In the legal profession, great emphasis is placed on mastering statutes, precedents, and courtroom strategies. However, when it comes to managing challenging human dynamics, lawyers often find themselves navigating turbulent waters without sufficient training.
In a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, Mia Madafferi, founder of Grey Rock Consulting, highlighted her belief that lawyers are not being adequately equipped to manage strong and conflicting personalities effectively.
In the same episode, she explored how the skills developed through a law degree can unlock opportunities well beyond the traditional law firm or courtroom, for those willing to take the leap.
Madafferi explained that her perspective stems from what she sees as a significant oversight within the legal profession: the lack of focus on what she terms “the people side of being a lawyer”.
“Generally speaking, no, and it’s not because they don’t want to know. It’s not because they’re silly or anything like that. I just don’t think we have focused on the people side of being a lawyer,” she said.
Drawing from her experience supporting lawyers, Madafferi described how family lawyers often struggle to manage clients facing adversaries with unpredictable and challenging behaviours.
“I’d speak to family lawyers about what I’m doing and how I can help their clients, which ultimately helps the family lawyers. Because when you’ve got a client going into a mediation who is a ball of terror, nerves, anxiety, you know, all those things, it actually makes the family lawyer’s job harder,” she said.
“Which is not a criticism to the person or the lawyer, but it’s harder if you have a client going, I know the behaviours that are going to come my way. I’m anticipating all the moves. I know what I can and cannot say yes to.”
Madafferi argued that when lawyers begin to understand and anticipate the behavioural patterns of high-conflict individuals, they can navigate disputes more effectively, ensuring they are “not trying techniques that backfire or don’t work and wasting people’s money”.
On the other hand, she warned that lacking these skills can be damaging on “so many levels”, even describing the experience as “soul destroying”.
The relentless conflict, Madafferi warned, can be utterly exhausting for lawyers caught in such situations – both emotionally and mentally.
“You are there pulling your hair out, trying to find solutions, trying to find a way through. If that person is on the other side to you, you’ve then got a client who’s going to think, How are you going to get me out of this?” she said.
“This is taking three, four, five years. You’ve told me to avoid court because you know my fate is in a third party’s hands and it’s expensive and all those things, but we are knocking on the door of a trial here. So you’re having pressure everywhere.”
However, Madafferi explained that these high-conflict individuals don’t just negatively impact a lawyer’s case – they often actively complain and undermine the lawyer, creating an additional layer of difficulty.
“You can also have the toll of the high-conflict person themselves loves to complain about you. So you might even start getting emails going to your boss, or to your client. Your lawyer’s the worst. They’re a waste of time. Do you know that? This is what they did today,” she said.
“They make complaints to the bodies that regulate your industry, you know, the law society and things like that. It’s unbelievable the things that they will do to undermine a matter.”
For lawyers facing these challenges, or those simply looking to become more informed and prepared, Madafferi emphasised the critical importance of developing “awareness of the behaviours because once you know them, you see them and you can spot them”.
