Dealing With Difficult Clients

This month’s issue (April 2005) of Law Practice Today is devoted to malpractice – or rather, how to avoid malpractice.  All of the articles are pretty interesting; one in particular that stood out was Carole Curtis’ Dealing With Difficult Clients.  Tips include saving copies of all correspondence, being patient and clear about expectations.  Carole doesn’t quote any statistics.  But I’m willing to bet that at a huge percentage of the malpractice actions brought against solo and small firm lawyers result not so much from lawyer incompetence as from demanding clients who either get less than what they thought was coming or who make life so difficult that lawyers begin to avoid them and let their cases slide, to the lawyers’ eventual detriment.