Top Ten Ways to Kiss Your Client’s Ass and Act Happy While Doing So

Since I don't know if  anyone actually reads these blog posts, I thought I would try something different. Call it cathartic, if you will.

I enjoy the legal practice in general, but it certainly seems that the expectations can be a bit unreasonable, but it pays the bills so I do what needs to be done ethically and morally. I suppose some lawyers gloss over the moral thing and may get more clients, I haven't become that jaded.

In this competitive market, the following is a list of potential rear-end smooching that may be acceptable. I consider them a bit more, but if it pays the bills and I don't feel too worthless, maybe I'll try one or two. Let me quote from— Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment

Chief Hearst: Mauser, you are the the most incredible ass-kisser I have ever seen.
Sgt. Mauser: (smiling) Thank you very much, sir. I do my best.

 Now to the list:

1. Take my client's dog for a walk (if I get paid the same billable hourly rate, but I'm not going to agree to one-half of the billable rate by calling it travel time).

2. Babysit the client's snotty-nosed brats? I think I might prefer to take the dogs out  for free.

3. Agree with the client's choice of political candidate. Oh yeah, there's no shame in politics.

4. Let the client ridicule my analysis as asinine. Not a problem with that one. I probably agree.

5. Do three months of work, bill the client and allow him to edit the bill because he doesn't think certain things were necessary and then wait another 60 days to pay the bill. Oh wait, that ALREADY happens.

6. Accept the client's ranting and railing at my staff over a document he claims to not have received only later to discover that it was in his in-box that he failed to look through. Nah, I can take the bad attitude toward me, but I can't accept it when it's directed to the staff. I don't treat them that way so I can't let the clients do that either.

7. Laugh at his  stupid-ass drunken jokes. Easy enough as long as he remembers me when he returns to the office to send me another case.

8. Responding to the question "Hey, I've just got a quick question that I need your advice. Now don't charge me for this." Then he goes off into a diatribe of detailed complexities that make me dizzily nauseous. Sure, I do that all the time.

9. Bring my wife to cocktail party and overlook the drunken comment by the client who says to her "Ish that cat hair on yur ash?" Sad, but true story, but I didn't overlook it. I just redirected her to a safe place.

10. Give up and just goes with the flow, finding refuge in a heartfelt loathing towards the stupidity of the world in general.

Bonus:

Spend hours on complex legal issues and work a case down to an extremely reasonable settlement and later being told  "We're going in a different direction" and have the case sent to another attorney in another town who YOU referred them to in the first place so that you would help them keep their costs down.

No good deed goes unpunished.