Interview with Peter Levine: Jurors & The Unlikable Client
The jury is like a giant fishbowl. Things appear larger and out of place. Clients are highly scrutinized by these 12 strangers in a box, and quite frankly, how they make their decisions is sometimes pretty foreign to us, as trial lawyers.
Sometimes, they make it very clear by telling us after they reach their verdict when, for instance, we see them in the hallway; and sometimes, they don’t. Either way, we always strive to have a client that connects with the jurors in a human way – and that can sometimes be difficult if we have an unlikable client.
At a glance, it seems like a harsh label. But we’re actually discussing this from the point of view of jurors. This is very important if you’re going to go to trial because the perceptions of jurors can seriously impact a case. Therefore, we never intend to offend people by saying that they’re unlikable. It’s just how lawyers describe it.
In this episode, Peter Levine joins today’s conversation as we discuss how to deal with an unlikeable client and how you can help them connect with the jurors. Peter is a longtime lawyer who has done all different kinds of law as well. He has a lot of experiences to talk about, specifically about the different ways to help deal with the unlikable client.
At the end of the day, uncooperative clients will test your maturity. It’s important to maintain that level of civility and respect – and this will only make you a better lawyer.
In this episode, you will hear:
- What is an unlikeable client?
- The characteristics of an unlikeable client
- The difference between the best client, an unlikeable client, and a dangerous client
- Showing maturity and creating healthy boundaries as a lawyer
- Looking for ways to love the client
- The importance of keeping the client in the loop on everything
- Tips for adjusting expectations
- Considering the personality match
- Why you need to keep in contact with your client – and how
- Maintaining a level of respect
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Supporting Resources:
Peter Levine
5454 Wilshire Blvd #1250
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Learn more about toxic clients from Ernie Svenson’s LawFirm AutoPilot Episodes 200 and 201.
If you have a question or a topic you’d like an episode on, please email me: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com
Episode Credits:
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Episode Transcript
Elizabeth Larrick: Hi, Elizabeth here. I just wanted to jump in and do a quick preview before we begin our guest interview with the jury.
Peter Levine. Before we listen in, I wanted to do a quick preview of this topic, the unlikable [00:01:00] clients. At a glance, it seems like a harsh label, but what I want to point out is we’re really discussing this from the point of view of jurors, which is very important. If you’re going to go to trial, the perceptions of jurors can seriously impact a case.
And it’s not intended to offend people by saying that they’re unlikable. It’s how lawyers describe it. There’s probably a better label, but right now this is pretty much what we stuck to, especially in my interview with Peter. Now these are folks or clients that are just regular people, but something happens when we go into a courtroom, the jury, it’s like a giant fishbowl, right?
And things appear larger and out of place and 12 strangers in a box and how they make their decisions. is sometimes pretty foreign to us as trial lawyers. Sometimes they make it very clear by telling us after they reach their verdict and we see them in the hallway. Sometimes they don’t, so we have to [00:02:00] guess some things.
But either way, we always strive to have a client that connects with the jurors in a human way. And that can sometimes be difficult if we have an unlikable client. And that’s really what Peter and I are going to talk about in this interview. But I want to take a very quick intro before we begin and jump in with Peter and I talking because we get going, get really excited, and we don’t actually stop to explain much about, Hey, we’re not really, Really trying to sit here and point fingers and say that we don’t like our clients.
I know for a fact that Peter really likes his clients and loves a lot of them and same here too. Very personal relationship with most of my clients as you’ll hear me talk about. But I want to also point out one resource that will be in our show notes, and that is, there are two really great episodes on toxic clients and how to get rid of toxic clients.
And it’s by my very good friend, Ernie Svensson. He runs a podcast and also several online programs. through [00:03:00] law firm autopilot. He does a very good job of explaining what toxic clients are and how to spot them and how to get rid of them. So that will be in the show notes enough about this introduction.
Let’s jump into our interview. Hello, and welcome to a new episode of trial lawyer prep with me, Elizabeth Larrick, your host. I am thrilled to have my very good Friend and lawyer from California joining us today, Peter Levine, and we are going to be talking about a kind of a hard topic, right? The unlikable, the challenging, sometimes uncooperative client.
This podcast is designed to help trial lawyers who are in the nitty gritty down in the trenches. And so we’re hopefully going to have a good discussion. As I know, we both probably have some good examples of this and how we can maybe deal with that. So. Peter, just want to say hello and welcome to the show.
