Spring 2002:  The Lawyer's Voice When Delivering News

This year, I have been devoting my messages to the ways that a great attorney’s  “voice” can shape his or her relationship with listeners.  In my concluding message of this series, I would like to focus on my experience of how outstanding lawyers deliver news.  How they deliver bad news.  And how they deliver good news.


The reason I want to concentrate on that particular feature of the lawyer’s voice is because it is one that I often hear mentioned in a particular context.  Each year, several times a year, I host lunches at the Law School in a series that I call “the Dean’s Forum.”  In a typical Dean’s Forum, ten or fifteen students have lunch with a lawyer who is now running a business.  The lawyer speaks about career path.  Frequently, the lawyer speaks about what it is like to be a client.


Often a student will ask our graduates what they think distinguishes a good lawyer from a bad lawyer.  As often as not, the response concerns the way the lawyer delivers news.


The easiest examples concern the delivery of bad news.  By bad news, I mean news of the form, “the course of action you describe may well be illegal or would expose you to civil liability.”The best lawyers seem to know intuitively that the delivery of such news is a delicate art indeed.


Most of us have had the experience of seeing a lawyer deliver bad news with glee, or if not with glee then at least as a contemptuous scold.  We know how detrimental that tone can be to the client’s vision of the law, and of the legal profession. 


But I have also had many opportunities to see gifted lawyers deliver bad news with astonishing skill.  It has been fifteen years since I was in practice, but I retain a vivid memory of how a lawyer I worked with used to prepare himself to deliver bad news.  As I reflect on that preparation, I believe that today I have a deeper appreciation of why his clients valued his counsel so much.


First, he would try to present a legal obstacle or a legal risk in a matter-of-fact way.  Not as a matter of profound injustice or unfairness that gave cause for whining and tirades against the legal system, but as a feature of the world no different from the existence of a competitor with a high quality product.  A challenge to be overcome.


Second, he would try to show the client that he was an ally in a larger endeavor.  Invariably, that meant helping the client to think about how the same ends might be achieved through alternative means.  A different, safer path through the forest.


The delivery of good news can sometimes present a very different challenge.  This challenge is not to sustain the client’s ability to be effective.  It is to sustain the client’s sense of the law as a system worthy of respect. 


When a lawyer discovers a clever solution to a problem, it is natural to want credit for cleverness.  But as my mentor showed me, the best lawyers are able to claim credit not for manipulating a system that has no integrity, but rather for understanding the nuanced complexity of a legitimate feature of the business environment.  The difference may be subtle at times, but this ability to present good news in a way that respects the law was essential to his ability to present bad news effectively.


The best lawyers would seem to be able to sustain a consistent voice through the presentation of bad and good news.  A voice that maintains a respectful stance towards the law while also making it possible for a client to be effective in navigating its terrain.  At the Law School we will continue to strive to help our students develop that consistency of voice, drawing on the vast experiential resources to be found among our 20,000 graduates.