I’m glad he called me a f***wit
How empathy is make-or-break in probate law
I started in wills and estates a little over five years ago, joining my father in our family business in Bankstown, NSW.
Dad’s work was rarely discussed at home, and despite having six years of law school under my belt I had no idea what real-world practice would be like.
While probate matters move notoriously slowly, I felt out of my depth fast — gasping for air beneath both seas of paperwork and a broad range of matters varying in complexity.
The word “probate” was being thrown around in ways that had me questioning what our family business even did. I had no idea how to ask a super fund what the hold-up was — or whether I even could? And who the hell are Banks and Goodfellow?
Questions of law. Questions of process. Questions of language. Questions of time.
Questions that I have only been able to answer as the result of having worked alongside experienced lawyers, and from having developed a little experience of my own.
Experience as a double-edged sword
It would have been impossible for me to imagine myself, back then, as someone who would one day have the answers to all of those questions.
You’d expect this to be a sign of progress — and don’t get me wrong, it is.
But something else seems to have happened, too. Something unforeseeable.
What happens when an increase in confidence and competency don’t bear strict correlation with efficacy?
Try this on for size:
What if you found yourself in my shoes, years into legal practice, forced by a single interaction with a client to question whether a junior lawyer might have handled a situation better than yourself?
What happened:
I took instructions from a client — let’s call him “James” — who was the executor of his father’s estate. James and his sister were the only beneficiaries. They received 50% of the estate each.
James was a great client. We acted when he bought his first home and we had helped with a few other minor matters over the years.
The will was clear and there didn’t appear to be any unusual circumstances that would have raised red flags.
I met with James in-person to explain the process and take instructions.
During the meeting, I explained that the process would likely take 3-6 months (this was at a time when the Registry’s turnaround was usually 2-4 weeks) and that we’d be in touch.
And in touch we were. Shortly after, James found a bundle of his father’s old dividend statements.
He contacted us immediately — we had not yet submitted the probate application.
James didn’t have any SRNs or HINs for these newly-discovered shares, so we did some searches and worked out what James’ father held. That process delayed things by about a month.
Simultaneously, while James was looking for his father’s SRNs and HINs, he came across a letter from a super fund. Again, James let me know and I wrote a letter to the super fund asking for details of any superannuation held.
After not hearing back from the super fund for 3 weeks, I followed up with a call. 57 minutes of hold music later, customer support confirmed they’d received my letter but advised that they would not be replying until they received a third-party authority signed by my client.
Classic.
Of course, I arranged for James to sign the third-party authority. We eventually heard back from the fund, prepared the grant application, and submitted it to the Court.
Finally on track!
But amidst the chaos, I hadn’t appreciated the extent of the delay. Three extra months.
A few years of professional experience had formed a level of tolerance, or even nonchalance, to these kinds of delays. As a junior lawyer I’d been shocked by the glacial pace with which probate matters can progress. In the time since, I seemed to have begun taking for granted that these delays be assumed by my clients, too.
Well. You know what they say about those who assume.
Unbeknown to me, James had been expecting his inheritance to come through in 3 months. He’d set the wheels in motion of his lifelong dream: to open a restaurant!
James had signed a commercial lease (without seeking advice) and about 1 week from commencement, he rang me and angrily demanded to know when probate would be granted.
“I don’t know”, was all I could say.
The application had been submitted one week prior. It would be anywhere between 2 and 12 weeks for the grant to come through. Out of my hands.
James lost it.
Not only was he about to be short on his first month of rent, but he was now at a loss as to how he was going to cover the next 3-4 months too.
He absolutely blasted me.
“What he f*** am I supposed to do! You said 3 months! Now it’s going to be 9 months!? More!? You’re a complete f***wit!”
I’ll admit, my first reaction was defensive.
After all, it wasn’t MY fault he’d signed an expensive commercial lease, nor that he hadn’t sought advice…
Resisting the urge to meet him on his level, I de-escalated.
By the grace of some higher power, James’s landlord was sympathetic and basically let him off the hook. Probate was granted relatively quickly and he got his money within 2 months.
Sure, life goes on, and I was happy to hear that his restaurant is doing well. But our relationship was badly bruised, and I haven’t seen him since.
Where did I go wrong?
Afterwards, I noticed within myself two irreconcilable takes on what had transpired.
The “experienced lawyer” inside me was calling James an idiot. He shouldn’t have signed that lease without advice. Plus, I told him estate administration would take 3-6 months, possibly longer. It’s not my fault that he had gambled on the efficiency of probate law…
But something about blaming someone else didn’t sit right.
I couldn’t ignore the fact that only a few years prior I had been just as in the dark as James. If at no point as a junior lawyer had I considered myself an ‘idiot’, then I had no rights to think of James as one today.
No. James was not an idiot. I had failed him. I had taken his working knowledge of probate law for granted — and saying that sentence out loud makes me feel like an idiot.
Cleaning the rear-view mirror
My failure to empathise with my client caused my failure to communicate crucial information. He suffered as a result.
The junior lawyer inside me, buried by layers of experience and a hardening to the circumstances around the practice of probate law, would have more naturally empathised with James. But here I was, trying to think like someone who I no longer am — trying to think in manual — in order to make sense of James’s experience.
Now here I am, writing about my new-found desire to re-establish a relationship with the junior lawyer I was so excited to leave behind.
What did Tom O’Neill know or feel that Tom O’Neill 5+ years PQE might not?
How can re-connecting with a junior lawyer mindset help me to provide the highest quality client service possible?
I’m going to mull this over and update you with where I land.
Fantastic read!