Peter Levine: Elizabeth, thank you for inviting me. I’m excited to be here and hope [00:04:00] I can, uh, add some interesting facts and help people.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. I have no doubt that you can. Peter is long time lawyer has done all different kinds of law as well. So lots of experience to talk about different ways to help deal with the unlikable clients.
So let me just throw it to you first, Peter, in your mind, when I say unlikable client, like what does that mean to you?
Peter Levine: Great question. Unlikeable client would be someone who, when they walk in a room, you’ve heard the expression, someone can walk in a room and immediately make a hundred friends. The unlikable client is the person who can walk in the room and make a hundred enemies immediately.
You say to yourself, the jury’s not going to like this person. That to me is the unlikable client.
Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. And why might they be unlikable to a jury?
Peter Levine: Well, they are control freaks. They don’t [00:05:00] like listening. They think they know everything. They think they know more than you and they question everything and they just have an appearance of you just don’t want to help this person.
It’s not someone that you feel empathetic or sympathetic to, which creates doubts in your mind. Is this person telling the truth? Is this someone who deserves to win or get justice? That’s the unlikable client.
Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. Have you ever had one of these before?
Peter Levine: Who hasn’t? Come on. When you get to be in the trenches so long, you come across them all the time.
It’s like they say, you’ll know in the first interview likable or not. Because usually they’re on their best behavior. So if you don’t like them in the first interview, you can imagine what it’d be like After spending time with them in the case, preparing and getting ready. [00:06:00] Yes. And it’s interesting.
Unlikeable clients can pop up in all forms of a case. You can think they’re the greatest client in the world. And then when it comes time for. For discussing settlement money, they take on a new personality or you ask them to cooperate in terms of getting ready for a deposition. All of a sudden they’re unavailable.
All of a sudden they don’t like to help or I know that you don’t have to tell me that, or they send you emails questioning everything. I’ll say this in my humble opinion, the best clients are the ones who let you do your job, where they just. Cooperate. You ask them for something and boom, you get it. They don’t question you.
You feel comfortable. You never feel defensive. The unlikeable client is just the opposite. You constantly feeling defensive, attacked, [00:07:00] making you question yourself. Those are not good clients. They can be dangerous. So I take the unlikable client and then there’s the dangerous client. So we’ll just talk about the unlikable client.
Okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, hopefully you’re not taking any more dangerous clients.
Peter Levine: I had one about a year ago, great case, but this person provided me with some papers from a bankruptcy he filed. And when I read what the court accused him of doing and wouldn’t discharge him, I said, I can’t continue with this person. And that was a good judgment on my part because things happened to the attorney that took over the case that I wouldn’t wish on my enemy.
So you got to be able to know when to cut them loose too.
Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. Like you said, some people are really Good at hiding their unpleasantness. What do you do to vet out the unlikely client or even the [00:08:00] dangerous client?
Peter Levine: Well, I don’t consciously vet them out. What I try to do is just be myself and see how I get along with them.
Are they going to turn in the paperwork? Are they going to answer my questions? Will they make themselves available when I need to speak with them? And you get a sense for the clients, if in the initial interview they, they start asking what’s the case worth? How much money can they make? Those are red flags to me because that’s the type of client that’s oftentimes, when they’re doing it for the money, that’s a signal.
When the clients tell you in the beginning, I’m not doing it for the money, that’s a signal. So it’s common sense, Elizabeth. Lawyers tend to forget we have common sense, but trust your judgment.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. So here’s the thing that can [00:09:00] sometimes get in the way, which is it’s the good case that walks in the door.
Or sometimes it, when it happens to me is somebody walks in the door and I think this person needs help. Like they do. And everybody, you know, is entitled to the legal system and we need to help these people and I can probably do it and if not, I’ll find somebody else and then ultimately you’re stuck with it.
Once you sign it up, you’re pretty well stuck in that position. So trusting your gut is always one of those things.
Peter Levine: That’s right. My best friend years ago told me, and I tend to agree with it, You don’t choose your clients, they choose you. There are certain lawyers, obviously, who get to pick their clients, but most of us, the clients pick us, and they bring in their baggage with them.
It’s just a question of, are they needing, how many bellboys and attendants do they need to carry that baggage? On the other hand, when you like a client, that could also hurt you, because [00:10:00] you find you’re going overboard doing the work. You find you’re losing your objectivity. So it is a balance you’ve got to reach.
It was just common sense. I guess most lawyers have to get burned a few times before they learn.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, I think that speaking for me at going out solo is there’s a time where you just, you really feel like you need to take anything that walks the door and you can get past whatever wards it may be because you’re starting and you, one, you want to work lawyers.
