This article has been written by Shivam Tripathi, pursuing the Certificate Course in Introduction to Legal Drafting: Contracts, Petitions, Opinions & Articles from LawSikho.

Why is counselling a client important for a lawyer?

Counselling is all about giving your client all the information he/she needs related to their case or problem, in order to make a decision. Counselling is one of the main functions of a lawyer. You might be thinking client counselling is just a little part of a law professional’s job but no, you’re wrong. Client counselling is the art and science of talking, understanding, observing and culling the truth out of your potential client. In the process of counselling, usually the lawyers exercise a great deal of power in controlling the outcome of the counselling, guiding their client through the decisions, making the clients a passive spectator. In the end, the counsellor ends up making decisions for the clients.

With the passing of time, the legal profession evolved and the concept of client-centred counselling became an acceptable practice. The concept of client counselling or client-centred counselling involves the lawyer to assist his client in taking the decisions and not take decisions on behalf of them. Unlike other counselling, in legal counselling, the client might be looking for possible remedies for his situation. Many leading counselor’s say that it pays to keep asking and trying to answer that very question. According to the research work titled “Client Counselling for Tomorrow’s Lawyers” by Ph.D., Mrs. Srividya Jayakumar the process of counselling has two functions:

1. To help the person talk about, explore and understand his or her thoughts and feelings and workout that what he or she might do before taking action; and
2. To help the person decide on his or her own solutions.

Legal Counselling is the process by which a lawyer communicates advice to a client. I cannot emphasize anymore over the fact that it is the duty of an advocate to fearlessly  uphold the interests of his client by all fair and honourable means without regard to any unpleasant consequences to himself or any other. Let’s have a look over some basic elements that a practising professional or even a budding lawyer should keep in mind while counselling their potential client.

Who are your clients?  Understanding the different types of clients

During the time of your practice, the types of clients that you will get will depend on the area of practice you choose mostly. But regardless of your area of practice there will always be three types of clients that you will have to interact with and your way of conducting the interview and sessions will differ with all three of them. The three types of clients that you will come across are as follows:

1. Aggrieved: when your client is the one who has been violated or has been deprived of some rights.
2. Accused: when the client seeking your advice is the person who has been accused of some sort of offence or is at fault.
3. Witnesses: The witnesses are not exactly your client but interviewing them is part of your job in order to make your case stronger.

You need to choose your strategy for interacting with these different kinds of clients carefully, an aggrieved person will expect that you have empathy and a mind for understanding his/her situation; while the accused client will expect you to believe his side of the story and protect him from being convicted unfairly; and a witness require you to help him/her curate the incidents carefully in their mind.

 Often it happens that a witness requires special attention for coping over the PTSD of the incident/crime they witnessed, in that case you need to act as a therapist too, obviously not a professional therapist but you can always try to make them comfortable and recapitulate the incident as per the case. Additionally, the lawyers lack the required expertise for making a psychological or therapeutic analysis, so under no circumstance you should aim to do so (assuming you are a law professional). 

Taking hints while conversing with your client

There are some indicators of psychological inferences  that you can pick up with communication and can  keep in mind while interviewing the clients described in above-mentioned categories: 

Negative statements at the beginning or end of the interview

What your client says at the start of your conversation are important indicators of their attitude. They may say “you won’t be able to help me but someone told me to come…”. Statements made at the end of the interview are also essential. These statements usually indicate both attitude and the client’s understanding or lack of it.

Association of seemingly unrelated ideas

For instance, in a divorce case, a client who is the wife may demand that the husband be denied from visiting the children because he is a “bad, wicked person,” although he has always been a good father to the children who want to meet him. The situation can be further complicated if the lawyer begins to think of his own parents’ divorce and unconsciously starts associating aspects of his own mother’s persona to the client. The interviewer’s (referring to the lawyer) counter-transference of his feelings towards his mother onto the client may trigger the undesired reactions in the client, who may then feel resentment or anger towards the interviewer whose tone of voice reminds the client of his/her parents who provoked similar reactions.

Conversation shifts

Conversation shifts basically mean shifting of topics of conversation frequently during the interview. These shifts may indicate that the client is uncomfortable because they were revealing too much or because the subject was mentally too harsh. For example, in a case of domestic violence the client may respond to questions regarding their relationship by talking about why their relationship problems (which might be a true explanation) to avoid talking about their fault. Sometimes such shifts may also take place, however, because the topics have a subconscious relationship to something else. (referred in the points above).

Repeated references

You might keep the note when the client often returns to a certain subject or general theme to explain their problems in life. A client may blame a thousand different subjects for their problems to avoid taking responsibility. Such clients often try to be very dependent upon the lawyer for any difficulties related to their “legal situations”. In that case it is the lawyers’ to make them understand that they have shared responsibility in it and that certain things must be done and decided by themselves rather than the lawyer.

Ability to remember general feelings and not actions

Often it happens that the client who has gone through a trauma might be consciously or subconsciously blocking any recall. Also, you cannot ignore the effect of time over the memories, it can be the case where the incident, that your client wants to talk about, happened a considerable time ago.

Inability to separate behaviour from self

Your client can be a person who does not feel good about themselves, does not feel that they are competent enough or are dependent over other people’s reaction to their behaviour. For instance, telling some juveniles that their stealing was inappropriate may simply reinforce a negative feeling that they are bad. This can be an obstacle in establishing a good client-attorney relationship as they might see the lawyer as the person who believes that their client is not a good person and hence, no on their (clients’) side.

Excessive protest or explanation

The client may compulsively perform a quick covering move to camouflage a small release of information with which the client is uncomfortable. Sometimes, it can be a part of a deliberate attempt to deceive the interviewer.

