The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
Episode 31: Navigating the Maze: Strategic Approaches to Difficult Opposing Counsel and Pro Se Litigants
Every attorney has faced that dreaded moment: opening an email from opposing counsel and feeling your blood pressure instantly rise. Your heart sinks, frustration mounts, and suddenly checking your inbox becomes an anxiety-inducing task. Sound familiar?
Season 4 of The Grace Period kicks off by tackling one of the most universal challenges in legal practice: navigating difficult opposing counsel and pro se litigants. These "energy vampires" come in various forms—the unnecessarily aggressive adversary treating every interaction like warfare, the ghost who materializes only at deadline's edge, the perpetually unprepared, the hypocritical demander, and those who constantly test ethical boundaries. Pro se litigants bring their own complications with their emotional investment, system distrust, and procedural confusion.
I share my hard-earned playbook for maintaining sanity and professionalism during these challenging relationships. Learn why documentation serves as your shield, how establishing early communication protocols creates necessary structure, and when stepping back from immediate responses preserves your wellbeing without compromising your advocacy.
The most powerful insight? Professional detachment combined with strategic empathy yields far better outcomes than matching difficult behavior with your own emotional reactions. When you go low like they do, you've lost and they've won. Instead, develop your personal toolkit for handling these situations.
Ready to transform how you handle difficult opposing counsel? Subscribe now, share with colleagues facing similar challenges, and join us next week for a reflection on what it means to be a female partner in 2025.
Find out more at https://thegraceperiod.substack.com/.
Welcome to the Grace Period where we get real about attorney mental health and well-being and pull back the veil on the high-stakes world of big law. I'm your host, emily Logan Steadman. In this demanding profession, it is crucial that we don't lose ourselves in the hustle for billable hours. On the Grace Period, we have honest conversations about finding consistency, minimizing chaos, developing coping strategies and destigmatizing mental health. It is time to prioritize our shared humanity to find our grace period. Welcome to season four of the Grace Period. This is episode 31, the first episode of season four. Today I'm going to talk about something all attorneys face difficult opposing counsel and something almost all litigators face pro se or self-represented parties. Difficult opposing counsel and unrepresented parties can make you dread the job the job. We've all been there. That moment when you open an email from an opposing counsel and you feel your blood pressure start to rise, your heart sinks, your frustration soars. There are those cases because of those parties or counsel on the other side that make you afraid to check your email and not want to listen to your voicemail. Sometimes it's because they miss their deadlines and they have no explanation, or they send unnecessarily aggressive emails, or they are calling you all the time they ask you to do things. They ask you and your client to do things that they themselves refuse to do. Or maybe you're dealing with a pro se litigant who calls your office five times a day and doesn't understand that they are not your client so you don't have to answer them. Or they send you pages and pages of email. Maybe the pro se litigant is rightfully frustrated, but they have a total misunderstanding of the law and how the system works. These difficult opposing counsel and opposing parties come in a variety of different flavors. There's the unnecessarily aggressive person who treats every email like a yelling match or a declaration of war. There's the ghost who never responds until the day before the deadline or only sends you emails after hours. There's the party that's just never prepared. They seem to literally be reading the case file before every scheduled hearing or call. Then there's the bossy opponent who demands your client give them documents that they refuse to give to you. Or they demand that you participate in discovery in a way. You've asked them to do and they've told you no. The hypocrite. Not forget the ones that test the boundaries of what it means to be a professional and what it means to be ethical.
Speaker 1:Pro se litigants present their own unique challenges. They're often deeply and emotionally invested in their cases. They're inherently distrustful of you and your client and they may not understand the legal procedures. It's a different kind of difficult and yet it requires just as much strategic thinking and emotional stamina. So what can you do?
Speaker 1:My first piece of advice is to document everything. If you have a call and the other party agrees to a deadline, follow it up by an email. A call and the other party agrees to a deadline, follow it up by an email. If you've had a heated conversation with a pro se litigant or opposing counsel, write an email afterwards to the file, summarizing it to the client or summarizing it to the other party. Documentation is your shield. It protects you in the moment and down the road.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm an elder millennial and I know those my age and younger don't love talking on the phone, but it is true A phone call can solve a lot of problems. But creating a paper trail is your safety net. You should also write every memo and email as if it's going to be filed in court, because it might be, especially if you're dealing with a pro se litigant. They tend to file all your communications with the judge by thinking of every communication as being before the court. That makes it easier to maintain composure and professionalism easier to maintain composure and professionalism With difficult opposing counsel and pro se litigants.
