The Power of “No.”
I should know better. I mean, I have been proselytizing, preaching, and writing about how we as attorneys need to have our boundaries. We need to have our boundaries in our work, at home, with clients, in the street…everywhere. And here I am, not taking my own advice.
I have written this blog to continue to talk about how much I love my work as an attorney, and how to keep loving it despite all the obstacles and stress that may come with the practice of law. Naturally, in order to keep this love going, one has to have the courage and love of oneself to be able to say no to those aspects of our job within our respective practice areas that we just don’t want to do. You all know what I am talking about. I am not talking about administrative tasks either. I am talking about certain types of legal work or cases in our practice areas that we just don’t want to do. The stuff that you are well equipped to do but that fills you with dread and gives you knots in your stomach. The stuff that despite how much money is being offered, you happily will turn away given the opportunity. If you don’t have some cases that you just will not work (regardless of fee) on in your practice, then you, my friend, are on the Audubon straight to dying at your desk.
But isn’t this supposed to be bad form for the private attorney? Aren’t we supposed to take most if not all types of cases within our practice area? Like, all criminal attorneys should be able to work on all types of criminal offenses, right? All estate attorneys are supposed to work on all the varying types of estate work, really? If we are supposed to be these bad-ass committed and diligent attorneys, aren’t we supposed to grab the mic in every instance and rise to the occasion? Well, let’s talk about that.
I have encountered other practitioners that have set up a clear boundary in one particular area of their practice. For instance, I had a very experienced criminal attorney once tell me that they would never work on an animal cruelty case; ever. A lot of family law attorneys have told me that they refuse to litigate or negotiate personal property settlements incident to divorce (a lot of them have said this to me). When I heard these particular perspectives, I found myself totally impressed with their ability to draw a hard line in the sand despite the demands of the profession and the potential for making a tidy sum of money. It has to be okay for us attorneys to say there are just some parts of our practice that we choose NOT to do. And, we shouldn’t feel the need to explain why unless we damn well want to.
So, I am now joining those ranks and declaring that there is a certain type of case within my practice area that I do not and will no longer work on. Why? Because it makes me absolutely miserable to do so. It’s just too much for me. I can withstand a lot of stress in my work, but this type of stress is just too much for me. I find the personalities and other aspects of these cases are just too unpleasant and borderline immoral. I incur huge amounts of stress working on these cases. And the reason why I am miserable at it is not that I am not versed in doing it. Actually, an outside observer may say that I was built to do that type of work. But, I have reached a point in my career where I feel that I can draw that line, like some other attorneys who I have encountered have. I recently admitted this to myself when I took on a case that, initially, seemed like the issues would be uneventful. As I started to work on it, I found that the core issues of the case started to intertwine with that troublesome aspect from which I wanted to stay away. It became all too apparent when I was driving home from work one day. I started going over in my mind the next steps that I needed to take in this case and found this sense of dread just travel over me like a storm all of a sudden moving in over a lake. By the time I arrived home, I realized that I had not felt this feeling since the last time I worked on a case that involved this particular issue. I remembered that after I had worked on that last case, I vowed to never work on a case like it again. But all of a sudden, here I was again, albeit unwittingly.
So how can we do a better job at not getting caught out there again as I did? Well, I was listening to an online free CLE from the legal malpractice carrier firm, Attorney Protective, recently that spoke about the practice of screening clients in relation to billing practices. I don’t get any compensation or paid remuneration for mentioning their business; I just thought this CLE did a good job at talking about screening clients and giving attorneys tools to help with doing that. While the CLE talked about client screening in relation to billing practices, it was really helpful in teaching us about client screening in general. Good client screening can help with spotting all the potential issues that may crop up in representing a new client. If you do a good initial screening of the client, you can hopefully forecast whether or not some issues will be more likely to have to be dealt with than others in that representation, and you can make a better choice as to whether you will truly want to take that case. So, if you do a good screening and see that something about that representation may include dealing with whatever it is you have vowed not to deal with, then you have the power to decline to represent that client. You can check out the CLE here: https://attorneyprotective.com/?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=34C01679BA824899B05A3F393AC66D2C . Just scroll down to where you can access their free webinars.
Ultimately, we each will need to make the decision for ourselves in what things we will choose to deal with in our respective practices. I encourage us all to do this inventory. We also need to do this inventory irrespective of consideration of fee. Some attorneys may say that they have no choice; that they have to take those cases that just make them want to pull their hair out. I encourage those attorneys to really drill down on why that is and what tweaks they can make in their practice, so they don’t feel that way. Our health and well-being in the practice depend upon it. Remember, we are fortunate to be in a profession, not a just a job. And with that blessing comes choice that we need to do a better job of exercising.
* Image Credit: 18053390 © Valentino Visentini | Dreamstime.com