Only 16% of Clients Rate Lawyers High On Honesty & Ethics
All lawyers belong to the Virginia State Bar which publishes a monthly magazine “The Virginia Lawyer.” In the August 2024 (Vol. 73,No.2, p.22) an article quotes Gallup’s 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll that found “only 16% of Americans would rate the honesty and ethical standards of lawyers as high or very high, down from 22 % in 2019.” That might help explain why mediation clients tend to trust their mediators more than their lawyers.
Many Lawyers Aren’t Frank With Their Divorce Clients
While mediators can’t give legal advice, they can give legal information and ask pertinent questions that get clients re-thinking their own assumptions and the assumptions made by and advice given from their lawyers. The clients often come to realize that their neutral, unbiased mediators are more honest with them than their lawyers! Why aren’t lawyers honest and frank with their clients? Are they afraid they’ll get fired for telling the client the truth? Fired for being honest and frank? Blanton Massey created “A Divorce Client’s Bill of Rights” hoping to empower his mediation clients to get honest, detailed answers from their lawyers.
Many Lawyers Don’t Effectively Explain Mediation To Their Divorce Clients
Interestingly, another article in the same issue of The Virginia Lawyer states” “Despite attempts to raise awareness of its benefits, mediation remains an underutilized approach. Lawyers play an important role in ensuring that the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) option is both considered and effectively explained.”
Too many of our clients continue to tell us that the lawyers they initially consulted either did not mention mediation at all or did not adequately explain to them the option of mediation and its many benefits. We cannot recall a single case of a mediation client telling us of being advised by the lawyer that the lawyer could, while not attending the actual mediation sessions with the client, provide the client ongoing coaching on divorce law, preparation for mediation and negotiation principles and techniques, before and between mediation sessions.