By the time Mr/Mrs. XX gets into my office s/he is angry, frazzled and scared. S/he is also worried about what the whole thing will cost, how much trouble the lawyer is going to create and will probably have talked with his or her friends, neighbors, and others about whether she should take the crumbum who is making her life difficult to court. S/he will also have been warned by many of these self-same people about the lawyer, and given a great deal of (free) legal advice, only some of which is worth what she paid for it. So by the time Mr/Mrs. XX walks into your office, her story of he done me wrong can be so short or long or convoluted or laden with side notes and comments, that I need to dig for more information just to find out the basics. How to do this? Well, I try to be kind in asking questions. (Those of you who know me are surprised by this statement I know. But it’s true. I try to be kind. I try to be the law confessor of wrongs. I try to be the one Mr/Mrs can come to for action. Getting a clear, accurate, factual, complete tale is often the making or breaking of a case.

So let me help you unpack your case of woes against the crumbum. Take all the time you need to do this. It will be cheaper in the long run. And believe me, it will take time. So I try to listen with the right side of my brain and not go all analytical on her while she is talking. I try to sit tight. There’s plenty of time to do that after she gets the full story out of all the things the crumbum has done.