“How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life” is full of practical tips for dealing with prickly opponents, clients and colleagues.
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A colleague recently reached out on a listserv to ask if anyone had any experience with someone designated as a “vexatious litigant.” I hadn’t, but the phrase “vexatious litigant” struck a nerve.
A large part of the reason I am no longer a full-time practicing lawyer is vexatious opponents, colleagues and clients. If only I’d read the book “How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life,” I might still be practicing law full-time.
Well, OK, I wouldn’t be, but I might have lasted a bit longer.
Spotting Porcupines in the Wild and at Work
“How To Hug a Porcupine” offers a practical guide for spotting and dealing with “porcupines” — the prickly people who tend to infect and damage those around them. In the book, we learn that human porcupines, like their animal namesakes, reveal themselves when they are threatened; instead of quills, they puff themselves out with their words and deeds. Once they become defensive, they will use any means to scare off perceived adversaries.
Identifying porcupines has never really been an issue for me. Over the years, I have known opponents, clients and even colleagues who were always itching for a fight. Few were subtle.
As a first line of defense, “How To Hug a Porcupine” advises just walking away.
That is a strategy I’ve often employed at work and in real life. I rarely engaged with clients who rubbed me the wrong way or who questioned everything I did. I just took it. Subscribing to the theory that “the customer is always right,” I held my tongue and sometimes even apologized for the perceived wrong and promised to make it right. When they were right I, of course, apologized (sincerely) and did make it right.
Last year, after more than 35 years of practicing law, my craw was full. I decided I couldn’t take any more and no longer wanted to represent people. Had I read “How To Hug a Porcupine” before then, I might not have come to that conclusion as soon as I did.
At the very least, my craw would not have been as full, and perhaps my stomach would not have been as knotted as often.
The book also tells us to avoid porcupine strangers.
Upon reflection I did a pretty good job of that. I had enough porcupines I could not avoid at work and at home — including opponents, clients, certain colleagues, and my children from the ages of about 3 to about 17 (they have, for the record, both turned into wonderful adults.) So I was wise enough not to go looking for more porcupines. Besides, I’m pretty sure I got more free dry cleaning over the years by not screaming at the shop owner when a shirt was destroyed than I would have if I had come unglued. (For younger readers, a dry cleaner is a place to which your parents would bring fancy work clothes that they did not want to wash or iron themselves).
Of course, most law offices are full of unavoidable porcupines.
Practical Tips for Dealing With Porcupines at Work
If you can’t avoid them, “How To Hug a Porcupine” is full of practical, workable tips for dealing with prickly people. The best part of all of the hints and techniques is that they remain within the non- porcupine’s control. For example, if you can’t get away from porcupines, approach them with care — stay away until they calm down or until you are fully prepared. This certainly applies in the practice of law. When I know I will have to talk with a particularly vexing opponent, I make sure to over-prepare so I can stand my ground without running into his quills.
As a general rule, I try to be overprepared anyway, but it comes in extra handy when dealing with an opponent on fire.
Of all the hints in the book, the one most meaningful to me was the suggestion that you attack a porcupine with kindness. In the context of negotiations in my practice, I always try to build in some victories for my opponent by including items that I know I’m not necessarily entitled to or that I was willing to give up. The bonus is two-fold because, in the worst case, my opponent felt like he had won something, but I still got what I wanted. In the best case, I got something that I wasn’t necessarily counting on in addition to what I really wanted.
If I try another case as a part-time lawyer, “How To Hug a Porcupine” will be in my briefcase right next to my checklist and mini Rules of Evidence. It is full of lovely, practical hints and reminders that certainly would have helped when I was practicing full-time. I suspect it will help me as a less-than-full-time practicing lawyer as well.
How to Hug a Porcupine
Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life
Edited by June Eding with contributions by Dr. Debbie Joffe Ellis.
Published by Hatherleigh Press and distributed by Penguin Random House.
Image © iStockPhoto.com.
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