Don’t Be Angry At A Lawyer For A Client’s Behavior

Lawyers often deal with contentious matters, and tempers can get heated between clients and lawyers while handling a legal issue. Sometimes, clients take actions that are difficult to defend, and a lawyer is tasked with trying to make the most of a situation to best protect a client’s interests. In most circumstances, it usually does not make sense to be angry or rude to a lawyer because of something a client did since the attorney often has limited control over a client’s behavior.

Throughout the course of my career, I have represented various clients who could not pay their bills. This was either due to some life events or greater circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This would often result in my client facing lawsuits or other legal issues due to their inability to pay, and then there would be a negotiation in which we tried to work out a payment plan between my client and the creditor.

Usually, the lawyers I dealt with on the other side were not particularly frustrated at my clients or me, and they just negotiated terms like in any other deal. However, sometimes my counterparts would vent their frustration at my client’s inability to pay, perhaps because their clients were conveying such sentiments to the lawyers. At certain times, the other lawyers implied that I was just as bad as my clients, especially after my clients missed a payment on one of the payment plans we all negotiated.

This always got on my nerves. As a lawyer, I have almost no control over whether my client makes a payment on a payment plan or refuses to do so. I also have no sense of my client’s finances to know if it is feasible for my client to honor a given payment plan or not. Surely, the other lawyer cannot expect me to make the payments myself, and since I have no control over my client’s checkbook, I always thought that this sentiment was extremely misguided.

At other times, lawyers refuse to extend common courtesies since the relationship between clients has soured. For instance, I once asked an attorney for a two-week extension to file something because it was a holiday and my relative was coming from out of town to celebrate the holiday with my local family. This type of extension was pretty standard, so I did not think that there would be any issue getting the extension from the other lawyer.

However, the other attorney said that he could not grant me the extension. He said that his client was very agitated by the conduct of my client and that the other party was forcing his lawyer to grant no courtesies during the litigation. This annoyed me greatly. This extension would have no practical impact on the litigation matter, and I was the one that was being punished since I would have to work harder during a period I wanted off because of the decision not to grant a courtesy. My client would be unaffected by this decision, but it would have a huge impact on me.

This decision completely soured the relationship between everyone involved in that matter, which made it much more difficult to resolve that case. When clients do not get along, it is often important that the lawyers involved in a deal have a connection so that they can keep the lines of communication open. The lawyer should have just granted me the simple courtesy and not let sentiments about the client infect a relationship between lawyers involved in a case.

Mentally separating a lawyer from a client can be easier said than done since many clients and attorneys can equate one with the other. However, lawyers should not be punished or mistreated because of the conduct of a client. Not only is this unfair, but it can make it much more difficult for the parties to achieve a positive outcome on a matter.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.