EthicsWalk addresses spiritual care as an ethical enterprise. It explores why relationships between spiritual care providers and those they serve need protection, and examines what that protection entails. PlainViews invites our readers to share their responses to each EthicsWalk column, which will be published in the following issue.

If you’d like to respond to EthicsWalk, please send a comment of no more than 100 words. You can use the e-form below (click on "hearing from you," link) or submit your commentary to the editors in the body of an e-mail (or as a Microsoft Word attachment) sent to Info@PlainViews.org. Please put the phrase “EthicsWalk” in your subject line.

We look forward to hearing from you.

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Using Your Lawyer Wisely

Abraham Lincoln advised lawyers, “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

Contrary to stereotype, most lawyers practice conflict resolution as Lincoln counseled. Frustrated lawyers frequently lament, “the practice of law would be fulfilling were it not for clients.”

As last month’s column [Vol. 4, No. 1] and the follow-up response [Vol. 4, No. 2] stressed, legal ethics require lawyers to represent their client’s best interests as articulated by the client.[1] This column is not to defend lawyers[2] but to assist readers in using lawyers wisely. Resolving conflict is a collaborative endeavor: the lawyer is the expert on the law; you are the expert on your life. The suggestions apply to professional and personal cases.

1. Communication is essential to trust which is central to the lawyer-client relationship. Respond promptly to your lawyer’s calls and requests for information. Expect your lawyer to do likewise. Negotiate your mutual expectations and availability at the outset recognizing that you are not your lawyer’s only client.[3]

2. Don’t misrepresent your part in the conflict. Recognize your perception is skewed. Don’t unduly resist your lawyer’s interpretations and suggestions.

3. Reveal fully your legal history, including aspects you think embarrassing or irrelevant. Your lawyer needs to hear everything from you, not from opposing counsel during settlement negotiations or trial.

4. State clearly your goals – they are important no matter how trivial or ignoble. Listen closely to your lawyer’s response and suggestions. Accept that your goals will change as the case progresses.

5. Keep a case diary: note questions, information you need to provide, and daily concerns. Give it to your lawyer each meeting. It reflects what is changing for you, what is troubling you, and how the lawyer’s sense of direction may need modifying.

6. Especially in family cases, engage a “real” therapist. Highly charged emotions are normal – lawyers expect and honor them. But lawyers are not trained therapists. Further, lawyer-time usually costs more and is never covered by health insurance.

7. If your lawyer recommends using advice from an accountant, appraiser, guardian ad litim or other professional, do it.

8. Solicit opinions on your case from several lawyers before you retain one. Once you’ve retained someone, don’t run your case by every lawyer encountered at religious services, the airport, or soccer games.

9. Don’t triangulate the lawyers or weave them into the problem. Lawyers are consultants to, not components of, the conflict. The other side’s “outrageous demands” are their demands, not their lawyers. Experienced lawyers with good “client control” can ameliorate client “unreasonableness” – reason enough to be grateful rather than fearful of “a case with lawyers involved.”

10. Generally, lawyers prefer to settle cases rather than try them. Contrary to popular impression, ofttimes less money is made for energy expended on trials than settlement.

Opposing counsel routinely talk with each other and shape settlements. Before you reject or attempt to wring more out of them, remember: your lawyer is trained to spot issues and craft resolutions. More importantly, your lawyer is invested in your best interests without being mired in the present emotional murkiness of the conflict. He or she is ready to close your case and move on. Are you?

Footnotes:

[1] The lawyer is the client’s alter, not super, ego. Only in very limited circumstances is a lawyer permitted to withdraw from an active case. What the lawyer thinks professionally or feels personally about a client’s position is irrelevant to the lawyer’s duty to represent.

[2] A 2006 Harris survey found 85% of respondents trusted doctors and 30% trusted lawyers. My read is that litigation seldom makes people happy. In a 1993 American Bar Association survey, 59% of respondents perceived lawyers “file suits that benefit themselves, not their clients.” Perception is reality. Whether true or not, individual lawyers have a duty to recognize, address and perform contrary to these negative expectations.

[3] Many lawyers offer an initial free consultation where you and they can measure mutual compatibility. Upon retention, you should receive written confirmation of fees, services to be provided and any limitations to representation or expectations particular to your case.

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Anne Underwood has an undergraduate degree in religious studies, a master’s degree in rural sociology and a mid-life law degree obtained after working over a decade as a college administrator. She has mediated for the Maine family courts since 1983. Currently she serves as an advisor to the ethics commissions of ACPE, APC, the CCAR (Central Conference of American Rabbis), and NAJC, and consults with a variety of Protestant faith communities on issues of power, fair process, and congregational conflict management. Her articles on mediation and restorative justice have appeared in the ACPE News, The APC News and on the ACPE web site. Articles on clergy accountability and judicatory processes are published by the Alban Institute and The Journal on Religion and Abuse. A chapter, “Clergy Sexual Misconduct: A Justice Issue,” appears in Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, Marvin Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, editors, The Pilgrim Press, 2003.