(photo by Scott Liddell; MogueFile) 

From this month's ABA Journal eReport, a refreshing article on client-centered legal practice -- The Chicken or the Client -- by Gerald Hecht of Hecht & Associates in Danbury, Connecticut.

And, yes, it is spiritual. 

Excerpt below:  

As a general practitioner, I help “real people with real problems,” and I have adopted that slogan as my professional credo. And it is a great answer to the inquiry “What kind of law do you practice?”

Grappling with the client, and not the chicken, enables the attorney to deal with the divorcing mother of three, the debt-ridden restaurateur and the juvenile offender. Another lawyer once told me, “We all know what the law is—the hard part is finding out what the client is.”

The public does understand this: but they just prefer to be entertained by that old razzle-dazzle (like the lawyer in the musical Chicago) and ignore the realities of the profession. It is said that people hate lawyers as a group but love their own lawyers.

For me and my practice, the proof of that is in the telephone. It rings. People want advice. People send money for that advice. It’s a nice system.

I have learned that the system is geared for the lawyer to assist the client, salve their wounds, remediate the problem and to obtain a goal. It’s almost spiritual.