You say you care about your clients but is this really true?
Do you comfort them when they are afraid? Do you offer a shoulder to cry on when they are in pain? Do you offer them hope for a better future when they despair?
Many lawyers go through the motions with their clients, saying things that need to be said but not really meaning it. I know, you can’t do a good job for your clients if you fall apart emotionally. But I also know you can’t do a good job for your clients if you don’t feel anything.
Being a lawyer is about getting results, but even more, it’s about making people feel that you will do everything you can to help them, not because they paid you to do so but because you truly care about them.
You can’t fake it. Leadership author John C. Maxwell said, “People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.”
Last month in court sitting next to my client while the jury read its verdict after a two week wrongful death trial. A successful but long and hard fought emotional battle to find justice.
I agree with Mitch. It was always those moments of high emotion, just following a favorable jury verdict. Nothing more emotionally charged than those few moments between when it’s clear the jury has a verdict, and when it’s read, and the immediate aftermath was emotional regardless of outcome.
However, in criminal cases, when the verdict is guilty, there is no time for emotion because there are immediate procedures to take care of, jurors to poll, records to make. When the verdict is not guilty, that time, typically when the prosecutor is asking for the jury to be polled, is probably the moment when, for a criminal defense lawyer, emotions flow most freely.