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Scott Benton: Hey, everyone. Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. Now today we’re going to look at part two of handling Difficult opposing counsel.
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Scott Benton: Today in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle as far as performing legal services goes, we’re going to take a look at part two of handling difficult opposing counsel.
In part 1 of the subject, we talked about the importance of remaining calm, cool, and collected with a professional demeanor At all times and whatever environment you’re in, especially when you’re in a courtroom with an opposing attorney who’s difficult to work with, or has an aggressive, argumentative and hostile personality.
We looked at how maintaining this professional composure would actually work against the aggressive personalities because you send out the nonverbal message that you have everything under control in the face of personal attacks, rising of voices, and other manipulative measures [00:02:00] designed to get you to react emotionally, or what’s called breaking of character.
You don’t want to break character. If you don’t break character and if you remain calm and adopt a professional presence, then any attempt opposing counsel makes to knock you off balance, that’s just going to backfire on them. It’s going to create more anxiety for themselves over the fear that you’re actually going to win the case. So because I thought this was an important topic to cover and not just leave it at the few points mentioned in the previous podcast, I felt this subject needed a little bit more time to explore. So let’s pick up where we left off and continue looking at handling a difficult opposing counsel. Now in no way is this something that’s easy to do, and just because we’re talking about maintaining a professional demeanor at all times does not necessarily mean that you can just switch it on whenever you like. You need to recognize that a difficult opposing counsel can have many tricks up their sleeve, and they’re going to try all of them until you finally break [00:03:00] character, so it’s going to take a little bit of homework on your end to make sure.
that you remain unchanged by Opposing Counsel’s tricks and games. One of the most important things you can do long before you get into a courtroom with a difficult Opposing Counsel is to recognize your own emotional triggers. You want to know where your weaknesses are so you can develop techniques to manage your responses when Opposing Counsel starts pushing your buttons.
Opposing counsel will either know what those are, what those sensitive buttons that they can press are, or they’re going to throw a variety of manipulative behaviors such as personal insults or condescending authoritative tones or maybe a loud voice in order to really read your body language and see where you respond.
But if you don’t respond, then all of those tricks that they use, they’re not going to have any effect, but they’re going to keep going anyway. They’re going to find the one that works. The way to not respond is by knowing your weaknesses because eventually opposing counsel is going to get [00:04:00] to a point where they’ve hit pay dirt and they’ve gotten you to react emotionally. That’s when they know that they’ve got you.
And once they know your reaction triggers, they’re going to hit them over and over and over again. So you’ve got to get there before they do. And you got to make sure that in the event that you find yourself getting upset, that you pause, take a breath. Remind yourself that you control the tone of the conversation, not the opposing counsel.
One way you can accomplish this is to keep your responses calm and professional to whatever attack or insult you’ve been subjected to. You don’t want to engage in any personal battles. Don’t ever take the bait that they’re laying out for you over and over and over again. And don’t get pulled into petty arguments because the minute that you do, you’ve lost.
Don’t engage in tit for tat back and forth arguments that don’t serve your client’s case. And refuse to engage in the conversation until the focus returns to the legal matters at [00:05:00] hand. If opposing counsel becomes accusatory or sarcastic or mean or angry, you can respond with factual information.
The benefits of maintaining your professional demeanor and difficult situations are many. First and foremost, you earn the respect of judges, clients, and of your colleagues. Everyone values professionalism and they appreciate an attorney who stays calm and factual when others become emotional. It demonstrates your strength and commitment to the rule of law.
During the trial, a calm and composed demeanor can stand out, especially if opposing counsel is visibly frustrated or angry and why your ability to not break character can ultimately backfire on openly aggressive behavior.
They look completely out of control and you look completely in control. There are also benefits to your clients when you maintain your professional demeanor at all times. This kind of calm, focused behavior helps [00:06:00] keep the case on track and it prevents unnecessary delays typically caused by conflict and it maintains the focus of the case on the facts.
Additionally, if you’re able to deescalate a situation with a difficult opposing counsel, your client may experience a quicker and far smoother resolution, which saves them time and saves them legal fees. Not to mention that staying calm and professional in the face of aggressive behavior can lead to better negotiation results.
By suppressing your own emotional reactions, you position yourself as the more reasonable party which can influence a favorable settlement. When opposingg counsel is aggressive in mediation, a calm and reasonable approach can appeal to the mediator and even to the opposing party, which increases the chances of reaching a successful settlement. So you can see there’s a lot to consider when handling difficult opposing counsel and quite a lot of homework to do beforehand to become proficient at presenting yourself with [00:07:00] calm, collected professionalism at all times. But by far the most important piece of information that you can have is knowing thyself in terms of what buttons can be triggered by opposing counsel that will cause you to react emotionally or to engage in an argument that they drew you into.
Once you know what those buttons are, you can figure out ways to remain in control. Now, if you’re able to hold a professional stature when you’re under pressure, you increase the chances of achieving a far more favorable outcome than if you fall for manipulative tactics. So whatever you do, don’t take the bait.
I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out this episode. Now, if you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two courtroom.
com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch with us. You can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs we have available for law school students. If you like, you can apply to come and work with [00:08:00] us. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe to stay on top of all of our latest episodes.
And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
