29 Trial Lawyer • Spring 2024 See Reflection p 30 answer to their legal questions before they finished explaining their legal issue. I felt compelled to demonstrate to them that I had indeed earned some level of understanding of complicated legal problems that warranted the three years of my time, energy and money I spent studying. In my hasty attempt to solve a half dozen legal problems that existed well outside my understanding and ability, I missed the important nuance and complexities of each relative’s problems. Forty-five minutes left to the coast with Rutledge and I was getting closer to the answer I would eventually stumble upon. Yet still, what was the nuance that I was missing? I had been attentive. I was present for each conversation and genuinely cared that family and friends found a helpful outcome for their legal issues. I earnestly wanted to help. I’d been practicing the client engagement skills I’d been working on for years during legal externships. I knew the details of their legal issues and even if I didn’t have the answer on the top of my head, I felt confident that I had colleagues in enough different practice areas that I could likely find someone who could help. Digging deeper Winding through the single lane highway, I leaned into another part of the answer I was seeking at the same time we leaned into a turn. At that graduation party, the closest and dearest people to me were sharing private details about their lives that I knew absolutely nothing about prior to that day. Small, delicate, occasionally embarrassing details — the type that rarely exist openly in the light of day. How could that be? Why would they share those things now? My friends and family were asking me to carefully hold on to pieces of their experiences that weren’t meant for external consumption. Attorneys keep confidential and sensitive information as an everyday part of our jobs, but because we rarely have connections with our clients beyond professional ones, something gets obscured. We become so used to solving complex problems that leave people vulnerable, anxious, and stressed that we often miss the opportunity to attend to the byproducts of those legal problems. Most of the time, people need lawyers because something isn’t going well or according to plan and there may be stress and angst connected there. My grandfather wasn’t only seeking a way to fight the lien on his house, he wanted help carrying the frustration he felt from no longer being physically able to do his own yardwork. My cousin was concerned about making sure her son was getting the educational support he needed, but as she rapidly burned through her sick time, she also needed someone to acknowledge how exhausted she was from fighting a school system with seemingly unlimited resources and time to waste. My aunt was dreading the possibility that any prolonged difficulty in finding a job would threaten her long-held values and pride around independence. There were so many things underneath their legal problems that were visible only because I knew them so well. My friends and relatives were only sharing additional vulnerable information with me because they thought I could help. I thought I finally had an answer, “I wish I would have known how intimate the attorney-client relationship is.” Had I known that from the very beginning, my approach to legal practice would have required a deeper understanding of what care and attention is needed to protect and take care of clients during that delicate relationship. I would have spent more time first attending to the vulnerability underneath the legal problems before the legal problems itself. We still hadn’t reached the coast yet, so there was still time to process and find even another layer underneath this revelation about intimacy. My friends and relatives were obviously not asking a stranger for legal advice. Nor were they
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzc3ODM=