When a client walks in the door, he or she has a legal problem. The client wants your help in sorting it out. Along with the legal problem, the client often brings in a great deal of emotional baggage. Your job as a lawyer is to evaluate coolly the legal problem presented and devise a strategy for dealing with it. While you of course want to develop a positive relationship with every client, your job is not to resolve emotional problems. Your client can go to another professional for that.
Unfortunately, in their representation of a client, some lawyers permit their professional judgment to be overwhelmed and undermined by their client’s emotional and psychological needs. Overidentification with the client’s emotional needs is an occupational hazard that leads to all sorts of trouble. It needs to be assiduously avoided. Let’s step back and take a look at this issue.
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