YES! Lawyers are Healers
For the longest time I’ve held the belief that my role as a lawyer is not just to offer legal advice, or provide legal services simply, but that to be a healer of the emotions they’re experiencing in the moment of their journey with me as a client. In order to keep this perspective fresh, when coming into a conversion or consultation, I pause and take a deep breath and moment to remind myself that I’m not just getting on this call to spot issues as a lawyer, but also to be a healer. This helps me listen to my clients from a different perspective. I’m not analyzing their words like I would assess a fact pattern on the bar exam, but I’m also trying to listen to and understand what they’re not saying or how they’re saying what they’re saying, which will allow me to tap into their emotional state, their perspective on their well being, what’s stressing them, etc. Having both perspectives allows me to have a very rounded picture and give holistic advice and talk deeply.
If the medium we are communicating on is devoid of the emotional intel my firm needs, and it’s sterile, such as formal email communication or bare bones texting, we remind our clients that they can be more open with us so that we are not losing or desensitizing. I have trained my staff to be on high alert for emotional queues, friction, apprehension, confusion, lack of clarity etc. all the emotional intelligence feelers, to sense when our clients are either above or below baseline.
We are always asking ourselves, where are our clients? Is this something our clients are excited about? Can we become part of their experience?
Positive emotions are clearly easier to mirror than negative, so what about when our clients are frustrated, sad, angry, indignant, disappointed?
In order for us, and for lawyers, to be healers is to mirror our clients and not exacerbate or dramatize their experience, but to let them know they are honored, heard and understood and to take the step to open the door for our clients to be authentic and to know that we provide them a safe space to be expressive and honest, and we are not bound by formalities of them being a client and us being attorneys. We are not in a courtroom, at least at my law firm we see that we are being welcomed into our client’s very intimate experience of making a huge change and shift in their lives.
As my real estate law firm grows, it has become so important to me to create space with staff, tech, systems and processes to keep the space open for this authentic communication, which takes time and patience to nurture and provide. As a real estate law firm grows it can become much more difficult to hear and listen to these signals. The busier you get the further your ear gets from the ground.
Our role as healers is always a focus and strategy for our law firm to continue to nurture.
I believe whether an attorney sees it or not, that each and every person with ESQ. at the end of their name they have a choice to add this to their style of working with clients and it’s up to each individual counselor to decide, do I want to make this a priority?
Now I’m not saying become best friends and family with your client and give them your personal cell phone number so that they can text you at 1:00 am when they wake up frazzled, which inevitably, some clients would take advantage of, but if you want to have a deeper impact, with a more rewarding experience with your clients, you can find your own way to say to your clients that you’re guiding them and their with them on the emotional rollercoaster and helping them feel confident that they can navigate through each twist, turn, up and down.
As I continue to hold onto this mindset and train my staff in being healers and provide legal services, that our clients feel so much more supported and they feel that they’re truly able to process things that happen within the context of their transaction, which mitigates the risk that something will be brushed over only to surface as a huge problem post closing. They end their transactions feeling like they massaged everything, and fully confident that they processed everything to go to the closing table with eyes and hearts wide open.
