Patience is a virtue

I think it takes a lot of patience to work in a non-profit/do pro bono work as an attorney. To be honest, I am sometimes surprised at how many of these lawyers stay loyal to the CLC for so many years because some of the clients can be very difficult to work with. Some of the people who call in to the CLC have such an attitude or sense of entitlement that they can be impossible, we literally have to remind them that we are working to help them and providing them a valuable service for free. Every time we assign a case we send a letter to the clients reminding them to behave properly with the attorneys. I could not believe that some of the clients give the lawyers attitudes. Some of these attorneys spend 20 plus hours on a case, that is a pretty big sacrifice of their time, and sometimes the clients do not appreciate it at all. There are times when I will be screening a client on the phone and when I say something they do not like they will just scream “Ma’am” at me, not excuse me, but ‘ma’am.’ It drives me crazy, all I am doing is trying to help them find pro bono legal services and they give me attitude. I have a lot of respect for Meg and all the attorneys that continuously work to fulfill the mission of CLC even when they frequently get disrespected by clients. Of course, we have many wonderful clients who are extremely grateful for what we do; it was just really surprising to see the number who had the audacity to cock an attitude when we are providing them help that they are extremely unlikely to find somewhere else. I definitely gained some skills at biting my tongue when I needed to professionally, but there were definitely times I wanted to scream some reality at these people.