Trust
“Trust the Technique”
-an old Jiujitsu adage
This building, Jenkins Hall, housed all the Military classrooms at the school I went to. Jenkins Hall had AC, but not enough so you’d sweat no-matter what. That building had a special smell to it: starch, sweat, and Kodiak wintergreen dip (tobacco). In the bathroom of Jenkins Hall you’d see “Semper Fi” carved into the walls. I had a lot of friends that were Marines. In class, you’d see them drawing “Semper Fi”. After a few beers they’d yell “Semper Fi”. I loved that. Every moment of the day, these guys were always faithful.
Faithfulness is the quality of being worthy of trust. Trust is important.
When I was in France for a time, I travelled all over Europe. Over the course of several months, I ate McDonalds more than any other time in my life. Now, I was not a big McDonald’s fan and I like European food, but I was eating a Royale with Cheese almost every day. The reason was because I could trust that it would be the same fries in Spain as in Brussels as in Newark. I trusted McDonalds would be there when I ordered it.
To do our job as lawyers, we need our clients to trust us, because, usually, what we are feeding them tastes bad. There is the question: Am I worthy of trust?
When I graduated law school and was working at the Public Defender’s Office, it was a huge shock to me that people didn’t trust me automatically.
I used to have this thing called “jail docket” every Friday. I’d show up about an hour before court started and the bailiffs would bring in about 40-50 inmates. They would sit them down. I’d stand in front, quiet them down, maybe tell a joke and give a speech about court. I’d then tell each of them how much time the State was offering them. It wasn’t private, it was almost like a classroom setting.
I remember one of these jail dockets when there was this 50 year old guy who’d spent about 48 years in the system. He was sitting in the first seat. I told him the State’s offer. He looked at me and asked if my suit was a graduation present. He wanted a lawyer who could grow facial hair. He wasn’t taking any deals.
Hardly anybody took deals from the State that day…regardless of best interest. I was mad. That guy was wrong. My mom had bought me that suit at Dillard’s for passing the Bar.
This kind of thing happened many times. People didn’t trust me when I was trying so hard for them. It took me a while to stop being mad about it. My expectations were too high. Automatic trust is rare.
Why should somebody trust me? Just because I am a lawyer? Because I’m wearing the suit? This was a realization.
So I stopped doing certain things, started doing some other things…simply put, real trust is a relationship.
To be worthy of trust…that is a continual endeavor. And that’s a different conversation.
The goal is to be always faithful. Scratch it into the wall, write it on the notebooks, yell it in the streets.
The other morning, I was walking out of court and a woman asked me what she should look for in a lawyer. I answered without thinking about it, “Find somebody you can trust”.