LEGAL COUNSELLING
understand the client’s particular concerns and values. Good legal advice also requires the
THE LAWYER AS A COUNSELOR (JACK BURTCH JR.)
Good afternoon Atty. And classmates. Today’s topic will be about legal counseling. I will be
discussing 2 articles for today. The lawyer as a counselor by Jack Burtch and An inquiry into
legal counseling by Robert Redmount.
To start, a Lawyer, according to Burtch is meant to represent clients in their causes. A lawyer
listens to what their clients want and tries to make it happen for them. He noticed in his practice
that Certain types of situations tended to produce certain types of problems. Although each
client’s case was unique, he saw a pattern in both causes and solutions.
QUESTION: WHY IS IT THAT SITUATIONS THAT SEEM MYSTERIOUS TO OUR CLIENTS
OFTEN APPEAR CLEAR TO US LAWYERS?
Situations that seem mysterious to clients often appear clear to lawyer. This is not because
lawyers are smarter, or have better insight, or are gifted with legal clairvoyance. It’s simply
because the experienced lawyer has been down this road before and the territory is familiar.
CREATING OPPORTUNITY OUT OF DISAPPOINTEMENT
How can we use what we now know to get what we want?
Since People often react to given situations within a range of somewhat predictable responses,
this serves as a pattern for lawyers to choose what approach to take. The longer we practice,
the more familiar we are with those likely responses.
CAPITALIZING ON INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE
the lawyer’s accumulated past experience in a particular field is called industry knowledge. It
refers to the information gathered by working through the same types of legal problems over and
over again. Experienced lawyers armed with industry knowledge have an advantage others do
not. These lawyers can advise clients about legal issues and at the same time offer the benefit
of their experience. Experienced lawyers can suggest what types of approaches tend to work
best and what good outcomes might result-often to the surprise of clients who haven’t
considered these options before.
PRACTICING CLIENT CENTERED CONTROL COUNSELLING
To discern client goals, the lawyer has to somehow get inside the client’s head and view the
issue through the client’s eyes. This is client centered counselling. It focuses on client’s needs,
desires, values, and attitudes. It sees to it that the lawyer’s duty to present various options that
address the issue is based on client’s orientation
It was derived from the psychological theory by Carl Rogers. He believed that human beings
seek to become self-actualized- to achieve their full potential. The counselor’s job is to show
empathy, respect and understanding so clients make healthy decisions for themselves and
develop their own potential to the fullest extent.
PRACTICING TRADITIONAL COUNSELLING
Pertains to The way professionals interact with laypersons.
The practice of law is dynamic; different situations require different approaches.
The successful practice of law requires a pragmatic mixing of different theories. Attempting to
invent a universal method or strategy to be applied will likely result in disappointment.
To end this article, the lawyer as a counselor according to Burtch should be detached from their
client’s problems to provide an impartial perspective.
Giving good legal advice means the lawyer must listen closely in order to appreciate and
lawyer to draw on personal experience, skill, and knowledge to formulate the strategies and
solutions that will help achieve the client’s goals.
Law is a multidisciplinary function. Our work represents an integration of skills as we craft the
strategies, plans, pleadings, and documents that are our tangible work product.
Moving on to the next article,
AN INQUIRY INTO LEGAL COUNSELLING (ROBERT S REDMOUNT)
LEGAL COUNSELLING pertains to the broad range of consultation lawyers can provide
clients. It is a group of particular attitudes, skills, and strategies that a lawyer utilizes mostly in
his office to help individual clients meet specific needs and resolve problems.
I. THE CHARACTERS OF LEGAL COUNSELING are the following:
Political since Clients are typically not interested in knowing or upholding the law; their concern
is how the operation of law does or may affect them. Their need for a lawyer may involve, from
their point of view, the circumvention or subversion of law, to ends that are questionable in
pursuit of justice. Political control, then, is a matter of whose wants and whose philosophy
guides the legal counselling process.
It is legal because Proper counseling requires that the law be respected and upheld.
It is A FORM INTERVENTION IN CLIENT AFFAIRS Evidenced by a self-restricted concern to
that which is specifically legal. The lawyer’s only substantial concern is to see to it that the client
has been thoroughly protected legally and that the legal requirements are properly executed.
It CREATES RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARTIES
One party needs help and the other party has the means to provide help.
The element of vulnerability, uncertainty or need in one party (client) and the strength of the
other party (legal counselor) reflects a condition of inequality between the parties. This inequality
contributes to the psychological dependency of the client upon the counselor. The option for a
more personal relationship in legal counseling runs the risk of intrusiveness into unchartered
areas, but it also serves to enlarge upon and expands the client’s needs, possibilities, and
circumstances.
Lastly, LEGAL COUNSELLING is PART OF A COMPLEX PROFESSIONAL OPERATION
It acts as a precedent to or as a complement to a process of litigation
QUESTION: LAWYERS ARE SERVANTS OF?
According to Burtch, Lawyer are servants to two masters:
1. Society- upholds and implements the law
2. Client- contracts with the client to serve the latter’s interest as best as possible
A Lawyer highly disposed to legal analysis- commits himself to counselling as a matter of
applying fact to the law. The law is the authority and himself as the agency.
Lawyer whose stronger disposition is to help its clients- the law is one of many considerations for
attaining maximum benefit. His counseling reflects greater concern for end results that
procedural dogmas. The primacy of client’s interest more than the primacy of law.
QUESTION: DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE WHEN AND HOW A LAWYER INTERVENES IN
CLIENT AFFAIRS?
To answer the question as to WHEN: The when of intervention is the client’s initial choice.
Early consultation: lawyer will help aid in refining problems and issues.
Late consultation: lawyer’s technical services are sought more than his reflectiveness, breadth
of knowledge, or analytical skills. This raises the interesting point of a lawyer’s professional
obligation, if any, to inform or to try to inform the client of non-legal consequences that his
contemplated legal action may invite.
The matter of how as distinguished from when a lawyer intervenes in clients’ affairs does make a
difference. Preemptive legal counseling may result in increased conflict between parties. And as
to how, issues may also be raised about the lawyer’s competence to engage in the requisite
economic, psychological or other exploration. Hence, Consent and competence deserve fuller
inquiry because it either benefits or detriment the client.
Redmount laid down these PROCEDURAL TECHNIQUES AND SKILLS in legal counseling
1. EMPATHY- a quality of interest and caring that one person may feel and express
toward another.
Counseling without empathy very often ignores the human dimensions of experience.
To end today’s discussion the Counselor’s responsibility is to:
i. Encourage client participation
ii. Make client aware and relieve distortive emptions that
prevent adequate understanding
iii. Insist on full or fuller exchange of information and on clear
reasoning
iv. Vigilant about deception and manipulation to reinforce trust
and belief
Thank you everyone for listening. Just to check if you listened to the discussion, I will
host a quiz to be played of course by everyone. Winner gets an incentive recit point from
maam today.

