Too Aggressive?

There's an old expression from Southern California that goes, "you can't be too thin, too rich, or too good looking." Sometimes, when another lawyer accuses me of being "too aggressive," I wonder if this should be added to the mix.

Recently, for instance, I was representing someone in a divoce case. (I'm not going to get into any privacy stuff here, so don't worry.) The other side wanted us to agree that one spouse should get the house, the family business, and dominion over all possessions. In addition, they asked for spousal support (alimony) and for my client to pay his soon-to-be-ex-spouse's attorney's fees.

As my son would say, "And one other thing, give me your pants."

So quite rightly, I did my duty by my client and tried for a more equitable arrangement. Like, maybe, splitting the property in half and reducing the spousal support. The other attorney looked at me like I was a madman. "I don't see why you don't just let my client have the house and the business." I wondered who he was used to dealing with.

So when the time came for us to argue attorney's fees with the judge (we'd finally settled on a more equitable outcome on the other issues), he said that the court needed to order my client to pay his attorney's fees because "counsel has already indicated that he's going to aggressively litigate the case."

Who? Me? Aggressive?

In truth, this is not a new phenomena for me in Humboldt County. When I worked for the Alternate Conflicts Counsel, one of the "complaints" about me was that I was "too aggressive for Humboldt County." What, exactly does that mean? Well, to give you a clue, I was going to trial more than my collegues. I was filing more motions and going to court on hearings. I would ask for sentencing hearings when I was told that my clients were looking at the maximum sentence.

In other words, I was being a lawyer. I don't think it's aggressive to say, "This deal is awful. We'll go to trial instead." But then, everyone sees me as a big city lawyer.

Really, down in Orange County, I sometimes felt like I was a cream puff. Like I could have been stronger and more vocal. Like I should have objected more. Now I come up to my dream county (I went to school here in the 80s) and suddenly, I'm this fire breathing ogre who will ruin the court system...by making it hold hearings and trials.

Sigh.

Well, I guess, as a lawyer, there are worse things I could be called. I'm not going to give you any ideas here. Let's just say that I'm not worried when people call me "aggressive," because it usually comes from the other side of the table. As long as I'm making the opposition sweat, I'm helping my client. And really, isn't that what it's all about?