in court even though client was told about it in advance.  I observed this while sitting in a courtroom recently and didn’t like it. It wasn’t just entering an agreed order or something like that. There were lawyers for one parent and a child’s representative and then a client who just said my lawyer can’t be here today. You shouldn’t do that both for client perception reasons and ethical reasons. I mean how would you feel if your lawyer essentially says you’re not important…I’m not showing up today. I wouldn’t call that diligent representation (rule 1.3).

Second, lawyer’s who whine about getting paid by their client to me as the opposing lawyer. Obviously this is an issue we all face but I think it’s just plain tacky to complain to your opposing lawyer about it and it’s admitting weakness to your opponent giving her an advantage. I wouldn’t hesitate to file some papers and cause you to do some additional work to push a lawyer out of the case if it helps my client.

I’ve written about this topic many, many times during the history of this blog including here. And I’m not trying to moralize or be too touchy/feely…I’m looking at you lawyer’s self-interest. Like sometimes picking up clients from opposing parties who liked/respected you and thought you were a better lawyer than your opponent.

But here’s another reason that I’ve been dealing with recently…

Lets face it, there are many cases that for whatever reason start with both parties represented by counsel but don’t end that way. So then you as lawyer (if you’re the one remaining in the case) now HAVE TO deal directly with a pro se client. And if there’s absolute mistrust and no respect or rapport I don’t think that helps your client.  So think ahead!

I’m within 1 week of wrapping up the longest and most contentious case I’ve ever been involved with. It was a case where trial/judgment didn’t occur for 4 years from case filing and then the last couple years have involved petty in-fighting as some real estate has sat on the market. Well, this was a case where the last 1.5 years of the 6ish years of the case became me dealing with a pro se litigant. And I’m not suggesting that I didn’t have my times of utter disgust but I was able to I think work with and earn the opposing party’s respect to a degree to cut through the garbage and at least get some real estate sold and now we’re down to one court hearing to disperse proceeds.