Attorneys
often
need
to
communicate
with
multiple
members
of
a
client’s
team
in
order
to
adequately
represent
a
client’s
interests. This
can
sometimes
include
team
members
who
have
different
interests
from
each
other,
and
this
may
inject
lawyers
into
the
office
politics
of
a
client. In
most
circumstances,
lawyers
should
try
to
avoid
the
office
politics
of
a
client,
and
attorneys
can
take
a
few
steps
to
help
ensure
that
they
minimize
the
chance
that
their
work
will
impact
the
internal
politics
of
the
organizations
they
serve.
One
time,
I
was
doing
legal
work
for
a
large
organization,
and
I
needed
to
communicate
with
several
different
teams
within
the
organization.
It
was
apparent
to
me
that
there
was
animosity
between
people
that
worked
for
this
client. Each
of
the
employees
bad-mouthed
the
other
and
talked
about
how
the
others
were
bad
at
their
jobs. I
am
not
sure
why
this
animosity
exited. Perhaps
each
of
the
teams
needed
to
compete
for
limited
funding
at
an
organization,
or
perhaps
the
employees
had
a
water
cooler
beef
that
had
existed
for
years. In
any
case,
this
animosity
made
it
difficult
to
work
for
this
client
since
each
wanted
to
use
my
representation
to
cast
good
or
bad
light
on
individual
employees
at
the
firm.
Eventually,
I
tried
my
best
to
coordinate
my
efforts
away
from
these
feuding
employees
and
spoke
almost
exclusively
with
a
manager
at
the
company
who
was
above
the
office
politics. This
made
it
a
little
more
difficult
to
get
the
information
and
documents
I
needed
since
this
needed
to
go
through
a
few
layers
at
the
client
before
this
reached
my
desk. But
this
strategy
helped
ensure
that
I
was
not
part
of
the
office
politics
that
created
a
bad
environment
at
that
shop.
Sometimes,
a
legal
representation
can
take
a
few
different
paths,
and
different
people
at
a
client
might
have
varying
perspectives
on
what
should
be
done. In
such
situations,
it
might
be
tempting
to
side
with
the
person
at
the
client
who
has
the
largest
capacity
to
refer
additional
legal
work
or
just
assume
that
the
most
senior
person
at
the
client
is
correct.
However,
lawyers
should
try
not
to
let
office
politics
dictate
which
path
should
be
taken
during
a
representation. Lawyers
should
try
to
promote
the
best
strategy
they
think
is
available
regardless
of
who
at
the
client
agrees
with
this
strategy
and
who
at
the
client
disagrees
with
the
strategy. Usually
with
some
explaining,
most
employees
of
clients
will
get
on
board
with
what
their
lawyer
wants
to
do.
One
other
sticky
situation
that
arises
often
when
it
comes
to
client
politics
is
mentioning
who
messed
up
on
a
given
project. There
have
been
times
when
clients
have
tasked
certain
personnel
to
answer
questions
or
secure
documents
and
either
the
wrong
information
is
provided
or
the
requested
documents
are
not
furnished. In
such
a
situation,
it
is
tough
to
tell
a
manager
that
a
worker
has
fallen
short,
since
this
can
jeopardize
the
lawyer’s
connection
with
an
employee
that
might
be
helpful
to
managing
a
representation.
In
such
situations
it
is
usually
best
to
approach
the
worker
directly
and
see
if
they
can
remediate
any
mistakes
before
escalating
anything.
In
this
way,
the
lawyer
can
try
to
stay
out
of
internal
politics
and
ensure
they
do
not
create
any
bad
blood.
All
told,
larger
clients
are
just
like
larger
businesses
(including
law
firms)
and
accordingly,
they
have
office
politics
just
like
other
businesses. Lawyers
can
keep
a
few
things
in
mind
to
ensure
that
they
stay
out
of
office
politics
and
focus
on
completing
a
representation
for
a
client.
Jordan
Rothman
is
a
partner
of The
Rothman
Law
Firm,
a
full-service
New
York
and
New
Jersey
law
firm.
He
is
also
the
founder
of Student
Debt
Diaries,
a
website
discussing
how
he
paid
off
his
student
loans.
You
can
reach
Jordan
through
email
at jordan@rothman.law.