The Lawyer's Job When It Comes to Challenging Personalities
“Why did you go to law school?” is a common question asked of most law students. There are common answers to this question, too: (i) “I've always liked to argue”; (ii) “I want to help people”; (iii) “I didn't know what else to do”; (iv) “I lost a bet”; or (v) “It's a better degree than an M.B.A.” While we have never heard someone respond with, “I want to manage challenging personalities so that those people, their companies, their causes, and their dreams might be saved,” it is indeed the reality.
As a lawyer, you are the fire extinguisher (or fire truck, as the case may be) positioned perfectly to help save someone from themselves and best guide such a person to the best outcome, professionally and, in some cases, personally.
Your job is not to be another difficult personality. Your job is to be the person who people loop in when the going gets tough, whatever the facts, no matter how serious or embarrassing it might be. If you do your job correctly, then you will have clients and others seeking your advice and counsel on things having nothing to do with the original problem you may have helped them with. There is no bigger compliment than someone returning for your advice. As a mentor of Jason's once said: “Strive to become someone's consiglieri, not just lawyer.”
A good lawyer is the calmest person in the room, measured in their approach, and intentional in their execution once a path forward has been determined. We've all been asked questions over our careers that have made our heads explode in confusion. After we take an internal millisecond to recover, we are left feeling humbled and flattered that people would share their deepest insecurities with us.
More specifically, as a lawyer you need to (i) quickly identify the endgame for your client or other stakeholders whose interests you have been charged with advancing; (ii) assess where your client or stakeholder is now on the issues at hand; and (iii) figure out how best to get them to a reasonable conclusion, with a mindset of the ends justifying the means. Since we, too, are lawyers, we'll tell you that last sentence is subject to the following.