Speaker 1:It's also important to establish communication protocols early. Maybe you tell them what these protocols are or maybe you just know what they are and you constantly remind yourself of that. So, define what it means to be responsive and what an appropriate response time looks like. Also, know when to escalate it With pro se litigants. Use plain language. Explain the process. Really consider where that line is about providing legal advice which we can't do and trying to help the matter move forward. This includes setting realistic expectations. At the same time, you should be firm with them. Your role as counsel is to your client, not to the unrepresented party.
Speaker 1:So again, document your attempts to explain procedures and redirect communications through the proper channels when needed. And know, know this, understand this. All of this takes a toll. It's okay to be worn out by these people's efforts and shenanigans. Even as a partner, I'm still dealing with these energy vampires. I'm still having to remind myself what my options are and to keep it cool and to vent offline and off the record. So far in my career I've had opponents and unrepresented parties who call me repeatedly even after I explain to them I'm not their attorney. Who've emailed senior partners at my firm when they're unhappy with who I am and how I've represented my client. Who've contacted my clients directly to complain about me. Who've yelled at me, raised their voice, called me names, who've questioned my professionalism and ethics, and I've even had pro se litigants sue me personally.
Speaker 1:When dealing with difficult opposing parties, the biggest challenge is often managing the space between the opposing party, who wants your attention, and your actual client, who wants not to be disrupted or distracted. So again, here's my playbook. One set clear boundaries early. Two document everything. Create that paper trail so the facts can't be rewritten. Three resist the urge to respond to every demand immediately. This was hard for me when I first started leading matters by myself. I was treating opposing parties like the partners I work for and I felt the need to respond to everything right away. I don't have to jump just because opposing counsel or a pro se litigant tells me I need to jump. Have to jump just because opposing counsel or a pro se litigant tells me I need to jump. Four be selective about what you escalate to your client. Take care of what you can take care of and only loop the client in when absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1:Five remember remaining calm and maintaining your composure is not a weakness. It's often a strategy, and a strong one. Of course, the hardest skill is not letting them get under your skin. That's really hard for me. I'm often able to stay composed in the moment, but then I ruminate on it and I think about these people and all they're doing to annoy me and I have to remind myself to let it go. I've watched attorneys lose their composure when baited by difficult opposing parties. When you match their energy, when you go low like they do, you've lost, they've won. Professional detachment, on the other hand, combined with strategic empathy, particularly with pro se litigants, yields much better outcomes.
Speaker 1:Here are some other tools. First, unless it's genuinely urgent, sleep on it. Can you save the draft response for 24 hours or until tomorrow? Second, know when to walk over to a mentor or friend's office or pick up the phone and call them and say I need another set of eyes on this. Again, that's not weakness, it's good lawyering. Third, have a personal decompression routine. Third, have a personal decompression routine.
Speaker 1:Have a toolkit where you know what you can look to to calm down or create space. Maybe it's a walk, maybe it's chatting with a friend, going for a run, getting your nails done, closing your eyes for five minutes, scrolling TikTok. Whatever it is, find what works for you and use it consistently. Remember, at the end of the day, how you handle difficult opposing parties isn't just about winning in that moment. It's about playing the long game over your case and your career. Every challenging interaction is an opportunity to be true to yourself, to demonstrate your professionalism and grow as an attorney. Challenges make you better and they'll make you more prepared when the next difficult opposing counsel or pro se litigant comes along and trust me, there will be another one. So at the end of this week's episode, I encourage you to create your own toolkit for managing difficult counsel and pro se litigants. Write down what your strategies are for finding calm when you want to scream, and going and finding a place to scream can be on the list. List out your go-to responses for common situations that arise and outline your techniques for decompressing and calming down. Having this ready before you need it will make a difference when the time comes.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. I hope this discussion has provided some insights about how to navigate difficult opposing counsel and pro se litigants. Next week, I'll share a reflection on what it means to me to be a female partner in 2025. Remember, you don't have to sacrifice your well-being for career success. By prioritizing self-care, setting boundaries and seeking support, you can survive and even thrive in the law and in big law. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. That is the path to our grace period. Disclaimer this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are strictly my own. This podcast does not constitute professional advice of any kind, including legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by listening to this podcast.