Gaps and inconsistencies

When you observe missing pieces and unexplained contradictions in your clients’ story, it might mean that the client fears of being criticized openly or silently by the interviewer. A fear of revelation to others or a belief that the lawyer will only work well for guilt-less/innocent client or deep psychological troubles. On the contrary, if you notice absolute consistency without any gaps or variations as the client tries to remember and communicate, then there are chances that the story may be twisted or rehearsed rather than attempt to communicate. Some gaps and inconsistencies are natural and unavoidable for a complex incident.

Feelings regarding a psychologically related item

For instance, a client may oppose allowing a psychiatrist to talk to a family member because they are personally afraid this would result in them being involuntarily committed to a mental clinic.

Body language

Body language is part of non-verbal communication and lawyers often tend to be dependent upon words alone. Both the clients and the lawyers communicate non verbally as well. To best evaluate the non-verbal clues, it is essential to notice what body language is standard for the client and noteworthy body shifts. Some body language is observed visually, such as expression, gesture, position, movement, eye contact, and distance or proximity.

Other body language is auditory, including pace, pitch, intensity, volume, and speech errors. Body language indicates like/dislike, relaxed/anxious, and dominance/submissiveness. It is worth noting that the body language is often affected by two factors, firstly, personality, for example, a shy person might not be able to look straight into the eyes while talking but it does not mean that they are lying and, secondly, physical difficulties, for example, regular blinking of eyes may be due to new contact lenses rather than anxiety.

Some basic thumb rules that you should keep in mind when client counselling

Basics of client counselling

A good client counsellor has the ability to create a therapeutic environment, instil hope, quickly centring on achievable objectives, judiciously selecting evidence-based practices. While counselling the client the counsellor should focus on creating the atmosphere where the client feels confident enough to share the complete information and his side of the story regarding the case. A client counselling session might sound scary to some, some might have a panic attack with the name of interacting a client but keeping in mind the following the steps will help you overcome your anxiety while interacting with a client and leave a lasting impression, after all, it is an aggrieved human who is approaching you for a solution to his problem.

Planning is the answer

Plan your meeting session beforehand. Practising your interaction session will only give you more confidence, although, while applying that to real situations will require some on the spot modifications but that will be way better than leaving a bad impression over your client. Keep this in mind, planning is better and practising it is best.

Make the client comfortable

“How are you sir/ma’am?” or “Did you face any problems in finding the office?” and similar dialogues should be your conversation starters the moment the client or a prospective client enters your office space. You need to make sure they feel that they are welcomed and you are the one who is there to listen to them and help them. Offering a glass of water or tea is a good practice and often seen as a common courtesy.

Prepare a checklist

The checklist about things that you have to mention to your client, keep it short. A checklist always comes in handy while you are a beginner in client counselling but as you start making a good practice of it you won’t even need it. So, your checklist should have things like:

1. Client’s full name and residential or commercial address. As a backup, if you forget to ask any of them you can catch up by saying “did I (or the secretary) give you the information sheet to fill out?”.
2. The Consultation fees. It’s an insincere move to bring up fees towards the end so you need to be careful while mentioning it but this does not mean that you don’t mention the fees. Make sure to mention the fees by showing the utmost care towards the client’s situation. Find the cleverest way to bring up the topic.
3. Attorney-client privilege. Briefly explain to the client that anything that they discuss with you will be fully confidential.
4. Mind your language. Urge the client to stop you wherever they think that the things are not clear or if you’re using the language that is not clear. A layman cannot appreciate the legal terminology so it is important that you make yourself flexible as per the understanding of your client while communicating your legal opinion.
5. Make sure that you don’t have any conflict of interest with the current client, or atleast pretend that you have a conflict of interest with the client but it doesn’t bar you from meeting the client.

Keep asking

In order to know your client better it is always preferable to know the client’s background and story as much as you can while talking to them. Begin by asking the questions like “so, what brings you here today?” or “we got to know that you have some sort of problem with….”. In order to take to most from the meeting make sure to dig out important information like:

1. If the opposing party is represented by counsel.
2. Names and addresses of the other potential parties.
3. Whether the client has brought, is in possession, has access to the relevant documents or copies of the same.
4. What does the client want to achieve? What is his ultimate goal?
5. Fill in the gaps by recapping the client’s story.

Analyzing the client’s situation/case

First of all, it is not necessary that you will know the solution for the problem the moment you hear it, you can tell the client that they do not need to worry about it as you will research it and get back to it and ensure that they get the best remedy available. You can be frank with the client and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their case, layout the possible remedies that the client can avail. Do not forget to mention the remedies that can be availed outside court such as contacting the other party by letter or telephone, negotiation, mediation etc. Remember, you always need to think about what’s best for your client.

Be specific on your actionable terms

It is a good practice to identify the specific actionable terms and tell your client specifically exactly who to contact and when to expect the call. Often it is a good idea to ask the client to not down the to-dos after the meeting. It can be things like collecting the required documents, taking or not talking to someone, depending on the case specifically.

Listening actively

The clients appreciate it when we are actively listening and engaged in their interviews. By active listening, it means that you should be able to identify the “who?”, ”what?”, ”when?” and “where?” of our clients’ problems. You also need to take a note of the clients’ goals, values, and expectations. Finally, we listen for any emotional context with the clients’ narratives.

Conclusion

As lawyers, our duty is to ensure that our client gets the best and nothing else and an important part of it is counselling your client properly and enabling them to make the right decisions. Client counselling is not even completely a skill, it is something that can be learned and mastered via practice. The question is not if you want to do it or not but how you do it better?

Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skill.