I have noticed many times over the years when speaking with an attorney that he is often not all there, that although he is right in front of me, the gaze is 1,000 yards behind me. He is not here, not now. I have spent enough time with enough lawyers to know that stare and to know that it’s not personal. It is the stare of one who is calculating deadlines, writing a brief, rehearsing opening statements, deposing a witness—all in his head, completely out of contact with the present.
And this is good; this is what he has paid for—to care about what’s going on in his legal work. I often find myself thinking about clients when those people are not present. That thought process is the nature of being a service provider. It means you are invested in your work and are always trying to do the best job possible. It is not good when this is a constant. You are not doing the best job possible if that mental process has taken over, if it is all that can be meaningfully attended to because soon enough, due to the frailty of the human mind, that attorney will burn out and be unable to give full attention to her work.
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