Play the listening game: It’ll work out for you

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Understanding your client is everything.

It’s a lesson Carin Clauss found she still needed to learn after she caught herself assuming she knew what to do for a women who had been fired by an abusive supervisor.

“I was in a rush,” said Clauss, professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “I said, ‘You want your job back.’

“She said, ‘No, I got another job.’

‘So, it’s not as good of a job?’

‘No, it’s a promotion.’

‘So, you don’t like the hours?’

‘No, they’re better,’ she said. ‘I want an apology.’”

“I wasn’t listening,” Clauss said. “Busy lawyers don’t take the time for the whole story. We ask questions to get things to fit into a legal box for a lawsuit, but if you listen carefully, they might not want a lawsuit. They might want something they could get without a lawsuit or that no one could get for them at all.”

From wanting the last word to righting a wrong, what motivates a client can mean everything in a case — a fact that can be easily overlooked if one doesn’t take the time to find out.

“My goal when I work with a client is to try and understand their whole perspective. What are they trying to accomplish?” offered Travis Mueller, an associate attorney at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren in Milwaukee.

It’s a lesson Mueller learned from a mentor.

“He’s shown me there’s value in understanding your client’s entire life,” said Mueller, who practices business transactional law.

It’s a long game, admittedly.

And it takes time.

But, Mueller said, it doesn’t have to be difficult.

“I think one of the easiest ways is just giving away your time for free, being willing to do breakfasts, lunches, just picking up the phone. Nothing is billable or recordable, but it helps you build a relationship. And communicating that it isn’t on the clock, that you’re just trying to get to know them, you can build trust. And it can end up paying dividends in the end,” he said.

“It’s like developing any personal relationship; it takes a while. But it’s worth it. You can try to be more of a high-level strategist, not just dealing with them on an individual legal issue, although there is a time and place for that, but trying to be a more over-arching counselor.”

Finding out what motivates a client not only helps to build a relationship. It can also help refine strategy, get a client more invested in a potential settlement or avoid a lawsuit altogether, which — tough as it might be to concede — might not be the best course for a client.

“Whatever role you play, whether you’re a public-sector attorney or a foundation attorney or a private attorney, you need to understand what your client or your complainant wants,” said Clauss, a former federal employment litigator. “Because lawsuits are really hard on people.

“Lawsuits break up marriages. They break up families. You’re likely to lose your job. Even if you get reinstated later, it can affect the arc of your career. So it really has to be important to bring a lawsuit. And I don’t think lawyers spend enough time discussing this with their clients, especially when it comes to what the client wants. And, often, its exoneration, affirmation, personal vindication.”

One client even asked for a fair job reference.

“You shouldn’t need a lawsuit to get a fair job reference, but it might be helpful to have a lawyer make a couple of calls on your behalf.

“The one thing you want to do is listen,” Clauss said. “I think busy people have trouble listening. I know that’s my problem. You think you know why this person has come into your office, but you really need to listen. … They know the facts better than you do.”