Practical Guide: Dealing With Emotionally Charged Clients

Family law Lawyers working with clients in the middle of separation/divorce requires more than just knowledge about the law:

- It requires knowing how to walk the client through one of the most intensely emotional moments of their lives.

- It requires emotional awareness, good communication skills, and a commitment towards resolving disputes.

-It requires acting in a cost-effective and efficient manner; and

-It requires acting with emotional intelligence and not becoming over-zealous or combative.

Here are some principles that I tried to live by while representing family law litigants:

1.        Don’t blindly follow Instructions:-clients are in crisis and may want to fight over everything.

-clients may want to attempt to use the legal system as a form of retaliation.

-help the client to shift from a reactive mindset to a strategic one.

-lead, don’t enable.

-discuss the possible legal options with the client, the financial consequences of moving forward with those options and the consequences of adopting an unreasonable position.

2.        Acknowledge the client’s Emotions but don’t adopt them as your own:

-Remain calm, clear and grounded.

-acknowledge the client’s pain.

-but don’t match their emotion.

-gently guide the client towards a realistic and achievable resolution.

3.  Understand your client’s emotional stages:

-recognize the cycle of emotions like fear, denial, grief, anger, depression, anxiety and possibly vengeance.

-meet the client where they are emotionally.

-suggest that they receive counselling to help them to deal with their emotions.

-gently guide them towards what is possible and productive.

4. Case Conferences require preparation and purpose:

-Don’t show up to repeat what’s already in the pleadings.

-Come prepared to define the issues: what’s in dispute and what’s not.

-Come with proposals for resolving issues in dispute.

-You aren’t stating positions – you are trying to narrow issues and promote resolution.

5. Make Mediation a Real Option:

-The court system is backlogged whether due to the pandemic or due to an influx of self-represented parties.

-delay is the norm, not the exception.

-delay intensifies emotion – the longer parties wait – the more resentment builds and the harder it becomes for reason to take over emotions.

-the litigation clock can be stopped with a referral to mediation – it allows parties time to regroup.

-mediation offers calm amid the storm – you are doing your client a disservice by not allowing them space and opportunity to re-gain this control by going to mediation.

At lmkmediation.com, I help lawyers and clients with support to find emotionally intelligent ways to resolve disputes outside of court.   If you are ready to talk about how mediation can help your client, please contact me at:  Info@lmkmediation.com.