MMM THATS GOOD SHITLAW
I wanted to write a lengthy diatribe venting about how much I despise this particular client. I won’t. I’ll just say you know you practice shitlaw when:
A hearing date gets moved back a week, and you tell your witness a week ahead that it got moved but you didnt tell them immediately when you found out, so:
The client emails you 4 times accusing you of not caring
The client calls you and keeps you on the phone for 15 minutes because he thinks you dont care.
The client’s mother emails you accusing you of being racist and not caring since the client is black.
The client’s witness emails you at 930 calling you unprofessional and begging you to call them even though the opposing party just filed a pleading with the court admitting to the one fact the witness was being used to introduce.
After straightening everything out with the witness at 9 am the next morning, the client’s mother calls to yell at you accusing you of not caring and doing a horrible job on the case because we haven’t won yet, 40 seconds into I just zone out and play tetris while waiting for her to shut up.
After telling the witness that if they can’t make the hearing it’s ok, we will make do without their testimony (which we dont even really need anymore) the witness bitches at me for using the term “make do” and CC’s the client’s mother who bitched at me earlier today.
So, CLIENT NAME REDACTED, you get 5 homer salutes! Fuck You!
My salary blows chunks but I’m thankful that, at least where I work, we just tell clients like that to take a hike if they even think about acting like that. To be honest though I’ve only had 1 or maybe 2 bad clients, with the 1 being really drunk that first time but then offering me free stuff after he saw me work on his case for a bit (I declined, because I still hated the guy anyway, even outside of the ethical can of worms that probably woulda been).
I don’t do PI though, stories like yours and some other blogs have steered me completely away from that field.
Experience has taught me that many clients use lies as preemptive measures to distract you from what they’ve already done OR what they’re about to do that could possibly undermine their character, whether it’s case-related or not. Sounds like your clients are like mine though: helpless children. Once they pay attorney fees, they relinquish all responsibility for their actions and refuse to think or act for themselves. This cognitive dissonance is met with tantrums and bitching that, because of the nature of our line of work, must be ignored or dealt with in a legal setting, something that’s hard to swallow sometimes.
So, what was this? Criminal client or plaintiff’s litagation? Either way, what an asshole.
Divorce man, fuckin divorce. Prepaid legal can eat the corn out of my butthole.
I think you’re wrong here– your mistake was not charming the client and witnesses with enough B.S. to get them off your back. If they’re not eating out of your hand, then you aren’t trying hard enough.
In general, the ethics rules protect the client from the lawyer and not the other way around. The rich clients have Biglaw in their back pockets. The poor clients can’t pay.