This document discusses establishing healthy boundaries in the attorney-client relationship. It emphasizes the importance of respect, trust, and rapport between attorneys and clients. Some key points discussed include setting reasonable expectations with clients, understanding client goals, developing a shared understanding of each party's role and responsibilities, and maintaining open communication. The document also provides guidance on addressing potential issues that could challenge boundaries, such as clients with mental illness, domestic violence victims, cultural differences, and difficult personalities. Throughout, it stresses maintaining a normal client-attorney relationship built on mutual understanding and respect.

1. Establishing Boundaries
with Clients
Sherlyn Selassie
Staff Attorney
Gwinnett Legal Aid
Access online:
http://tinyurl.com/boundaries2016

2. The purpose of the attorney-client
privilege?
“…the desirability of lawyers educating
clients in the law—that is, educating them
so that they come to realize the purposes
and limits, the malleability, and the
strength of the legal system as it applies
to their affairs; for lawyers can enter on
this work of intimate education only if their
clients can disclose their affairs candidly
and fully to their counsel.”
--John T. Noonan, The Lawyer Who Overidentifies with his Client

3. Touchstones for healthy
boundaries
 Respect: esteem for a sense of the worth or
excellence of a person, a personal quality or
ability
 Trust: reliance on the integrity, strength,
ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing;
confidence.
 Rapport: relation; connection, especially
harmonious or sympathetic relation
 Empathy: details coming soon. . .
-http://www.dictionary.com

4. Respect

5. Trust
“Clients want to believe that their lawyer is their
ally and advocate—and may hesitate to provide
full information if they don’t feel supported. In
contrast, people tend to be more willing to share
more information (particularly sensitive or
personal information) with those whom they
trust. ”
-Jennifer Robbennolt
Good Lawyers Should be Good Psychologists: Insights for
Interviewing and Counseling Clients, Pg. 500

6. Trust & Rapport
“Trust is central to the attorney-client relationship.
To trust is to ‘accept vulnerability based on
positive expectations of the intentions or behavior
of another.’ Clients, who are often in a vulnerable
position, trust their attorney when they rely on the
attorney to act in ways that are consistent with the
clients’ well-being—expecting both that the
attorney will act with fidelity to their interests and
will act competently in doing so.”
-Jennifer Robbennolt
Good Lawyers Should be Good Psychologists: Insights for Interviewing and
Counseling Clients

7. Setting the Tone for Respect,
Trust & Rapport
Establish reasonable expectations
 UNDER-promise and OVER-deliver

8. Attorney’s Expectations:
What was My #1 Assumption About
My Clients?

9. Not everyone knows how to have an
attorney-client relationship: Developing and
nurturing this relationship is a learning
process

10. Client Expectations:
Relationship Basics
1. What is my attorney’s role?
2. What is the client’s role?
3. How do I communicate with my
attorney?
4. What are the keys for keeping our
relationship healthy?

11. GETTING ON THE SAME
PAGE
Part II

12. Off to a Good Start:
What are the client’s goals?

13. Can I help my client reach their
goal?

14. Can I help my client reach their
goal?
 Initial contact/cursory assessment
 Interview/Retainer Meeting
 Case strategy development
 Reinforcing boundaries & expectations
 Trial assessment and strategy
Use goals throughout the
representation in order to keep client
focused and reinforce boundaries

15. The Retainer Roadmap
 Standard retainer PLUS
◦ Client Goals Addendum or S.W.O.T.
◦ Consider Special Needs Addendum, if
beneficial to the client
◦ Consider scope of representation
 See, Scope of Representation Rule 1.2

16. Initial Consultation or Interview
Developing a Shared Roadmap
 Clients goals in their own words
◦ You may be surprised what you find out
 Develop your “Friends and Family Plan”
 Discuss any other client expectations
 Discuss attorney’s temperament and
office policies

18. Goals Addendum
 Client goals in their own words
 Handwritten (preferred) or emailed, if
necessary
 Annotate client’s goals with attorney’s insight
:
◦ Reasonable or unreasonable
◦ Promises or exclusions for pursuit in the case
plan
 Obtain client’s initials next to exclusions or
limitations
 Explain client goals are part of the retainer,
since the agreed upon goals are the “road
map for our case”

19. The process can be messy...

20. Is the goal a moving target?

21. Your case sucks, but...

22. OK, so you don't like handwriting...
Or, you can't meet your client in
person . . .
Or, email just suits you better . . .