Naturally, we want to work, which we’re here to do, you know, be useful in work, but also we need to, we’re in a small business, we need to be making money. So I feel like sometimes we all get caught in that trap. But one of the things that learned along the way, which is basically, you got to set some boundaries.
You got to set some bumpers up to where you got at least some parameters about what cases you’re going to take or not take. Even [00:11:00] if the client really wants to choose you, sometimes you just got to say no.
Peter Levine: And then you’re always wondering, maybe I can get past this. Maybe I can work through it. It’s a good case.
But if you trust your judgment, you will know basically if you, so what can you do if you don’t like the client, right? What do you do if the client is difficult. Like a case I had where you schedule appointments with the client to prepare for deposition and then when you call her she’s still in the middle of doing her hairdressing with a client and she’s talking to you as she’s color dyeing his hair.
You just want to sometimes speak frankly to that client, but you can’t at that moment, you got to restrain yourself. So I find that staying calm is very important. The old days of being sarcastic or insulting the client, that doesn’t work. And that’s not professional. And you don’t want to [00:12:00] antagonize the client.
I always like to keep the high ground. Very important. I like to listen to the client and find out what’s really going on. Like with that client, actually once her, we had an appointment that was set up in advance. It was very important, but she explained to me that. This client that she had popped in unexpectedly, so she had to take care of that person.
Of course, it makes you feel, aren’t you respecting our relationship? Don’t we? Or isn’t this case important to you? And you know, your reaction is you want to say those things, but you can’t. You got to really practice maturity and editing. And you find that in the practice of law, It requires a great deal of maturity on all levels to bring it over the finish line successfully.[00:13:00]
And with that client, once I spent time with her and I understood her better, it worked out sure. I was angry, very angry.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, I have to, I kind of have to disagree. I feel like we, it’s a relationship like any other relationship. Like it has boundaries. We, we got to respect each other. That’s number one.
There’s a lot of times we are working up a case and there’s not anything that we do need from the client, right? We are just doing our job and pushing things forward. And there is, there are a few opportunities where the client input is needed. They have a role, they have a job. And I always feel really strongly that.
If we communicate what everyone’s job is, what’s your job? What’s my job? And then also there’s going to be a time where we’re going to work together. And if they choose not to be respectful, to choose something else, I’m sorry, I’ve got to draw a line. I agree. Everyone needs to be mature, but I also think that it’s okay to ask somebody, [00:14:00] Hey, we had a time, it was said, help me understand.
What, what happened? Because just because there are clients doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to step all over us. And I agree. You can be mature and you can, but you can still speak to somebody and ask for respect because that’s really not somebody at the end of the day. I don’t know how to say this in a non explicit way.
They’re kind of showing you their, their derriere. They’re showing you the real deal here.
Peter Levine: Well, they really are.
Elizabeth Larrick: And in that moment, me being there with you, I just thought, Peter, don’t think you’re taking this one to trial because this person is not invested. And that’s one of the things I want to talk to you about.
And we’ll get to that topic too. You’re not the only person that I have seen and experienced and heard, like the level of uncooperation post pandemic is off the charts and your case is just one example of just, these were [00:15:00] people who you had before as clients, no, really any problems, and then all of a sudden here we are with some real uncooperative behavior, despite.
taking the time to schedule and does this work for you? And like
Peter Levine: those kinds of things. You know, I always, my problem is I do put clients on a pedestal and that, that can hurt you. You have to, one of my best friends likes to say I shouldn’t do that as much. And my first boss that I worked for many years ago told me you can always beat the other side.
You can’t beat your client. Okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: Okay.
Peter Levine: And time and time again, when I do say a wrongful termination case, employment, sometimes I’ll turn to myself and say, I don’t blame them for getting fired. Okay. They are difficult people. I’m sure we’ve all had that situation. And then you have to pretend while you’re [00:16:00] litigating this case that this person didn’t deserve to be fired.
What do you do in those situations, right? Those are tough situations. How do I get through that? Well, I have to find a way to like my client. I have to. I remember years ago, Jerry Spence, the great trial lawyer, when he was asked how does he represent some of these reprehensible defendants, he looked for a way to love his client.
I don’t know if I can go that length, but you got to find something about the client that you can enjoy. And you try to build, you try to develop a relationship. You try to see them and find out what are they interested in or what makes them tick? Or are they good parents? Or, you know, I’m not a psych.
