I came to my position at BC LAB expecting only to sharpen my research and writing skills, but have come away with much more.  If you’ve followed me from the beginning, you’ve heard about the language and interview skills I’ve learned from Lynn and about my discovery of the process of preparing a case, and a client, for a hearing from Ana.  You’ve read about my evolving questions, considerations and discoveries as I worked my way through client meetings.  You’ve read about Sarah.  You’ve also read about my initial interactions with all of LAB staff, and how supportive and respectful they are to students and clients alike.

BC LAB Blog would not have been possible without the help of all LAB attorneys and supervisors, and especially without the help of Alexis Anderson, the summer Director of LAB.  As I mentioned in a previous post, a blog including client stories has not yet been done by a law school clinic.  (At least, not one that we could find.)  Exploring new areas with ethical considerations can be risky business in the legal arena.  Alexis could easily have quashed this idea from the get-go, but instead, she got behind it.  She got behind me and rallied for the blog’s success.  It required many hours of research and discussion to settle on a method we deemed to be the right way to pursue the blog, and we made it happen.  Thank you, Alexis.

I’ve certainly enjoyed reflecting on my work throughout the summer and incorporating these reflections into BC LAB blog.   It has enhanced my learning experience and hopefully provided some insight into what it’s like for a law student to enter the legal world.  It is important to track our growth, to document our experiences from start to finish.

I hope that another budding attorney has read my blog and felt a sense of comfort by knowing that someone else in the same boat experienced similar sentiments.  I hope that a seasoned attorney read an entry or two and was brought back to how he or she felt and thought as a young attorney.  I hope it bridged a gap by resonating with green and experienced alike.  Most of all, I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about my time at BC LAB as much as I enjoyed being there.

Sarah had come in a few days before for our final meeting for the hearing.  It was essential that Ana be there as she was going through a dry run of her direct.  I saw Sarah in the waiting room, sitting straight-backed with her hands crossed on her lap and her head tilted to the right. I could tell she was uncomfortable, but she always maintains composure, so there she sat.  Even though we couldn’t proceed with the meeting until Ana arrived (Ana had an emergency with another case and was on her way), I invited Sarah into the interview room.  Just to chat.

So, we began talking.  At a pause in conversation, I looked up to Sarah.  I prefaced what I was about to say with a “I could never fully understand or appreciate what you have been through, I doubt many people can, so that is not why I’m telling you this.” I went on to tell Sarah about my experience in New Orleans.

I went to Tulane University and returned to school after Katrina.  By March, everyone at school was or had been sick with pneumonia, bronchitis, pink eye, or some other infection.  I had pneumonia, then bronchitis.  I then had a chronic cough for the next couple of years.  I never used to get sick, but all of a sudden I was catching every cold that went around.  (Now, I know that college life doesn’t exactly boost your immune system, but this was different.)  I was constantly tired and just felt generally unhealthy.  I hadn’t realized that there was a specific cause, so I proceeded through life as if everything were normal.  Finally, by senior year, I was fed up and focused on my health, determined to rid myself of the cough and fatigue.  Even then, my stamina wasn’t where it should have been.  I was only 21.  What was going on?

Mold: one type of poisonous airborne spores.  We were all exposed to it.

Now, if you take a legal interviewing class you will likely hear that this kind of “relating” can be dangerous.  That relating may have the consequence of alienating the client.  I understand how it would.  If I experienced a traumatic event and an attorney empathized by saying, “I know how you feel, the same thing happened to me last year,” I probably wouldn’t be too comforted.  Most of us are focused on self when we go in for help, and rightly so.  Something in our lives is broken that we want fixed, so we need to tell our story.  An attorney taking time to share his or her story may be seen as wasting time that the attorney should spend hearing more about the client, time that should be spent developing facts.  This was all in the back of my mind as I contemplated telling Sarah my story, the reason why I related to her whole-heartedly.  It scared me.  I didn’t want to be responsible for alienating our client!  In the end, my gut told me it would be okay and that it would comfort Sarah, so I proceeded.

Sarah was more than okay with me sharing my story.  She was deeply comforted and moved by my experience and how it helped me understand and relate to her.  She thanked me.  She even called me the next day and thanked me again, explaining that I had made her feel as though she was just chatting with a girlfriend; something many of us take for granted, but that she hasn’t done in over ten years.  We had made a connection.  She had a chat with a girlfriend, and it filled her up.  It filled me up, too.

