It was a little-happening day. A DMV hearing. An arraignment on a traffic warrant. And legal research.
And interruptions. Clients calling with problems. And that’s actually the most important thing that happened today.
Because clients often have the option of getting a public defender. Basically, anyone who asks for one gets one. But we give our clients something that they rarely get from public lawyers: scrupulous care. We don’t blow off phone calls from clients because we’re busy. When a client calls, that’s our chance to make him know that he was smart to hire a private lawyer. We’re on it.
So I welcome interruptions. Yes, sometimes I have to remind myself that the project that I was working on can wait. And it almost always can. I sometimes have to remind myself that whatever the client is calling about is important to him, or he wouldn’t call. Very few clients abuse our open-door policy.
Our clients hire us so that they don’t have to wait. Our clients hire us so that they don’t have to feel like an interruption. And we do our best to be available. They aren't interruptions. They're our livelihood.
So one client calls and has questions about his alcohol school. I take time to understand his question (his English is not great), and I give him the best answer that I can.
Another client calls and wonders why he could not visit his son in jail last weekend. We call the jail and find out that there was no barrier to his visit; he just needs to call this Friday and make an appointment for Saturday. He concludes that his ex-wife gave him bum information.
Problems solved.
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