Take Hold of Your Emotions: If You Don't Survive, Your Career Becomes Meaningless

That ''Justice delayed is justice denied'' is a part of law school studies that should be left where they belong, in the books. In the practical professional world you need to prioritize, and that means justice gets delayed as much due to you, as to the prioritization made by the courts. When you let your emotions go in the profession, you will lose both your health and sanity. That rarely happens, but emotional overflows from clients do take their toll on lawyers. By saying this I do not intend to suggest that you delay things intentionally. I am just drawing your attention to the truth of things. In a system where there is a long queue waiting for justice even before your client came to you, very little except emergency relief is going to happen. Whether in medicine, or in law, chronic cases will take their time to find proper remedy. Too much fretting over delay and denial of justice can turn you into an emotional wreck.

It happens. When day after day, you see the same client who should receive justice by all counts; whose salary and dues are held up until the case is settled, and whose family has no other earning member, and you still need to charge him for your time even though the case has progressed scarcely an inch, it does feel awful. But it is not in your hands. And there is no question, usually, of not charging the client, for your family has done nothing wrong, and they also need to survive. This is your profession. You have to bill for your time, and if you don't it's not going to get you anywhere.


Ever heard of something called the parasympathetic nervous system? May be, may be not. It is a part of our nervous system that is not directly under our conscious control and parts of it respond to external signals. It makes us yawn, when the person in front of us is yawning. It brings a smile unknowingly to our face if the person in front of us is smiling. It brings tears to our own eyes when the person we are interacting with starts crying. It also, unmentionably, sometimes forces us to visit the toilet just because people we were interacting with visit the toilet to relieve themselves at the same time. That is how much really external signals can force our internals to act without our conscious control. This was all physical. However, even on the mental level, things like depression and anger can be infectious and spread from person to person quickly. This is how mob violence occurs.

On a regular basis the emotions of your clients can affect you, if you do not learn how to consciously detach yourself and take a clinical attitude. You will not survive unless you can keep yourself aloof and not get emotionally involved in your client's case. This is why those senior lawyers seem to be devoid of humanity. They are not inhuman, only they have learned to survive. The more you attach yourself emotionally to a case, usually, the less effective would be your output. You serve nobody, not even your client, by allowing your personal emotions attach to a client's brief.

You should attend each case kindly and with compassion, but never allow your client's personal problem to become your personal problem. This is the way of the profession. You need to take hold of your emotions, if you intend to survive. And survival is success in a fiercely competitive profession like law.

Learn the 10 Factors That Matter to Big Firms More Than Where You Went to Law School