Presently, Sarah has good days where she feels she is able to move about less than half of the day (yes, this is a good day), and I wanted to give her something that would make it a good day.  That would allow her to get lost in thought and excitement to the extent that she was able to forget about her physical pain, if only for a short while.  So, I settled on showing my excitement and feeding into hers, while making it abundantly clear that we don’t yet know the specific details of the judgment.  I hoped that this would be a best of both worlds strategy that would allow me to share this moment with Sarah.

So, I dialed.  Sarah picked up and whispered that she was in the library.  I suggested that she go outside and sit down.  I heard her breathing heavily as she left the library in search of a comfortable place to sit.  Once the breathing slowed, I told her.  In my mind’s eye, I could see her clutching at her chest as she let out a gush of air, a sigh that released ten years of pain and sadness.  For once, it was her moment.

We built momentum.  The evidence was in, the brief was submitted, Sarah was prepped, and we were ready to go.  In other aspects of life when we are prepared, we feel a sense of calm.  A sense of, “I’ve got this.”  With hearings or trials, however, it is always a gamble.  And this sense of calm waivers from the rationalizing “we’ve done everything we can” to nerves and self-doubt.  (An emotional flip-flop that law school is quite adept at instilling in its students.)  This flip-flop accompanied by the high degree of risk and all of the facts and information flying between your ears results in a type of lawyer’s high.  You know…we’ve all heard of or felt the adrenaline-induced runner’s high.  Same thing.  So, to then find out that the hearing has been cancelled is a rapid falling, a sinking back to ground level.  What happened?

I fidgeted in this uncomfortable limbo, waiting for Mildred to return my phone call and tell me why the hearing was cancelled.

The hearing is cancelled.  What do you mean it is cancelled?  Why?  Because it is “on the record?”  You’ll have to excuse me, Mildred, but I don’t know what that means.  Oh, because the judge has entered a fully favorable decision based on the brief alone and therefore, there is no need for a hearing on the matter?  A written decision will be out in two weeks.  Okay Mildred, I understand now.

Then, my gut reaction was to hang up so that she couldn’t change her mind!  Not quite the rational thinking you would expect from a law student, I know.  Then I heard my mom’s voice whisper… “always get it in writing.”  I found myself asking Mildred, the judge’s assistant, if this decision was firm enough to tell my client.  Mildred assured me that we would have the written decision in two weeks time and that I could go ahead and tell my client.  It makes me nervous to go forward and give Sarah such amazing news; news that she’ll be getting assistance and won’t lose her home, without something in writing.  However, Mildred gave me the go ahead and I can’t resist.

Ana began the interview by explaining the case and our strategy to Sarah.  For the first time, Sarah heard that it would be difficult to explain the time gaps and problems (no diagnoses) with her medical records.  She heard that a decision might not be in her favor and realized that a lot is riding on this one day in court.  No one has ever listened to Sarah’s story (I mean really listened) and it dawned on her that she might tell her story, but that it might not be convincing…it might not be enough.

Interestingly, the resulting tears and explanations proved to be helpful in this meeting, as it allowed us to discuss her story in depth.  Not the simple chronology of her past medical history, but her personal journey through the past decade.  Ana led us down this path, and I picked up on where she was headed quickly.  I’ve noticed through my limited time in law firms that the closer an attorney gets to trial or a hearing, the more interested they are in the client’s story.  Not the whole five-hour version, but the small details that humanize the client and stick with a listener.  The “my mom always has grapes on the table and lime-pops in the fridge when I come home for a visit because she knows that I love them” stories.  The attorney looks for anecdotes that produce an emotion in the client, whether joyful or sad, and then hopes to bring that to life in the pages of a brief or during a direct examination

Now, last time I talked about the need to compartmentalize; the need to separate “important” from “unimportant” and stick to the gravamen of the case.  True enough, however, one must also be able to create interest in one’s client and deliver a convincing story to the court.  I’ve learned that the convincing story is a mosaic of facts and anecdotes designed to project Sarah into both the heart and mind of the court.

I’m confident about Sarah’s case, but I’m also nervous.  There are holes in the facts that Sarah recounts.  Does it matter?  Can we get around these holes by putting Sarah on the stand to tell her story?  Will her story be enough? Will additional documents help fill those holes?  I’ve been told that you learn to get used to being nervous.

I now understand why there are ethical guidelines preventing attorneys from offering their clients financial assistance.  Sitting and speaking with clients in need, like Sarah, produces a sense of urgency, and a cash band-aid may become very tempting.  But, in the end, that isn’t the help that they need.  They need a long-term solution… a plan.

