Bench & Bar January/February 2026

LAWYER WELLBEING

Judging L awyers and mental health profession als recognize alike—it’s no accident that both are called “counselor”— BY DR. ERIC Y. DROGIN

What if we did judge wrongly? Just as over half of marriages end in divorce, the aftermath of the aforementioned wedding of attorney-client fortunes can similarly cause us to wish that time machine access was a bar membership benefit, along with jurisdiction-specific continuing legal edu cation and discounted search engine access. Misjudging can occur for a number of over lapping reasons. According to associate professor emeritus Sharam Heshmat, Ph.D. of the University of Illinois at Springfield (https://tinyurl. com/misjudgement), errors in this regard “are colored by our own past experiences, projections, and expectations” and reflect some combination of self-fulfilling proph ecy (“a false belief of a situation that evokes a behavior that in turn makes the false belief become true”), transference (“the re-sur facing of past relationships with significant others with new people you interact with”), and disproportionate expectations (when we “blindly follow the same advice of some one who is highly regarded”). We may, for example, fall prey to unfounded misgivings about a new client and amplify the problem on our own, in part because we’re reminded of another client with whom we meshed poorly, and in part because the case was

referred to us by someone whom—at least until now—we trusted and admired. Lawyers and mental health professionals by no means have an exclusive corner on misjudging potential clients. Design indus try maven Colleen Gratzer (https://tinyurl. com/client-misjudge) has identified a slew of “red flags” that all of us may miss during the critical initial discernment stage of forming professional relationships. These include, among others, “they don’t follow your process or let you lead,” “they’re unsure of their goals,” “they’re in a hurry,” “they refuse to give you a budget,” “they won’t pay up front,” “they want to use their contract,” “they expect you to be available all the time,” and “the work is something you’re morally opposed to.” One or two red flags may have little more effect than to complement the scenery. The more that crop up, the greater the likelihood that they may dominate the landscape entirely. There is one subset of the legal profession populated by individuals whose role it is to judge from the inception of a legal matter through to its eventual conclusion. In a come-from-behind burst of inspired cre ativity and edgy wordplay, we could call these persons “judges.” As you can imagine,

that in order to serve, we first must judge. It is axiomatic with respect to both callings that the success of our practices is measured not by the cases we are able to obtain, but rather by the cases we have the good sense to turn down. In addition, once the advo cacy train has left the station, the time for judging will have come and gone. At this point, we have wedded our case-specific fortunes with those of the client, and only under the most egregious of emerging cir cumstances would that bond be broken. This is not to suggest, of course, that to move beyond judging is to abandon utterly the obligation to exercise judgment. Careers dominated by the principle—or lack thereof—that the solution to every ethical dilemma is “my client, right or wrong” typi cally come to a messy end. We obey the law, we make scrupulously honest assertions, and we attempt to achieve within these boundaries what the client truly claims to want. It would be impossible to overem phasize the importance of ascertaining the client’s goals as early as possible, so we can determine if we, rather than someone with a different view of the world, are the ones to help pursue them.

28 january/february 2026