“I hate you!”

If you have raised or lived with a teenager at any point in your life, you may have had this missive hurled at you once or twice. If you are on your way to raising or living with a teenager, strap in, it’s coming.

Children expect their parents (and life for that matter) to be perfect and become angry once they learn their parents are anything but perfect, hence the “I hate you.” Some of those disillusioned children become disillusioned adults who expect the same thing of life when they grow up and are quite disappointed to find things don’t always work justly or perfectly. In fact, they rarely do.

In 1971, psychoanalyst and pediatrician Donald Winnicott introduced the concept of “good-enough parenting” which is based on the idea that “…perfection belongs to machines.” His child development theory is premised on the thought that parents should seek to recognize and support their children’s needs while at the same time, helping them to navigate life’s frustrations and realities by moving past those feelings. The idea in pertinent part is to support and recognize emotions and at the same time, allow the emotions to come and go so action can take place. Some 50+ years later, good-enough parenting has morphed into the concept of “realistic parenting” which embodies many of the same precepts of recognizing and supporting needs while preparing children for the inevitable frustrations life brings.

Why the heck am I talking about good-enough parenting in a legal blog? Because I see the equivalent of grown people, and their grown lawyers, behaving sometimes like frustrated teenagers screaming “I hate you” about their dispute, the other party, the other attorney and most noticeably, about the legal system. I have witnessed many parties and attorneys who believe that because they have been legitimately harmed, they should absolutely get justice and the “right” result. When they don’t, they stomp their feet and turn up the volume. In large part, some of these people have unrealistic expectations. It may also be because they have not been well prepared by their attorney for the frustrations that come with having to use the legal system to resolve a dispute.

When these folks show up in a mediation, the concept of “good-enough results” does not seem to be on their mind at first. Sometimes I can tell that an attorney has tried to prepare their clients for the fact that justice and the legal system are far from well-oiled machines and are terribly imperfect. Sometimes however, I see attorneys stoking their client’s fire, suggesting to them that they “deserve” justice and nothing less than perfect results. While I recognize that the attorneys are advocating for their clients in that moment, I also see the fact that some clients put their attorneys up on a pedestal, much like children do with their parents, and they cannot see the difference between advocacy and the realities of dispute resolution as a compromise.  If we as attorneys do not give a client the gift of “realistic lawyering,” these clients cannot discern between advocacy and the reality of resolving disputes in the legal system we work in.

As people tasked with dispute resolution in an imperfect system, we may want to start practicing “realistic lawyering” early on with our clients. We all know that at some point in the lifespan of a lawsuit, we are going to have to lower our sword some if we are going to resolve the dispute short of trial or arbitration. Some lawyers never lower that sword nor prepare their clients for the fact that more likely than not, the sword will need to come down some because the cost, frustration and risk is not worth walking away from a “good-enough” settlement.

The average litigant likely does not know how imperfect the legal system is but we practitioners do. Hear your clients out about how they feel and at the same time, help them work with the frustration that the legal system will inevitably bring. Prepare them for the fact that perfection and the absolute right result is unlikely. The sooner you can do this, the better. That way, a party is not hearing this from me in a mediation for the first time. People have a hard time pivoting under stress or the first time they hear not-so-great news.  I don’t mind if the “I hate you” is thrown my way for a bit but at some point, we will all have to gently pivot towards the realities of how dispute resolution works. The sooner you can model “good-enough” for your client, the better.