July 30, 2008 | Posted By Patrick J. Lamb | 0 Comments | print this article

Trust. Earned Or There Until Lost?

I have frequently used a pair of boots to illustrate the notion of perspective.  Boots are one thing is you're wearing a nice pair of broken in boots, quite another if you're looking at the bottom of a boot as you're being stepped on.  Same object, different perspectives.

This notion of perspective applies equally to trust.  As in trust between a lawyer and her or his client.  Recently, I heard some outside lawyers complain (surprisingly bitterly) that they resented their clients when they put work out to bid or interviewed a number of firms for work that their firm could have performed.  When asked to explain the reason for the resentment, it came down to bitterness over the fact that the client didn't trust them to deliver the best value, which would have made the "competition" unnecessary.  When pressed to explain what the lawyer had done to earn the client's trust, he responded by saying they had done nothing to lose it.

Perspective.  Is trust something you have to earn?  Or is trustworthiness something that should be assumed until evidence exists to the contrary?  From which direction do we look at this boot?

This exchange captured one of the essential differences that seems to keep inside and outside counsel from working on the same page.  One believes trust must be earned, the other believes it exists until it is lost.

Maybe because I am loathe to trust others until my trust is earned, I am not one to believe that trust should ever be presumed.   Having said that, however, there is a great line from the movie "Footloose," uttered by John Lithgow, that highlights the conundrum.  He asks a question to the effect of "how will our children ever prove themselves trustworthy unless we start to trust them?"  Still, when all is said and done, if you are retained for a matter, I believe you have all sorts of opportunities to demonstrate your trustworthiness is guarding the client's interests in a way that furthers the client's objectives.  So in the discussion with the lawyer I mentioned at the outset of this post, my own feeling is that if the client is bidding out work that you could do, you have failed to create a sense in the client that you provide extraordinary value--they still feel the need to look elsewhere.  Opportunity lost.

I hope raising this issue prompts some discussion.  I look forward to it. 

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