Distraught over my mother’s diagnosis, what I needed most was some compassion – what I got instead was a rude and confrontational employment lawyer, writes Naomi Neilson.
Chris Molnar. Image: Kennedys
Following months of forgetting details and repeating stories, my mother was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. While hereditary, this was decades earlier than expected. Her doctors explained it was the result of significant workplace-related stress.
On top of the lapses in memory, my mother said she was working 18-hour days, was having frequent panic attacks, and felt bullied by her boss. When things came to a head, we signed up for a free, hour-long consultation with a lawyer referred through the Fair Work Commission’s Workplace Advice Service.
From the moment I picked up the phone, the lawyer – a highly experienced practitioner, a Google search would show me later – was discourteous and hostile. I had barely scratched the surface of my mother’s workplace issues before he told me she had no case. When I tried to give more details, he spoke over me. When I asked him to soften his tone, he insisted he was being neutral.
Later, having finally realised there was a case, the issue switched from hostility to language. While there was some useful advice, the way it was delivered was far from helpful. For example, in what must have been an attempt to warn us about how difficult these cases can be and how workplaces can fight back, he said he has “belittled” self-represented employees because “that is what a lawyer does”.
Rather than hopeful for my mother’s prospects, the call caused great distress. More than that, I was surprised that a legal practitioner working in a highly emotional practice area was the cause.
In conversation for this Lawyers Weekly premium feature, Kennedys partner Chris Molnar said a person’s career is a major investment for them. For most, it takes up much of their waking hours and partly defines who they are. So when something happens to disrupt that investment, it “impacts upon them emotionally”.
“It could be a CEO, it could also be a middle manager or somebody who works at the lower levels, but each of them typically has a very, very similar emotional reaction to what is happening around them,” Molnar said of his 30-year career in workplace relations, during which he has represented both the employer and employee.
With this emotional weight in mind, Molnar said he takes a “listening role” during the initial conversation with employees so they can walk away from it feeling they have been heard and understood. From there, it becomes about drilling into the legal options and advice.
Even when it comes to giving tough advice the employee may not want to hear, Molnar said he maintains that compassion. Using the appropriate language can help the client come to terms with the available options while still feeling they have been acknowledged.
“Sometimes those options may not be the options they want, but in time, generally following discussion, they understand that and they will move on to the next stage and come to that viewpoint.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to give legal advice, but I think the way we deliver that legal advice is terribly, terribly important so that they feel during the process that they have been supported and they have been given good advice,” Molnar said.
Asked how he keeps from becoming desensitised to the emotional state of workplace relations law, Molnar said his work “engages” him, and he enjoys helping clients get into a “better position”.
“When you get that comment or that email back from a client that they feel they have been support[ed] or they have got a good outcome, then that is, for me, the big takeaway for why I do workplace relations work,” Molnar said.
