My father was a surgeon, a doctor of the old school that believed in person-to-person care tailored to the individual patient’s individual needs.  He believed that every patient he undertook to treat deserved the best he had to give.  He believed in keeping his own skills sharp and his knowledge up-to-date.  People came to him with their pain and he went right to work to fix it.  He cared.

 

I have tried to follow his example. As your lawyer, part of my duty to you is to give you (when we are speaking privately) a more objective view so that you can make a choice informed by my best advice. But in dealing with the other side, I am your advocate and can never be objective. In either mode, advisor or advocate, I am on your side. I have to care about you to do my best work.

 

In my opinion, those lawyers who, like some newer doctors, only focus on the case/condition and treat the client/patient as just one more pile of paper to be pigeonholed, processed, and stamped "closed" are seriously deficient and probably toxic.  If you accept me as your lawyer and I accept you as my client, it will be because we have, as two unique individuals, agreed to work together, to communicate freely and directly, and to come through this together.