Well, I guess you got to be a psychologist. Of [00:17:00] course you have to be a psychologist. You have to, let me say this, in order to Be able to deal with a client effectively, it’s very important to make sure you’re doing your job as the attorney. I think you can’t be, you have to be a very good lawyer. You have to be able to show the client that you are going above and beyond for them in the case.
You’re litigating that case, you’re doing everything you can to You don’t allow your feelings for the client impact how you handle the case, because once that occurs, you’re no longer being an effective attorney. And I find as long as I’m doing my job and, you know, litigating it the way it should be litigated, I’m not afraid to approach the client and let the client know when bad things happen.
I believe you always have to be [00:18:00] honest with that client. But there’s a lot of lawyers who are afraid of their clients because they’re not doing the work they should be doing in the case. And then when the bad news comes, they’re afraid to give the client the bad news. So we share every letter with the client.
We share all emails with the client. We share all paperwork with the client. We keep the client involved in the case. so that they can’t get angry at me for the way the case is being run. Because I think if you can show the client that you’re litigating it, as the, as it, as it deserves to be litigated, you’re taking that power away from the client to jump on you.
I know that sounds, well, it shouldn’t sound defensive. It’s the right way to go. And I find even with tough clients and you know, I have some very sophisticated clients and it’s very hard to when your clients are very super intelligent, very financially [00:19:00] successful because they have the right and they are demanding because they expect you to provide them with that service because they know what’s going on.
They read everything and I enjoy my clients reading everything. I love sending my clients the paperwork because, A, they call you less and they won’t call as much when you keep the client in the loop on everything. So clients are basically very intelligent. They know what’s going on, especially with the internet.
I had a client come in the other day, last week, And he’s a manager of the catering service for a hotel, not a highly educated person, but he knew that the medical malpractice laws were changed in California. He knew that it’s effective January 1st. He knew it doesn’t apply to him. And you know, red lights go off in your mind, right?
Well, this guy’s really going to be on top of this case. This guy’s going to [00:20:00] check everything out on the internet. Now, could that be a difficult client? It could be, but if you know your law, you know your case, and you’re just as smart as the client, then you have nothing to worry about. So part of handling a difficult client is to be a good lawyer, is to make sure you are up to date, you read the law journal, you, you stay on top of the law, you do your research.
That makes me feel comfortable as a person. So I’m not defensive with the client. I know my case. And when the client knows, you know, the case, I think that goes a long way in working with a difficult client. That’s how I look at that. And I think that’s tested. I’ve proven that to myself.
Elizabeth Larrick: But you’re going to say there’s, there’s research out there, but no.
Well, I’m sure there is Peter Levine research.
Peter Levine: Peter Levine school of hard knocks will tell you [00:21:00] that you will not get state bar complaints. You know, how many, I’m sure every lawyer has had a client say, I’m reporting you to the state bar. Right. My answer to that is, look, there’s a lot of Peter Levine’s in California.
Let me give you my state bar number. So you make sure you got the right guy. Okay. I know that sounds silly. There
Elizabeth Larrick: can only be one. Peter Levine. There’s only
Peter Levine: one. Yes. But and then also, you know, if you’ve done something to cause ’em to be angry, apologize. You know, if you’re missed an appointment or you’re late, apologize.
Let ’em see you’re human. Don’t be afraid to apologize to a client. If you’ve done something wrong, arrogance gets you in trouble.
Elizabeth Larrick: Sure, sure. Well, I wanna get you to kinda expand on this talk a little bit about, because I think sometimes people come in and. They work out as clients and things are really fine.
And then it can be an, uh, how do I say this in a polite way? Their [00:22:00] expectation for the results don’t necessarily match up with the experience that we all have sometimes with the reality. So how do we, and it doesn’t necessarily make somebody unlikable, but. It happens quite a bit where maybe they see something online or they talk to somebody else and, or they can just come in and just say, this is my number or this is what I have to get.
And it just, it’s so far off base with what reality is. So how would you, what would be your advice on helping adjust expectations?
Peter Levine: I’m smiling because I’m thinking of a couple of clients. First of all, maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m wrong. You know, you have to be open minded to the possibility that maybe their expectations are justified and my analysis could be off the mark.
But once I get past that and I realize that they’re basing the value of the case on the lottery, so to [00:23:00] speak, you have to give them the reality of that it ain’t, it’s not going to be the way they think it is that why are they wrong? How does the case get evaluated? Is there enough money on the other side to even meet their expectations?
