When you’re new to the legal profession, your focus is typically on ensuring you’re familiar with all elements of the law in your specialty and using them to help your new clients. With this at the forefront of your mind, it’s easy to let other crucial parts of your job, like compassion and empathy, fall by the wayside.
Compassion and empathy are crucial soft skills in the legal profession, as they help build trust, drive better outcomes, and improve communication. If you want to be the best lawyer you can be for the sake of your clients, here is how you can build on these crucial skills:
Practice Active Listening
When you become a legal professional who works with bereaved or unwell people, such as a mesothelioma lawyer, active listening is important. Active listening means that you’re concentrating on, understanding, and responding to your client. It’s also about being present, showing empathy, and reflecting on what you’ve been told to ensure understanding.
Not everyone naturally has active listening skills, but they can be learned. When meeting with clients at your law firm, give them your undivided attention, focus on understanding their perspective, and avoid interrupting. You can also use verbal cues, such as nodding and affirmations. Practice active listening in your personal life so it becomes more natural in your professional life.
Validate Your Clients’ Emotions
You don’t necessarily have to agree with your clients’ accounts of events, but you do need to build trust and ensure they know they are in a safe space to communicate openly. That’s why validating their emotions is so important. When listening to a client share their story, use phrases that help to validate and acknowledge their feelings, such as ‘I can see why you feel that way’ and ‘It’s normal to feel frustrated.’
Gain Perspective
You are a legal professional who handles the legal matters of numerous clients. As it’s your job, you won’t always feel connected to their cases or feelings. However, you can be more empathetic and compassionate by using perspective to truly grasp the emotional impact of what they’re going through. Essentially, this involves ‘putting yourself in their shoes,’ so you can tailor your legal strategies to each client’s individual needs.
Use Clear Communication
Clear communication in the legal field is crucial. That’s why legal translation professionals exist: lawyers want to ensure reliable translation across all documents, such as contracts and court transcripts.
However, clear communication is just as crucial between a lawyer and a client. While you might know a great deal of legal jargon and believe it’s essential in their case, avoid using it excessively when describing something. Instead, explain critical legal concepts in plain and accessible language. When doing so, try to use a warm, reassuring tone and appropriate nonverbal cues, such as eye contact and an open posture.
Set Clear Boundaries
It’s easy to get caught up in your clients’ personal lives when they have such emotional and traumatic back stories. This is especially true if you’re a lawyer who files lawsuits for people with cancer diagnoses or who have been in car accidents.
Empathy is vital for building trust, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of your own emotional well-being. To avoid burnout and becoming a de facto therapist, set clear expectations, be transparent about your availability, and avoid working outside your regular hours, as that can become the expectation.
There’s more to being a lawyer than understanding the law. You must also show empathy and compassion to build trust and tailor appropriate legal strategies. Take note of these tips above to help you on your journey to becoming a more empathetic and compassionate legal professional who truly cares about your clients.
