NQ blog - May 2016: Having a client’s life in your hands

I have a few friends who are doctors and I am constantly amazed by tales of life-saving treatments and near-death incidents. Quite literally, the patient’s life is in their hands. In some respects, being a lawyer involves having someone’s life in your hands. Not to the same extent of course; perhaps it isn’t quite a matter of life or death, but the work we do as solicitors is hugely crucial to our clients’ lives.

Indeed, Alan Susskind recognises this in his latest article. He states that what we do and how we advise clients can impact on their life, perhaps forever. He takes the example of family law and divorce matters. This is probably true of other areas of law, too. For example, in criminal law a client’s liberty is in dispute and the advice you give can affect their freedom. In children’s panel/referral proceedings, a child’s life can be affected by means of compulsory measures and this also has an impact on the wider family life. In representing clients with mental health difficulties who are detained in hospital, their liberty is similarly at stake. Their detention in a hospital setting completely inhibits their freedom (and their choices, through compulsory treatment).

In each of these practice areas, the client’s life really is in the hands of the practitioner. There are several consequences which necessarily flow from this. The first is the responsibility to the client. Apart from our duties to the court as officials, there is a strict duty to the client to ensure and promote their interests as best we can. Given what is at stake for them, this is a particularly strict and overarching duty incumbent on all solicitors.

Another consequence which flows from this is that we are afforded an insight into the foremost sensitive issues in a person’s life. Intimate details are divulged and the person’s life is laid out in our file. The client may be feeling vulnerable, for example, if it is an acrimonious divorce, perhaps with a background of domestic offences being perpetrated on the client. For them to recount these details to their legal adviser can be harrowing. Relatedly, understanding the client’s situation and showing a degree of sympathy is important.

No matter how analytical we require to be, it is always crucial to see the human element in a case.