I’ve come to realize that one must become adept at compartmentalization or separating “important” from “less important” in developing a case to present at an ALJ hearing. Attorneys that are able to effectively compartmentalize are more objective and thus better suited to help the client create a plan, and to advocate for its implementation.

Compartmentalization can be difficult to achieve and is a skill attorneys develop over time. Perhaps this is one of the reasons law students and young attorneys feel overwhelmed in their first few client meetings.  Without effective compartmentalization, a green legal professional may be easily swayed and taken off track by anecdotes or other interesting aspects that are irrelevant to the case.  Such a constant push and pull can be confusing and tiring.  Compartmentalization allows an attorney to stay rooted to the gravamen of the case, both during the interview and after.

Stay posted to read about my second interview with Sarah!

My job is to help Ana prepare Sarah and her case for a Social Security Administration (SSA) hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).  Sarah was exposed to poisonous airborne particulates resulting in an immune disorder that has systematically broken down her body.  Prior to onset, Sarah worked as a special needs teacher.  She taught, but she also listened to and comforted her students.  Tears rolled down her face as she recounted her working days.  As stressful as her job was, it was also joyful.  She was able to help people.  But now, she needs the help.

Applicants for benefits through the SSA must detail their disabilities to prove severity.  The SSA provides listings of disorders that you must “meet or equal” to be considered disabled.  If your disorder does not meet the listing, you have to show that it is equal in severity.  Essentially, there are boxes to be checked off and if your disease or symptoms don’t fit in a box, you are not considered severely disabled.  To be fair to the SSA, they need these boxes and solid evidence standards in order to prevent fraud.  As with most any benefits screening, however, there is always a deserving person who slips through the cracks…like Sarah.

But, there is more to Sarah’s predicament.  Sarah can’t afford co-pays.  She can’t afford to go to the doctor, but the only way that we can prove her disability is with medical records.  Not only do we need medical records, we also need diagnoses.  Hospitals that cater to poverty-stricken patients are often crowded and overwhelmed.  As a result, the doctors may not have the time to complete a thorough work-up and arrive at a diagnosis. Instead they may be forced to treat only the presenting symptoms.  A record of symptoms is not the preferable way to prove a disability case.   We need diagnoses!  However, I’ve quickly learned that you never get a perfect case.

Sarah came in today to talk about her medical history.  My supervising attorney, Ana, and I have been reviewing her file and medical records all week.  I have made a number of charts detailing her medical chronology and all of the doctors that she has seen over the past decade.  The goal of our meetings is to fill in the medical gaps from when Sarah could no longer afford to go to the doctor.  Once we have a comprehensive medical chronology, we will lay it out in the brief in a manner that calls out for diagnoses that have yet to be made.

I’ve never worked on a disability case before, but Ana pointed me in the right direction and offered me the reins, asking if I would like to conduct the client interview.  Normally, I would jump on such an opportunity; however, Sarah’s hearing is rapidly approaching and there is still so much ground to cover.  I knew that another opportunity would come about this summer and I wanted Sarah to get the best help possible.  So, I declined lead interviewer this go around, but was still able to chime in with burning questions.  I was very much a part of the interview, and it was tough.

Stay posted!

It could be argued that attorneys are more effective when they have been specifically trained in interviewing techniques and client relationship management, yet this training is not always made a priority.  As an initial impulse, budding attorneys are often so focused on getting the facts and then getting out, that they may forget to manage the relationship.  We forget to build trust with the person sitting in front of us.

Physicians are often guilty of this oversight as well.  Have you ever been to a doctor who sits at a computer and types notes as he or she asks you questions? The doctor stares at the bright screen as you cower behind them, hunched over in a chair, uncomfortable and half naked.  There is no eye contact.  And then, the doctor asks you to lie down and proceeds with the physical exam.  One could become uncomfortable just thinking about it.  The same principles apply in legal interviewing.  If we don’t make eye contact and speak to the person in front of us, the client will likely feel violated when we start asking questions about intimate parts of their life.  And yet, we often miss this link.

Luckily for us at LAB, we have Lynn Barenberg, a social worker and in-house consultant who has worked here since the 80s.  She is what I like to call our “social work department.”  Lynn was happy to hold a client interviewing workshop for the summer interns.  In this session, she encouraged us to talk about our interviews and the obstacles that we had already encountered.  We discussed the raw parts of life and raw emotions that we had been exposed to as well as techniques we’ve tried in managing these encounters appropriately.  Lynn then gave us specific language to use to make a client feel at ease or to press deeper into topics that we might like to shy away from, but that we cannot given the circumstances.  She gave us tools to use in our next interviews.