2. IMPRESSION AND INFORMATION- there is a need to simultaneously elicit and

evaluate the reliability of information and differentiate hard information from values,
biases, or preferences.
The voluntariness of the client in rendering information and the receptiveness of the counselor in
receiving it form an important foundation.

3. ANALYSIS- processing of information.

a. Legal analysis- analysis of the impact of legal rules and practices
b. Analysis of client and social facts
c. Analysis of professional intervention possibilities and their attendant
risks
d. Analysis of predicated outcomes

4. SUGGESTION AND DECISION- bringing together or closure of prior counseling

experiences in information gathering and analysis
a. Suggestion- invites reaction sometimes reformulation and the proffering of
alternatives
b. Decision- involves commitment and a degree of finality in counseling
experience
5. IMPLEMENTATION- translation of decision into action. Mostly, it is incumbent on the
counselor to implement.
6. RECONSIDERATION- testing of a decision against subsequent reality experiences
and may retrospectively suggest flaws and inadequacies. It calls for a need for further
information gathering and sifting more analysis and reformulation of some suggestion
and decision.

QUESTION: WHETHER COUNSELORS HAVE TO LIKE THEIR CLIENTS IN ORDER TO

SERVE THEM WELL?

a. THE ENDS OF COUNSELING includes

1. PERSUASION AND ADVICE- influences the client and directs him to his own cause
2. FACILITATION- development of attitudes, modification of circumstances, and
procedures focused on bringing about change to serve the client’s best interest.
3. PROTECTION- kind of reinforcement of the client’s best position given his immediate
circumstances through legal means. It is a matter of objective fact ascertainment
correlated with an assessment of the risk of harm to the client.
4. PREVENTION- protection but with a larger ambit. Counselor projects future risks and
possibilities that may be speculative or probable as they are real and immediate.
5. CORRECTION- the risk or harm is generally known and immediate. The need is to
identify and implement the legal principles and procedures that will serve to rectify.