You know, you try to be pragmatic. You try to talk to them logically and you don’t make fun of them or ridicule them. You try to explain to them why their expectations are unrealistic. If they think that a broken finger is going to get them millions of dollars unless they’re a violinist or they have some occupation where they’re a surgeon.
It’s just not going to happen. So you try to approach them on a more logical level. [00:24:00] Now, does that always work? It doesn’t. I’m not saying, you know, I have the magic silver bullet here. There are clients who will search for an attorney who will promise them the moon. And then when the attorney doesn’t deliver, they get upset.
I’m not going to do that. I, you know, I never, ever, ever tell them what I think a case is going to recover or what I think it will get for them. I just can’t do that. I, I don’t like to do that. And the clients who always want to know that they can be the problem clients. And actually the clients who don’t put that pressure on you get the best results.
The ones who don’t ask you, what are we going to recover? What’s it’s worth? Those are the clients that get the best recoveries because they’re not putting that pressure on [00:25:00] you as the lawyer to always go for the money. I always find the money comes when you do your job. If you do the right job for the client, you’ll get the best money.
You can’t approach it from the point of view that this is my target. And I’m not talking about mediation or whatever. I’m talking about. How to litigate a case. You got to litigate the case to do the best job possible. If you do the best job possible, you will get the best money possible. But you can’t say, I’m going to get this case because I want X amount of dollars.
That just never works in my opinion. You’re going to be disappointed.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I think now you’re in the position of setting unrealistic expectations. That’s
Peter Levine: a very good point. Exactly. I mean, do we have goals in our mind? Of course. Do we, you know, I had a phone call before we came on today from someone who.
I get very cynical about their case, but I find that I can’t allow that [00:26:00] to overtake my sense of, because my sense of, do I want this case? Oftentimes I react emotionally and I realize that that’s not the right way to react. I have to spend time to really understand the client and the what the case is about.
In 10 minutes speaking someone with someone on the phone, you could say, I don’t like this person, but maybe they’re having a bad day. Maybe they’re angry. This it’s a, in California, it’s very, it’s a very competitive field out here. So you have to, um,
Elizabeth Larrick: Peter, it’s a competitive field everywhere.
Peter Levine: Yes, it is. I suppose so.
Yes. That’s my thinking.
Elizabeth Larrick: Here’s my thing, because we only really have a lot of like, how do we make our decisions? I truly believe is humans and psychology. We use emotion, right? That’s That’s how we do things. And [00:27:00] my thought is if it is going to be emotionally draining to talk to this person every time, like, I just don’t even know if it’s like, if this is a case for me, because if you’re emotionally drained to me, every time I had to call you to give you an update or whatever it could be.
Guess what? Like that’s just gonna, for me, it just leaks into all the litigation because like that just drains motivation that drains a lot of things. So client intake for me is huge because. I believe a hundred percent like you do. It’s one to one here. Like I’m a solo. I have one other person in here that helps with everything else.
I, I have a one to one relationship with these people. I’m the one who may be calling to do updates and calling and emailing and having to call my cell phone. And so having that one to one, I really need to have people that are not going to fall in that category of like, Oh, wow, is this going to be an emotionally draining person?
And it may not be that they are unlikable. It [00:28:00] may just be, you know what, this is just not a, this is not a fit because it’s just not, ultimately, it’s not going to be a good work for anybody.
Peter Levine: Well, I’m fortunate in the sense that, like you, I’m a soul practitioner. I don’t have a mill practice, so to speak. I don’t take a lot of cases.
I couldn’t handle it if I really, really, really didn’t like the client. I mean, I would, that’s why a year ago I asked the client to find another lawyer and I waived my lien just to have a parting of the ways, shall we say, because the pressure is not worth it. I don’t want to go home at night stressing.
I’d rather stress about the case, not about my clients. Okay. And then what do you do when the client refuses to listen to you? We’ve had those, right? Or the client just doesn’t want to take instructions. It’s time to [00:29:00] learn how to move to withdraw or have them, but you can’t wait. The problem is you keep thinking the relationship’s going to improve.
And then the next thing, you know, trial is. coming up and you can’t get out of the case. So,
Elizabeth Larrick: and I think when we have people who are uncooperative, I always like to have plan A and plan B. When the sense of plan A is Let’s figure out what the resistance is because sometimes it’s just a huge fear of the unknown.
They don’t really know what’s happening, what consequences are, what, so a lot of his education, just taking that time to educate them and answer questions, remove some of that fear. And some of it is, there’s just stuff going on that we, that it just. Beyond the world that we live in and the case with them, right?