Without a social work department to provide such tools, budding attorneys learn by doing.  But, how are we to know the right way to manage raw stories and the emotions that accompany them if we’ve never been exposed to such situations in our own lives?  To experienced attorneys in the field, certain violent stories or sad and unfortunate disabilities are par for the course.  A seasoned attorney may hear these stories all the time and can become desensitized to them.  For us budding attorneys, however, it can feel like a tidal wave.  Compounding this feeling is the desire to be adept.  You represented yourself as competent in the hiring process and accordingly, that is what the firm expects of you.  So, you hold your head up high, don’t ask questions, and go with the flow.

But why?  Why would we ignore an aspect of lawyering as important as interviewing effectiveness; a skill that could elevate us from mediocre attorneys to great attorneys?  I’ve been told, “facts are feelings and feelings are facts” and now realize how true this is.  You can’t get all the facts if you don’t deal with the feelings.  And to deal with the feelings, you must not shy away from them.  Our instinct is to either hug or run, but we must train ourselves to address the emotion and then push forward.  At least, that’s what Lynn says.  I’m working on it, Lynn.

Stay posted!

There are a few goals for an initial client meeting to gather information to appeal a Social Security disability decision.  These include determining the procedural posture of the case, obtaining some social history, and getting a detailed picture of the client’s disabilities.  This last part, the medical component, usually takes up the greater part of the meeting.  Many clients present to LAB for help with disability benefits because they have multiple disabilities, the combination of which renders them disabled.  With such a variety of disorders, an accurate and descriptive medical picture can be quite the task.

So, what’s the procedure?  We can’t rightly shake the client’s hand, ask them to take a seat and then dig into the reasons for severe depression or similarly sensitive conditions.  Not only would this be unprofessional, inappropriate and potentially offensive, it wouldn’t serve the client.  Such a technique would result in superficial explanations, a one-dimensional portrayal of the mental and physical ailments that hinder the client’s everyday life.  In my mind, that is not advocacy.

Instead, the procedure is always different, tailored for each client.  Part of our job is to gauge the client to assess comfort level and then proceed.  At first, this process was at odds with what I understood to be a proper agenda for a client meeting.   When I was initially instructed to prepare for meetings, I would go through every page of the file to gather the information we already had to see what we still needed.  I would then prepare a very detailed list, organize it by subject and call this my interview outline.  However, I quickly learned that such a strict format doesn’t work well in an interview.

Having a detailed list for an interview agenda results in blind questions with answers that fall on deaf ears.  The interviewer asks the question, gets an answer, writes it down, and on it goes.  Another pitfall of the checklist technique occurs with overlapping subject matters.  How do you keep a good record when you are on subject A, but the client explains it in a way that touches on subject B?  Life doesn’t fit in such neat little boxes.  And, most importantly, you can’t tailor a strict question and answer format to the client’s affect.  What results when you suddenly realize that your next five questions are too sensitive, but that skipping to the next section would be awkward and inappropriate?  A choppy and unproductive interview.

An interview should be a conversation, not a strict question and answer format.  I realized that a better way to prepare for meetings is to identify broad subject areas to develop with the client.  Of course, there are usually some specifics that need to be nailed down and I’m sure to include them, but that’s it.  Headings and bullets, not questions and answers.  In my limited experience, I have found that this allows greater flexibility in a meeting.

Being able to adapt to circumstances and new information is important in our field, and is often portrayed in legal dramas.  You know the ones, where an attorney flies by the seat of her pants in a provocative courtroom scene and through her improvised cross reveals the smoking gun and wins the case.  Though not as widely advertised, it is no less important in an interview.  Adaption provides flexibility, a resource that can be used in a variety of ways to tailor a meeting for a successful client experience.

Some clients need to talk, to explain their frustrations or concerns, while others would rather be left alone and view our meetings as a necessary evil.   As in life, some people are devout extroverts while others are shy.  Both personalities have their obstacles; it feels invasive and uncomfortable to ask a shy person to share, while it is difficult to keep excitable clients on track.  And we need to stay on track.  There is so much to cover in the first meeting, and locking ailments and events into time takes patience, concentration and analysis.  I suspect this is a tiring process no matter how many interviews you’ve performed.

So our job, as budding attorneys, is to simultaneously gather information, record it, know what question to ask next, analyze the information for holes and inconsistencies or areas that need to be further developed, all while conducting a fluid and comfortable meeting.  These are important skills to develop as, down the line, we’ll be able to transfer them to depositions, cross-examinations and the like.  Perhaps this all sound easy to you, but such an outlook begs the well-known response; everyone would do it if it were easy.

Stay posted!