It's a Love Hate Thing

As a lawyer, my product is legal services. My customers are my clients. In the world of business the customers drive the business. No customers, no business. Basic business 101 dictates that the business owner must at the very least attract and keep a sufficient number of customers to allow for the ongoing operation of business. The problem? I hate my fricken clients.

I don't mean I don't like my clients. Or that my client's are difficult and test my patience. I truly, madly, deeply, in the most passionate of deep dark emotions hate my clients. I don't want to talk to them on the phone. I don't want to hear about their whiney baby little snarky bitch snot complaints about the other side. I don't fricken care. They are wasting their time, their emotional energy, and their money on the case. Nothing is going to be resolved. The court can't do anything. The only remedy provided by the law is an emotional victory which will ring hollow by the time we walk out of the court house doors. The victory my client's want most is not a victory our court system can provide in any way shape or form. Not only that but they're crazy. All of them.

That said, I love my job. If I could only figure out how to do my job and never actually come into contact with my clients life would be perfect. I suppose I could become an academic and write papers all day about the theoretical bullshit surrounding my field of law. But that's not the same thing. I love going into the court room. I love preparing for trial. I love debating with opposing counsel. I love laying the verbal smackdown. I just hate my clients.

So the next time you need a lawyer, and you're thumbing through the yellow pages (which I'm not in by the way), keep in mind the lawyer you are likely to get will be very good at what she does, but she will hate you. You will loose regardless of the outcome of the case. The remedy you are looking for does not exist. The law cannot make people play nice with each other. There is no legal action for "he's being mean to me". (ok, there is, but not really.) By the end of the case you will be frustrated, angry, broke and beaten. And that's if you win. If you still want to hire the lawyer after you've spent time pondering that...happy litigating, I'll see ya in court!