There’s other things happening in their life that are causing them to be uncooperative with us, but we’re just getting. We’re just getting the [00:30:00] reactions from another cause, not necessarily the law firms.
Peter Levine: So placement.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think that the plan is always, I want to make sure like, am I just not educating somebody enough?
Am I doing my job to make sure that they know where we are in the process and what’s needed and what’s not needed and taking that extra time, right? So plan A for me always has a bunch of time. And then plan B is if we don’t plan, they don’t work. We’re now at plan B, which is, Hey, this is Here are options.
We’re not, it’s not an ultimatum, but here are options. You either get on team Elizabeth together, or we got to get a different dance partner because it’s just, because we do have options, you know, we don’t have to ultimatum it. But at the end of the day, I believe the lawyer’s job is to, We’ve got to counsel them on what the options are and it’s okay if they don’t want to finish the dance with us, but you know, they don’t want to finish the dance with us or they don’t like our theory or our approach to the [00:31:00] case.
While we may think that ever the lawyer is going to agree with us, that’s okay. There’s somebody else who may work better for them. And that’s always tell people is, and this is probably such a female minded, but I always tell people you’re picking a lawyer. You’re going to be wearing these shoes for a long time.
I know that there may be the fancy pet that looked like they got the best and they’re going to get things done, but you really need to think about a personality match better, because this is a long term thing. This can take six months up to a year and think about those people who Happened with the pandemic where it was just like, wow, you told me six months to a year and it’s been two years.
And now we’re just like, I know totally out of anyone’s control, but you know, you really need to think long term personality wise to make sure it matches up. And like I said, there may be other things that happen that turn, this just is not someone’s focus anymore. And so they’re just really uncooperative.
And like I said, always want to [00:32:00] have options for people, but at the same time, I always go back to that. Hey, this is a relationship. Yeah. And yeah, I’m your lawyer, but we’re, it’s all quid pro quo here. We got, we both got to have equal, sometimes equal respect for each other.
Peter Levine: Well, I tell my client, you know, it’s very rare in the case that I, that you have a lot of work to do, but when I need you to do the work, you’ve got to do it.
And some people think that all they have to do is show up at trial and that’s the lawyer doesn’t have to do any work in between. I think that they all think it’s like television. In half an hour the case is intake, opening statement, trial, investigation, and it’s over. It just doesn’t work that way. And then, of course, you have the other factor is the judges who, if they issue a bad ruling and it goes against the client, then they get pissed off at you.
And there’s so [00:33:00] many dimensions to it. Why does my deposition go first? Why do they go first? And, you know, you got to deal with all these issues. And I think as I got more mature, I became less afraid just to tell the client the truth. The truth is you’re going first and that’s just the reality. Well, the truth is this is the way it came down.
Just don’t be afraid to be honest with the client. Never lie to the client. And that’s very important. And don’t take it personally when they challenge you or you want to take it personally. I’m the lawyer. I know more than you. Well, you know, sometimes the clients are smarter than you. The reality is they may be smarter, but it’s, it’s a hard process and then try to figure out why are they upset?
Is this the way they are in their marriage? Is this how they are with their children? Or is this just unique to me? I mean, how many times have you thought to [00:34:00] yourself? They wouldn’t treat their doctor this way. You know, you, you, you call a doctor for an appointment, and the first thing they ask for is your insurance.
Can you pay? Imagine if that’s the first thing you said to a client on the phone. They wouldn’t. And most clients have no respect for your time. They don’t value you. A lot of clients don’t value you as a, you know, your time or what you do, the hard work. So I think it’s okay for you to, as they say, wag your own tail sometimes.
Let them know that you’re putting in a lot of work. Show them the work you’re doing so they know what goes on behind the scenes. A lot of clients, I think their frustration comes from the fact that they don’t hear from their lawyer. They don’t know what the lawyer’s doing.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, that’s the number one bar complaint.
is failure to communicate.
Peter Levine: That’s correct. Failure to communicate.
Elizabeth Larrick: You know, I, I strongly believe keeping communication [00:35:00] constant and flowing and at a regular basis alleviates many, many of the many problems,
Peter Levine: especially when things don’t go well in the case. The client knows what’s coming up. The client knows that there’s an important hearing, or motion, or how come the trial date’s been postponed a year, or why is this, or why didn’t you answer that interrogatory?
