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December 02, 2006
So just what and where, sir, is ClientTown?
Well, for starters, it's a wonderful, wonderful place to be. Clients are the main event. It is never about the lawyers.
On most days, in my experience, the clients' towns are Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles--and also Chicago and Boston. In these venues, you are more likely to do well in a proceeding or transaction if you stick to honesty, aggression and the procedural and ethical rules. Those things are more genuinely respected. It's "more okay" to put the Client First and really move things along. Sure, the above are bigger towns--but in bigger towns (which can intimidate lawyers in lawyer-centric LawyerTowns, where folks are prissier, more thin-skinned, and often have strange inferiority complexes), raw energy and adherence to the rules is not frowned upon. Importantly, there are enough good lawyers in these towns that you never have the pathetic excuse that, "well, I have to be nice to the lawyers here, because I may have another case against them some day". In ClientTown, the faux value of "professionalism" is not a phony shield or sanctuary for slimeballs and slackers to compromise clients; it means, doing the work the right way.
In ClientTown, you are free to work for clients. In ClientTown, clients are more than "equipment". They are always way more important than lawyers. In ClientTown, you are "nice"--but you put the client first. If opposing counsel takes advanatage of your being nice, or delays or gets in the way of your clients' agendas, in ClientTown, you can pull out the stops. Honest, aggressive and client-oriented is okay, good, the norm. Candor is more real. And, in ClientTown, it's even okay to be rude--if your client is being shortchanged or lied to, you can turn up the volume a little gets attention. Some opposing counsel who hate what they are doing and/or are lazy and/or slimey need to be yelled at, and often, in the most "unprofessional" manner you can muster. Not every day, maybe--but on a few. In ClientTown, you forget about the other lawyers and think about your client. You are not trying to be popular--unless that helps the client. You conduct all your communications and actions as if the client is at your side, right there watching and listening.
In ClientTown, it is never about the lawyers.
Posted by JD Hull at December 2, 2006 07:38 AM