Client Science Advice for Lawyers on Counseling Clients through Bad News and Other Legal Realities

For most lawyers, effective client counseling is neither intuitive nor easy. Lawyers tend to avoid or delay communicating bad news out of a fear of client backlash, or because they feel torn between the obligation to clearly inform clients about weaknesses in legal positions and fear of damaging the client relationship. There is a perception that honest advice from a lawyer can make a client doubt the allegiance and zeal brought to a particular legal matter. Client Science helps lawyers to effectively communicate with their clients, particularly when delivering bad news or other legal realities. Author, Marjorie Corman Aaron, explains the applicable social sciences and translates insights from these fields into plain language to help improve a lawyer's ordering, timing, phrasing, and type of explanation, as well as style adjustments for the lawyer's voice, gesture, and body position. Ultimately, she demonstrates how the proverbial well-informed client--meaning a client who fully understands and appreciates the lawyer's information and advice--can also be a satisfied client who trusts the lawyer's competence and loyalty.

CONTENTS. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. PREFACE. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER 1: BAD NEWS AND THE FULLY INFORMED CLIENT. CHAPTER 2: TRANSLATING THE TERRAIN. CHAPTER 3: MEANING TRUTHS. CHAPTER 4: EMOTIONAL EFFECTS AND AFFECTING EMOTIONS. CHAPTER 5: PREDICTABLE AND POTENT PSYCHOLOGY. HOW TO SAY IT, AND WHY. CHAPTER 6: CHOICES IN VOICE. CHAPTER 7: CHOREOGRAPHY OF COUNSEL. CHAPTER 8: A GESTURE TO CLARITY. CHAPTER 9: CHANNEL NAVIGATION NOTES. FINAL THOUGHTS. INDEX.

Marjorie Corman Aaron is Professor of Practice and Director, Center for Practice at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she teaches courses in negotiations, client counseling, mediation, and decision analysis. She is also an active mediator, arbitrator, and trainer in negotiation and dispute resolution in Cincinnati, Ohio, and previously served on the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, the Ethics Commission of the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution, and the Publications Committee of the ABA Section on Dispute Resolution. Until July, 1998, Marjorie Aaron was the Executive Director of the Program on Negotiation ("PON") at Harvard Law School, where she was also a lecturer teaching negotiation. Prior to joining PON, Ms. Aaron was a Vice President at Endispute (now known as JAMS-ADR), and a panel mediator for the Middlesex Multi-Door Courthouse.