Okay, I didn’t, so let’s do it now. You just can’t be afraid, to be honest. Very critical. I hope that’s helping, but
Elizabeth Larrick: No, I think that most people, they, I think that we want to do that. I think sometimes we’ve got a lot of stuff going on. You know, I mean, that just is part of what we do. Our jobs, we have lots of files.
We do lots of different things. And one of my other favorite podcasts listen to is through another lawyer, Ernie Spenson, and he talks about systematizing everything and it’s not [00:36:00] hard to have a really quick system that basically automates. Reminding you to contact the client or send out that 30 day letter, 60 letter.
How are you doing? Do you have any bills, that kind of stuff?
Peter Levine: You’re getting me stressed now. I’m thinking of the cases. I got to contact clients on, come on. I thought this was supposed to be common.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh yeah, no. I just think that we. Sometimes forget, like it’s not all on our shoulders. Like we, there are so many things that we can do to communicate in a good fashion and an honest fashion.
And one of the things that in my, one of my episodes, a couple, it’s probably last week, I think it was June 1st, I don’t remember recording this. So last week we’re talking about how to keep connection with, with our clients. You know, we like connecting with people is just. It’s really hard after, I don’t know why we like talking about like bonding and getting to know people, but keeping that connection is sometimes a little bit difficult when cases stretch out so far.
And so I [00:37:00] talked about let’s use technology. Yay. I love technology. So pick up your phone and leave a client a voice memo. It is so much easier than trying to text somebody or sending an email and you can even put voice memos into emails and. Keeping our voice connected with people, especially when it comes to text, emails, or text messages.
Like we can really lose our, like our connection because it’s black and white. We don’t get tone. We don’t get inflection. And Peter, you got a great voice. Right. People gravitate towards that voice. So how, like, how much more effective is that communication piece when it’s just, it’s your voice and it’s short and sweet to the point, but it’s keeping that connection up.
And so it’s also much faster to Record a message than it is to type it out. So please search people like think of another way that you can keep connected or give people updates. It’s very easy to record [00:38:00] a zoom and send it to somebody in the email and they’re getting, everybody loves videos now, right?
So we’ve got Tik TOKs, all the crates, right? So trying to push all of us to use that, to stay connected with clients. And avoid some of the uncooperation or the,
Peter Levine: the
Elizabeth Larrick: fear that we have that they’re going to react.
Peter Levine: They, they want to make sure they hear from you, not once every six months. And you know what?
You should be in contact with your client because you got to find out, do you have any more witnesses? Has your medical condition changed? What’s going on with this? What’s going on with that? Are you looking for work? How are you feeling? How’s the pressure sore? It’s not only to keep a good relationship, but you have to do it to be an effective attorney.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely.
Peter Levine: Spam risk. There you go. Even the spammers are calling me to find out how I’m doing. Okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: Let’s see. [00:39:00] Everybody loves a call. No. All right. So let’s make sure we hit all our topics. We talked about motivation, which you covered. How do you keep somebody motivated? Well, keep them involved. You know, send them those updates, you know, send them the emails or the paper or whatever you guys are doing.
You’re keeping them updated so they can stay.
Peter Levine: Yeah, they want to know you’re fighting for them. They love that and that they’re entitled to know that and you should be doing that.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. Anything else? We’ve talked a little bit about, uh, unlikable, trying to screen those folks out and helping with the uncooperative by keeping up that communication.
Anything else you can think of to pass along to our listeners about how to maybe deal with that unlikable client when you’re at the end of the road, you’re so close to getting things wrapped up, but you just. Keep running. Keep stabbing your stubbing your toe against that hard wall.
Peter Levine: Well, don’t become an alcoholic.[00:40:00]
Don’t let them drive you to drink
Elizabeth Larrick: advice. Uh, great advice. Okay,
Peter Levine: there you go. I guess you as the lawyer have to keep sight of the finish line. You have to find something in yourself to motivate them. I mean, you know, this may sound a little callous, but you have to win in spite of the client. Sometimes you say to yourself, or you say to your friends, I’m going to succeed in this case, despite the client.
Or I have to prove to myself or the other side that I’m, I’m a fighter. I mean, you have to find that personal, personal, that, that thing inside yourself that you can go to in order to win the case, sometimes you’ve got to take your mind off the case and maybe distract yourself and then get back into the case, but look, if you take the [00:41:00] case.
And you think it’s a good case, you can’t allow that client to get in the way of it unless it’s just so bad that you can’t perform. And at that point, and sometimes you don’t find out until you’re in the middle of the trial, okay? Which happens. I’m not gonna tell you war stories, but sometimes the jury gets it right.
