By this time, I had years of practice. I believed that I was prepared for anything. Then opposing counsel entered, sat down, and, in the next four minutes, referred to my client as a liar, asked after my preparation, and threatened to move to sanction on account of a paper which he discovered to be offensive.
I remained silent. Not because I had no response. I had too many, and none of them felt the right response.
The case taught me more about the legal profession than any case I had won. It is not a soft skill to remain professional when one is actively attempting to destabilize you. It is a survival skill. And they do not teach it at law school.
Why the Aggressive Tactic Exists at All
Individuals do not become violent in work environments without a reason. It is a decision, even where it appears to be emotion.
Aggression is nearly always a tactic in legal and high stakes business settings. The goal is to make you react. To get you say something you will never take back, lose your train, appear shaken in front of a judge or a customer, or retreat on a stand that was really a good one.
Others just picked it up by observing older co-workers who were able to get away with it over the years. People adopt it, as it has been effective. And some of them actually think that the most vocal person at the table is the most influential.
It is not. It can feel like that, however, when you do not know how to deal with it.
As soon as you realize that aggression is most of the time the manifestation of something deprived, rather than something potent, you begin to have a different perception of such situations. It is also habitual that when opposing counsel yells during a deposition, it is a good sign that your deposition is obtaining well. When a counterparty writes a nasty e-mail with numerous personal insults, it is often high time to notice that your previous letter hit a sore nerve.
The Hardest Part Is the First Ten Seconds
When one attacks you, the body over-reacts before the brain. Heart rate goes up. Jaw tightens. You either want to retaliate or become silent in a manner that translates to weakness.
Neither of those works.
The only thing that works is to buy oneself a beat. Not a dramatic pause, but a real one. A breath. A sip of water. Allowing the other individual to be finished with what he is saying before you utter a solitary word.
This is harder than it sounds. The majority of individuals begin to develop their answer in the middle of the conversation of the other party. That is to say that you are not listening anymore. You are preparing. And when you speak not out of clarity but out of preparation, you will tend to speak not out of strategy but out of reaction.
The best professionals to deal with aggression are not the ones with quicker comebacks. It is they who slack when everybody speeds up.
What to Say When You Want to Say Something You Should Not
Certain expressions have much to do, in stressful situations. They are not scripts. They are tools.
“Forgive me, what hast thou to do with it?” It compels the other individual to force him/herself to say something precise rather than remain in the perpetrator mode. It is also an indication that you are not rattled, since rattled individuals fight back. Calm people ask questions.
“I would like to ensure that we remain focused on the matter at hand”. This one turns aside without a fight. It labels what is occurring without taking it personally.
“Give me some time to consider it, and I will reply.” This is underutilized and underestimated. Having said that, you are allowed to stop. It also signals confidence. This can only be said and felt by those who are not desperate to fill the silence.
What you do not want is to have anything beginning with “You” always. That is completely wrong, or anything of that kind, or meeting heat with heat. As soon as you get personal, you give the other party a story. And that tale is their pretext to all that comes after.
The Email Problem Nobody Talks About
It is one thing to act aggressively in person. An aggressive writing is another matter, and it is where most professionals commit the greatest errors.
When someone sends a hostile e-mail, the tendency is to retaliate as much and as soon as possible. To correct every wrong claim. To match the tone. To ensure that the record indicates that you are not the kind of person who can be talked to in that manner.
All of that is emotionally sensible. Nearly everything is not the right move.
An aggressive email is a gift when you take it in the right way. It should be avoided to reply the same day. When you do answer, be content with the matter at hand. Remain informative and straightforward. Say nothing about the character of their message.
Here is why that works. Should the issue ever be taken before a judge, a mediator, an arbitration panel, or an HR committee, the correspondence record provides an account. Their heated replies and yours, so calm and professional, are a very narrow story. One that does not require any remark on your part.
Write down separately, in case the behavior is that bad. Not to make a drama, but to make a clear record with dates, quotes, and context in case this proves useful in the future.
When Staying Professional Gets Personal
This is what most guides do not cover. The aggression is not always merely a tactic. Sometimes it is targeted. This is at times based on who you are, what you appear to be, the way you appear old and seem to have been involved in a lot of experience.
This is something that junior attorneys have to go through. So do women in rooms still dominated by women. That is why no one will enter a negotiating table without fitting the default image of who is allowed into a negotiation.
The layer complicates the entire thing. Since now you are not merely dealing with the actions of another person. This is a very unfair dynamic you are dealing with on your own.
The professional reaction is not altered. It is simply more important the inside work needed to get there.
What assists is that two questions are divided. But now, in this room, how can I deal with it? Second, is this a trend that should be tackled elsewhere? The response to the former question is nearly always the same: remain calm, remain on point, remain professional. The second question is relative to your situation, your organization and what type of a record you have established.
When the conduct goes beyond the boundaries of harassment and discrimination, then it is no longer merely a communication problem. It is a professional conduct problem, and it has an adequate way to do it.
The Long Game: Building a Reputation That Works for You
There is no technique that offers the best defense against violent behavior. It is a reputation.
People tend not to keep trying to rattle you because when they understand that you do not rattle. When it is recorded that you react to heat accurately, the opposing counsel considers twice before he raises the temperature.
It is that reputation that has been established over time, through minor instances. That is where you had deposed your voice. The e-mail correspondence wherein you did not change your tone. The session during which you were able to name the behavior impersonally and pass on.
None of them are big wins at the time. In a career, they accumulate to something really hard to steal out of you.
It is one of the reasons why the experienced practitioners appear to be nearly relaxed in circumstances that would leave a junior attorney in a whirlwind. They have already endured too many variations of this to believe that the person they are facing is really dangerous. They are just uncomfortable. And people who feel uncomfortable make noise.
A Note on When to Walk Away
One more thing should be said directly. It happens that there are instances when it is also professional to end the conversation.
Not in anger. Not as a statement. Like an open-eyed judgment that this is not going to be a fruitful exchange, in this form, at this time.
It is not nerve failure to know when to disengage. It is professional judgment at its finest that requires many years to accomplish. It is not the lawyers and professionals who are truly difficult to intimidate who remain in every fight. It is they who make a wise selection of their battles and bring the ones they select to bear with keen accuracy.
Further Reading
If you want to understand how courts read professional communication and why precision in legal language matters, this piece on how courts interpret laws and legislative drafting is worth your time: Statutory Interpretation Secrets: How Judges Decode Laws and Why It Matters
If you are earlier in your career and trying to figure out how these dynamics fit into the bigger picture of what legal practice actually looks like, the insights here are honest and useful: Why Choose a Legal Career? Benefits, Challenges & Expert Insights
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