Wellness: Five ways to cope with emotions of difficult clients | Darryl Singer

Law360 Canada (April 21, 2022, 9:03 AM EDT) --

Darryl Singer

As I write this, I have just completed an examination for discovery. My client was examined for several hours about a traumatic event which gave rise to the lawsuit. Several times during her Zoom testimony, I had to turn off my camera as I was tearing up. I routinely represent victims of institutional sexual assault in civil lawsuits, and in every one of these cases each interaction with the client left me feeling sad.

I have had these conversations with many of my friends in other areas of law. From the family lawyers who have to deal with child protection or domestic abuse cases to the criminal lawyers who sit through trial after trial of the most shocking, graphic evidence, they have all told me they feel they suffer from some form of PTSD.

Now, these raw emotions from lawyers may sound odd to those who practise real estate law or spend their time in large law firms where they work on multinational transactions or litigate complex commercial litigation for institutional clients. But those of us who have a practice dealing face to face with real people routinely encounter the human side of law. We handle clients with severe mental health issues, women who are survivors of sexual assault, men who turned to a life of crime feeling they had no other options. This is not to mention the reality of representing clients who have been defrauded or just plain down on their luck and desperately need help yet have no money for a lawyer but nowhere else to turn. Even in run-of-the-mill personal injury motor accident cases, there is the reality of continually explaining to the client why the insurance company is revictimizing them and why it will take seven years to get their day in court, all the while knowing they cannot pay their rent. I have seen injured accident victims lose their homes and their marriages.

Many non-lawyers would be surprised to find out that lawyers are indeed human. If you prick us, we do bleed. Most of us genuinely want to help people, and even though this is how we earn our livelihood, we always put the interests of the client ahead of our own, even to our detriment.

As I have written ad nauseam in this space over the years, lawyers are three times more likely than the national average to have addiction and mental health issues. It’s no wonder given what we see every day.

Many of us joke that we should have psychology degrees since our interactions with our clients are more often about the client using us a therapist. I have had clients cry in my office and share secrets that they have never shared with anyone else. I recently had two different clients text me in the middle of the night telling me they were going to kill themselves. Why me, I thought? Simply because they had no one else they thought would care.

Here are five things that work for me to keep my sanity amidst this chaos:

1. Set boundaries. Gently but firmly let the client know that you are a lawyer, not a social worker and that you are not the best person to talk to. Help them get help.
2. Have a sense of humour. Often on the morning of a court day, my wife will wish me good luck in court. I would reply “I don’t need luck. My life isn’t going to change by the outcome of the case.” Of course, I care. And of course I fight hard for my clients. But a little bit of black humour is sometimes what it takes to get through the day.
3. Practise gratitude. Don’t get sucked into the spiral of the client. Deal with the client but when you’re done, spend a few minutes to focus on the good things in your life or to decompress before moving on to the next work-related task.
4. Don’t be afraid to fire certain clients. Sometimes there is a client who is simply too demanding and is impacting your life and your ability to focus on other clients. No client is worth that. I used to have a practice that once a year, I would get rid of 10 per cent of my clients based on who was too draining.
5. Realize that you can’t help everyone and can’t change the world. Focus on doing the best job you can do. Every case deserves 100 per cent, whether it is your most profitable client, or you are working pro bono. If you take a case, you owe it to the client, the courts and your reputation to do the best job you can. But don’t try to be a hero. Do your small part an accept your contribution.

Darryl Singer is head of civil and commercial litigation at Diamond & Diamond Lawyers LLP in Toronto. He used to be a family lawyer years ago and regularly says that while family law didn’t make him an addict, it certainly didn’t help.

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