My friend, Eric Urbach, has a great post at his website titled, "You Have a Great Case!" His article discusses one of the biggest traps you'll face as a young attorney: The inclination to tell the client what they want to hear. Eric notes that these fateful words can be misleading, especially when you consider the complexity of many cases.
I'll affirm Eric's warnings, and note one other thing: never feel sorry for a client. I don't want to sound harsh, you should feel sorry so you can advocate, but never get so emotionally involved with a client or the client's case that you lose perspective. I had a client who fired me, then asked that I return back as the attorney. I took the client back because I felt sorry for the position the client was in. What I didn't realize was that by breaking my cardinal rule, I essentially enabled or encouraged the client to "walk all over me." This mistake didn't affect the outcome of the case (the client fired me a 2nd time), but it certainly affected our relationship.
I'll affirm Eric's warnings, and note one other thing: never feel sorry for a client. I don't want to sound harsh, you should feel sorry so you can advocate, but never get so emotionally involved with a client or the client's case that you lose perspective. I had a client who fired me, then asked that I return back as the attorney. I took the client back because I felt sorry for the position the client was in. What I didn't realize was that by breaking my cardinal rule, I essentially enabled or encouraged the client to "walk all over me." This mistake didn't affect the outcome of the case (the client fired me a 2nd time), but it certainly affected our relationship.
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