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inally, she made it clear to him that the record would refect 1. The Tardy Client
her advice, and if there was an inquiry, that’s the documen- The tardy client doesn’t consult the legal depart-
Ftation the securities regulator would unearth. He stood ment until it’s too late. They tend to be the #1
down. “Sometimes it’s a matter of you can’t control what some- challenging client.
one does, but you can set up an environment that makes them There are a variety of reasons for their dila-
think twice about going rogue,” she explains. tory behaviour. Charlene Ripley, Executive Vice-
Challenging clients are a fxture in every workplace. Chalk it President, General Counsel, at Goldcorp Inc. in Vancouver, says
up to being human and dealing with the multiple balls that your the most common is “bad time management.”
internal clients are asked to juggle in their increasingly complex The second, she adds, is lack of knowledge and understand-
lives. All clients come with biases, anxieties and human frailties. ing that they even have a legal problem or whom to approach.
Some are attentive to detail; many aren’t. Some work well under Third is the fear factor. “People don’t like confict,” so they will
pressure; others not so much. Some see deadlines as a Rubicon often put off dealing with the legal department, she explains.
you don’t cross, while others see a deadline as a starting point, Fortunately, an astute in-house legal team can deal with
not an end game. many of these underlying causes by being proactive.
It can make the life of an in-house counsel tumultuous. So While you can’t fx people’s bad time management, what you
how do you deal with diffcult clients?
can do is work around them. If you know someone has a repu-
tation for last-minute dealings, take the initiative. Use your in-
There is no “magic bullet,” notes ted kelterborn, ternal network to keep abreast of what is happening within that
General Counsel of CI Investments in Toronto. “The business unit. “We do learn things from a variety of different
universal challenge seems to be getting people to sources,” notes Lendon. If someone has a history of coming to
want to engage with Legal, rather than feeling they you at the last minute, make it a habit to “bump” into them and
have to.” he says it’s about shifting the “us-versus- casually mention their pending project and ways you can help.
them” mentality and the misperception that the legal
department is a “cop,” rather than a business ally. Lack of knowledge and understanding about when
to consult Legal means that the law department
Lendon adds that a good in-house counsel can often “pre- has to do a better job selling its services and
empt” problems that arise with a challenging client. “A lot of it people, ripleY says.
really comes down to communications. Anything you can do to
really help understand where your client is coming from helps Engage more with clients. For example, her
you bridge the gap.” team meets regularly with business units in formal sessions where
Harry Andersen, Senior Vice-President, External Affairs, they discuss things like service levels and solicit feedback. “Our
and Chief Legal Offcer at energy giant Pembina Pipeline Cor- business partners love the fact that we care about the service.”
poration in Calgary, attributes challenging clients more to the In-house counsel say the best thing you can do for those who
environment, rather than personal attributes. “If you have a mistrust Legal is show your worth and value by helping them
challenging client, it means you have a challenging group and achieve their goals on an incremental basis. Each time you can
a challenging dynamic. Nothing happens in a silo between two help them advance the ball, you earn a notch in the trust level.
people. It happens in groups of people,” he observes. So when
things break down, it invariably revolves around poor commu-
nications. “It means the right conversation hasn’t happened be- 2. The Know-It-All Client
tween the two groups.” This is the client who rejects the legal team’s
While challenging clients come in different sizes, shapes advice because they know better. Sometimes
and favours, there are some common characteristics that ap- they might be trained in the law themselves
pear frequently. Based on interviews with a variety of in-house but not always. Fred Headon, Assistant Gen-
counsel, CCCA Magazine has identifed eight common client eral Counsel, Labour and Employment Law
types, along with the challenges they present and some sugges- at Air Canada in Montreal, says there are “pros and cons” to
tions on how to manage them. know-it-all clients. “You can cut through some things that take

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