24. The Power of S.W.O.T.
FACTS APPLICATION OF LAW
Strengths Opportunities
Weaknesses Threats
• Obtain informed consent
• Keep the client focused
• Written S.W.O.T. analysis is recommended in
highly contested cases and with clients who
have difficult personalities (or particularly strong
external influences)
• Download a S.W.O.T. template here

27. Friend & Family Plan:
Respecting “Their” Role
 Identify the client’s “Fave Five” or
“Dream Team”
 The Dream Team has an essential role
in the case:
◦ Emotional support throughout the case
◦ A sense of community
◦ The midnight flat tire on I-85

28. Friend & Family Plan:
Respecting MY Role
 Explain the attorney is the legal expert
◦ Require client insists the Dream Team respects your
expertise—”this is how we keep our relationship
healthy”
◦ Explain how violation of this boundary may require
we end our relationship
◦ It is very likely the Dream Team will not always agree
with my advice because of their emotional investment
in YOU. This is a team: we all have to respect our
roles.
◦ Again, ask the client to protect our (attorney-client)

29. What Is My Attorney’s Role?

30. What Is My Attorney’s Role?
Attorney is… Attorney is NOT…
• An officer of the court
• A licensed legal professional
• Your legal strategist
• Your legal counselor
• Your Advocate (in this case)
• Your life coach
• Your therapist
• Your friend
• Your decision-maker
• Your boss (or minion)

31. Communication: Basic
Boundaries
 Call once, and leave a message (rather than calling back-
to-back when I do not answer, or leaving multiple
messages)
 Allow me to speak without interrupting
 Answer the question I am asking (rather than the one you
think I am asking)
 Be honest: I cannot anticipate all angles if I do not have
the entire story
 Communication is a two-way street: Attorney’s duty to
keep client informed and obtained prompt consent-- Rule
1.4
 Click here for a Sample Office Policy

32. NOT-SO-LEGAL ISSUE
SPOTTING
Section III

33. Empowering Clients
 Clients can often be intimidated by
attorneys or expect the world of us
◦ Attorney may be the #1 scapegoat if client
becomes remorseful
 Explain agency and decision-making
◦ Offers and counteroffers
◦ Attorney’s role as counselor, not “boss” or
decision-maker
 Advise whether reasonable or not
 Makes recommendations
 Remember: “I am here to help pursue your goals”
 Not to be confused with Legal Strategy—that is MY job
 See, Rule 1.2(a), Allocation of authority between client
and lawyer

34. Cultural Differences
 Develop a cultural sensitivity by realizing your
perspective is not the same as everyone else’s
 Engage client’s trust by expressing interest in their
culture
 Accept food graciously but eat at your own risk
 Rejecting gifts can cause offense. If the client
insists, explain your “simple” or “low cost” gifts
policy.
 Explain your own cultural norms if the client’s
customs make you uncomfortable in any way.

35. Victims of Domestic Violence
 Therapy – consider this as one way the client must
“cooperate with their representation” and add language to
the retainer (especially in custody cases)
 Community support
◦ Client’s “Dream Team” is imperative, but may be non-existent
for victims who have been isolated.
 Ancillary resources
◦ Gwinnett Family Violence Project: (678) 376-9844
◦ Partnership Against Domestic Violence
◦ Shelters
◦ United Way
◦ Local temple, synagogue, church or other religious
organization

36. Mental Illness
 Develop a sensitivity to quickly identify any illness
 Ask direct (but gentle) questions to gather as much information you
need about the illness
 Ask permission to offer your own assistance
 Establish an understanding with the assisting friend or family member
that they are not the client.
 Offer any other resources or referral you perceive may offer support or
assistance to your client.
 Remind client to follow their treatment plan or to obtain treatment
 Therapy language in retainer, when appropriate

37. Rule 1.14 – Clients with Diminished
Capacity
a. When a client's capacity to make adequately considered
decisions in connection with a representation is diminished,
whether because of minority, mental impairment or for some
other reason, the lawyer shall, as far as reasonably possible,
maintain a normal client-lawyer relationship with the client.
b. When the lawyer reasonably believes that the client has
diminished capacity, is at risk of substantial physical, financial
or other harm unless action is taken and cannot adequately act
in the client's own interest, the lawyer may take reasonably
necessary protective action, including consulting with
individuals or entities that have the ability to take action to
protect the client and, in appropriate cases, seeking the
appointment of a guardian ad litem, conservator or guardian.
c. Information relating to the representation of a client with
diminished capacity is protected by Rule 1.6. When taking
protective action pursuant to paragraph (b), the lawyer is
impliedly authorized under Rule 1.6(a) to reveal information
about the client, but only to the extent reasonably necessary to

38. Hypochondriacs
 Immediately identify this is the client’s
favorite tool for bonding with others
 Have a discussion about the relevance of
the client’s medical condition(s) to the
case plan
 If you must, tell the client you are
squeamish
 Remind the client their “Dream Team” is
better equipped to help carry their medical
burdens

