Practice Management

I was speaking with an attorney that I knew scorned my position in a case, or at least had no intellectual interest in my position.  Every single time I stated my position or one of my points to her she would respond by saying, "interesting".

It really started to chap my ass.  After all, I was serious about this lawsuit, I had research my position very carefully, I had drafted my complaint in time line fashion explaining my position every step of the way.

So, why exactly was I chapped?

Maybe it was the tenor of her voice, but let us just face facts.  She was not stating that my points were "interesting" because they were exciting or because they held on to her attention or curiosity.  They were not arousing a feeling of interest.  It was not because she felt my arguments were captivating, or stimulating, or intriguing in some way.  She was not repeating the word "interesting" ad nauseam because she had a thirst for knowledge.

No, she was parroting the term over and over in such a nauseating fashion because she meant just the opposite of what she was saying.  She was repeating the word "interesting" in the urban sense to mean that I was raising points or arguments in which she had absolutely no interest.  She was using it not to show an interest, but to demonstrate her indifference to what I was saying.

What she was really communicating was that I was boring her, God forbid.  What I was saying was ho-hum, tiresome, dull, or tedious.   It was really the use of the professional version of "talk to the hand".  It was almost juvenile or puerile.  This attorney had only been out of law school for less than a year.  Maybe it just reflected what was left of her adolescent insecurity.  I do not know, but I can tell you that I found it to be a jejune response.

How do you deal with a problem like this - a lawyer that is still a tad immature for the job she has found.  Someone who does not have much intellectual curiosity.  Apart from just saying something indelicate, such as "I'm sorry, am I boring you", I think you just hang up and move forward.  Then when her client is chewing a a large judgment it must pay they can hear her continually say "interesting".