When you don’t do as well as you think you should have, and you sit back and you reflect, maybe I missed something here. Maybe it’s my fault for not seeing the problem earlier. And I wouldn’t be the first lawyer to tell you that’s happened to me. Because juries are very smart. They know what’s going on, and sometimes we deceive ourselves.
We want to believe. We want to think that this person’s going to shape up. [00:42:00] And then when they don’t, and you find out in the middle of trial, you got to be thorough. You got to really, again, it goes back to you. I’ve had cases where I should have done a better job of checking the client’s Facebook, not learning what’s on her website in the middle of the cross examination of my clients, okay?
Do I blame the client or do I blame myself? You got to take responsibility for your actions. And it’s like, I like to say, you know, I have plenty of scars. You learn a lot from your losses and from being burned makes you a better lawyer. So I would say to people, cheer up. It happens to everybody. Okay.
You’re not the only one, but you’ll be a better lawyer and a better person for it because you’ve got to thank the client in the long run for making you more [00:43:00] savvy and it’ll make you a better lawyer. Uncooperative clients will make you a better lawyer because it tests your maturity.
Elizabeth Larrick: Anybody else? Test your fortitude.
Peter Levine: your fortitude. And it just because you’re the lawyer, it doesn’t give you a right to insult the client or to be rude to the client. There’s a nice way to deal with people you don’t like. I know it sounds I’m not a, I’m not being unrealistic here, but you gotta remember that you are an attorney. And you do have a level of civility that you have to maintain.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, sure. I think we should treat our clients like we treat anyone else in our lives with respect. And you can accomplish all the things that you need to and still be respectful. And that’s difficult sometimes with what we do. Because I sometimes, like you just said, we get in our bubble, right, in our litigation bubble, and our [00:44:00] job is to fight.
Right. That’s it. And people on their side, they’re fighting us, we’re fighting them. It’s all about the fight and it can be exhausting. But, and sometimes a lot of those people are not respectful to us and we’re on the same profession. It’s just like, you know, whoa, can we not just be respectful to each other?
But sometimes that’s not the nature of what you get. So, you know, I think we can always be respectful to each other. And also, I always try to make sure I understand this person that is dealing with something, or maybe they don’t even have any self awareness that this behavior is impacting me. In the, what they’re doing or impacting the case.
And sometimes you just, you’re going to have to deal with the person who doesn’t have any self awareness and take the client case to the finish line and just know like, okay, that they’re right in this way. And I’m not going to all of a sudden magically get them to have some self awareness.
Peter Levine: Sometimes the client’s coming along for the [00:45:00] ride.
In other words. You’re doing the case and the client just happens to be the random person who brings the case in the door. That’s right. You know, they say that the practice of law would be so much more elegant if everybody played by the rules. But, but you find that I guess uncooperative lawyers on the other side will be the next podcast, but we’ll limit it to clients today.
I don’t know
Elizabeth Larrick: who would want to come and do a podcast with me over uncooperative opposing counsel. That
Peter Levine: would be fun. That takes a few hours.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. We would be here for a little while. And of course,
Peter Levine: of course,
Elizabeth Larrick: for sure. So no, Peter, I really appreciate it. I think it’s, we all face. uncooperative folks, and we all face unlikable folks.
And so I think all the things that we talked about today are super helpful. And some of them are long term. Sometimes we just got to start putting some system in place to make sure we’re sending every communication. Eric, even getting on a system to talk to [00:46:00] somebody once a month.
Peter Levine: I’m blessed. I got a great assistant and clients love my assistant.
So oftentimes
Elizabeth Larrick: Shout out
Peter Levine: to Roberto. Roberto, many times. He communicates with them because he’s more patient than I am. I know my limitations. I know which people I think would be better for him to talk to. And, but again, if you don’t communicate with your client, you’re making a big mistake. Don’t. Put your head in the sand and think that if you ignore that uncooperative client, things are going to get better.
They’re not.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, Peter, thank you so much for jumping on this episode to do an interview. I know we all out there listening, appreciate your time here today. And thank you all for listening. So if you enjoyed this podcast. Please rate and review it on your favorite podcast platform. I will put Peter’s contact information in the show notes.
If you have questions for him, or [00:47:00] maybe you are in California and you need some help, he’s a fantastic facilitator. If he cannot help you, but as always give questions or anything, you can always shoot me an email and it will also be in the show notes. So thank you. And until next time.