39. Difficult & Aggressive Personality
 The key word is RESPECT
◦ Educate the client when she has crossed the line
 Reaffirm your commitment to the client’s goals
 Remind the client how his cooperation is
essential, or specifically the way he can assist
with the representation
 B.O.L.O.—Perceived aggression may be a
cultural difference
 Offer a “Time-Out”

40. Part IV

41. The #1 tool for handling conflict:
Empathize

42. Empathy
“Perspective taking – the ability to take the
perspective of other people and imagine their
experiences, perceptions, and feelings—may be
particularly important to the lawyer-client relationship.
Importantly, people who take the perspective of
another person have been shown to experience
greater empathy towards that other—perceiving and
sharing in the other’s emotions. ”
- - Robbennolt, Pg. 495-96

43. Benefits of Empathy
 Less stereotyping
 More consideration to situational
factors
 Perceive the interests and intentions
of the client more accurately
 Make less self-serving judgments of
fairness
 -Robbennolt, Pg. 496

44. Empathy: The Magic Words
1. “I understand how you feel.”
2. “If I were in your situation, I would feel
the same way.”
 Be sincere (or work towards an Emmy
nomination)
 This disarms the client of their negative
emotion
 Also connects the client with the attorney
and builds trust
 A trusting client is a cooperative client

45. The Gold Standard

46. Empathy is a balancing act
• Do not hesitate to refer clients to their “Dream
Team”
• Remind clients you are not their “friend”
• Recommend or make referral to therapeutic or
community support when necessary

47. Rules of Engagement for
Conflict Management
 It’s okay to vent, but don’t get personal
 Pick up the phone rather than send an impassioned text
or email
 Affirm your client you are working toward THEIR goals,
and you are committed to their best interest
 Time-out” options for clients, when necessary
 Refer client back to your retainer, roadmap, or SWOT
 Forgive quickly and keep it professional

48. Time-Out
Would you like the red pill or the blue pill?

49. Introducing the Time-Out
“Mr./Mrs. Client, our conversation has
reached the point where we are not
listening to one another. Unfortunately,
that makes this an unproductive
conversation and I do not want to waste
your time, nor my own time. For that
reason, we need to take a break, just
long enough to refocus so that we can
deal with each other respectfully. We
can do this one of two ways. You
choose…”

50. Time-Out Options
1. Fifteen minute break so that client can collect himself;
or
2. Immediate acknowledgment we have to adjust our
tone in order to continue this conversation right now.
 Allowing the client to chose empowers them to make the
necessary adjustments and reminds them of their
responsibility in maintaining a healthy relationship
 Insist on the fifteen minute break if client is still excited or
unmanageable
◦ Call the client back as promised in order to maintain TRUST

51. Navigating Client Bias
 Age
 Gender
 Socioeconomic
 Ethnic/Racial (can be tricky because
this is not always one in the same)
Biases: we all have them. Client bias
(and our own bias) can be positive or
negative, but it is important not to
discount its influence in your
relationships.

52. REINFORCING
BOUNDARIES
Part V

53. Save the Date
Give your client clear deadlines….and
enforce them

54. Be Honest, Even When it’s
Uncomfortable
 Soften the blow before delivering bad
news
◦ “You many not like what I’m about to say, but I
would be doing you a disservice not to tell
you…”
◦ Remember Mary Poppins’ “spoon full of sugar”
 Lower your volume and lighten your tone
 Don’t hesitate to tell a client when they
have disrespected you/trespassed a
boundary and how
◦ Respect is a two-way street
◦ Promise you would not treat them that way,

55. Practical Tips
 Decline personal invitations….politely
◦ Decline social media friend requests
 Mirror “old-school” customs, when
appropriate:
◦ Southerners and certain immigrant cultures
customarily use “Mr. [First Name]” or “Mr. [last
name] as a sign of respect
◦ “Yes, ma'am”
◦ Please & Thank you
 It’s not always “what” you say, but “how” you
say it

56. Practical Tips
 Check-in with your client from time to time
 Take responsibility and apologize when you are wrong
 Keep your promises (don’t bite off more than you can
chew)
 Establish and communicate your call-back policy
 Establish clear office hours and designated personal
time….and stick to both
 Admit when you don’t have an answer, but follow up when
you have found out
◦ Conversely, make referrals to avoid malpractice
 Keep in mind that respect is a two-way street

57. Contact
Tel: (678) 514-4824
sselassie@atlantalegalaid.org
Access materials online:
http://tinyurl.com/boundaries2016