Why it’s best to establish a strong understanding between lawyer and client.
Lawyer-mediator Rajan Chettiar explores the importance of communication and understanding between you and your lawyer.
Divorce proceedings are often fraught with emotion. It wasn’t until I became involved in my own divorce that I truly understood the client’s position. A family law practitioner is not only a lawyer, they become a confidante, walking the last part of the client’s marriage-ending journey with them. The client often emotionally exposes his most vulnerable self to the lawyer and the lawyer needs to understand the personal traits of the client – background, marriage and the challenges associated with these. While this helps to build a good professional relationship, it also makes it personal. Someone once said to me, “When you really care it shows, and when you pretend to care it also shows.” A family lawyer is a professional with a heart who, from my experience, needs to be empathetic, caring and supportive. We must have a genuine desire to help others. It’s also useful to cultivate skills such as counselling and people management. I believe my compassion and genuine love and deep desire to help others constantly motivates me when practising family law.
Clients often have endless fears, which should be immediately addressed to ease emotional discomfort. This is usually directed in the form of telephone calls, text messages and emails – sometimes after office hours and on weekends. Marital woes typically arise during the evenings and weekends, and clients like to know their lawyer is accessible during those hours. Often divorce lawyers have to serve their clients beyond the call of duty. My clients have all my contact numbers and are encouraged to call me at any time. To the client, their matter is the important case the lawyer is handling. If your lawyer doesn’t have the time, patience or seems disinterested, you’ll only feel frustrated and angry, and probably take your case to another lawyer. The process of building trust within a lawyer-client relationship then has to begin all over again.
Age and life experience often enables a lawyer to help a client effectively. As a divorcee myself, I never hesitate to share my life lessons with my clients. At the same time, I also apply any lessons learned from my clients to my own remarriage. One of the rewards of my position is that I’m constantly reminded of how I should conduct my own marriage and how best to keep it safe and secure. After all, marriage is the most significant life-long relationship in a person’s life – it needs to be nurtured and any hiccups should be promptly attended to.
Rajan Chettiar Commissioner For Oaths, Mediator LLB (Honours), Barrister-at-law (Middle Temple), UK
