Concerned with how lawyers can interact with clients to help them solve their legal problems. Deals specifically within the context of dispute resolution cases. Within the context of that litigation, the book examines the task which lawyers must perform and the skills they must have in order to be effective counselors. The authors provide a description of the objectives of the legal interviewing and counseling processes; the forces which motivate clients to participate in these processes; and the basic techniques which are needed to successfully achieve the goals of legal interviewing and counseling.

Lawyers know that client counseling can be the most challenging part of legal practice. Clients question and often resist the complexities and uncertainties inherent in law and legal process. Honest advice from the lawyer can make a client doubt his or her allegiance and zeal. Client backlash may be directed at the lawyer who communicates bad news. Thus, the lawyer may feel torn between the obligation to clearly inform a client about weaknesses in legal positions and fear of damaging the client relationship. Too often, the lawyer struggles to counsel a particularly difficult client, but to no avail. Client Science is written to provide insight and advice to lawyers on how to more effectively communicate with their clients with regard to legal realities and difficult decisions. It will help lawyers with the always-difficult task of delivering "bad news," which will result in better-informed and thus more satisfied clients. The book explains applicable social science research and insights and translates them into plain language relevant to legal practice and client counseling. Marjorie Corman Aaron offers specific suggestions related to a lawyer's ordering, timing, phrasing, and type of explanation, as well as style adjustments for the lawyer's voice, gesture, and body position, all to impact client counseling and to improve the lawyer-client relationship.

The purpose of this book is to help law students to develop and practice communication skills in the context of client interviewing and counselling.

Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling examines practical and theoretical challenges lawyers face with clients. Each chapter explores a critical issue in interviewing and counseling, such as developing connection across difference, dealing with atypical clients, and using engaged client-centered counseling. Ellmann, Dinerstein, Gunning, Kruse, and Shelleck investigate these issues primarily through detailed analysis of lawyer-client conversations, which invite the reader to consider and critique the lawyer's choices. A key theme is "engaged client-centered lawyering," which emphasizes the importance of client choice and the impact of lawyers on clients, and affirms lawyers' ability to achieve wise engagement with clients.