I once acted for a client I couldn't figure out
I once acted for a client I couldn't figure out.
Clever. Likeable. Reasonable. Accepting of advice. 'Got' the law. Genuinely wanted a good outcome for everyone. Unicorn client. 🦄
Until I needed something from them…
Every deadline was a struggle.
I'd ask for bank statements, payslips, the Form E backup.
Silence...
I'd chase.
More silence...
I'd chase again, this time with a deadline attached, this time explaining what happens if we miss it. Eventually, at 11pm the night before it was due, it would land in my inbox.
I never understood it. There was so much at stake — their financial future, their children's arrangements, their case! — I would have actual nightmares about what could go wrong if the client continued to delay.
I seemed to want it more than they did. That's not a comfortable thing to feel about a client. It's not fair to think it either. But it creeps in.
Here's what I was unable to see at the time: it was never about wanting it less. It was never about not caring.
Because I was the one asking for a document. I wasn't asking them to sit still, decode a system that wasn't built for how their brain works, retrieve information from three years ago, hold it in mind long enough to act on it, and do all of that while their entire life was falling apart around them.
Court doesn't wait for that. Filing deadlines don't allow for it. Cost budgets don't forgive it.
Every hearing needs to be effective, this means every document in on time, your position and submissions prepared thoroughly and in on time. Or you're into costs implications and negative inferences territory.
There is no cushioning for the client who structurally cannot just "get it done."
So, the case gets harder to run. Not because the legal issues are hard. Because managing the client has quietly become the job.
And here's the thing — we already know what to do when a case needs expertise we don't have. We bring in a pension actuary. A forensic accountant. A financial advisor. Nobody thinks twice about that.
So why do we treat it differently when what the case actually needs is someone who can help the client function through it?
