Lawyers Anonymously Confessed The Clients They Regret Representing, And It's Actually Disturbing
Warning: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse, drug abuse, and murder.
We recently asked lawyers of the BuzzFeed Community to anonymously reveal the awful, evil, and/or guilty clients they regret representing. Here are the shocking results:
1."My client killed her husband, the mistress, and the dog all because she was literally bored. She approved the affair. She would even watch them sometimes. But she got bored one day and shot them both, then poisoned the dog. I got her off on an insanity plea, but the look in her eyes was cold, calculated, and she was VERY proud of herself."
—66, Texas
2."I had to represent an alleged sexual harasser who worked for my client in a civil suit brought by the victim. It didn't take long for me to realize that 'alleged' in that sentence should be replaced with 'disgustingly guilty.' He constantly made comments about my body or how good I looked. His lawyer! Defending him against sexual harassment!"
"And he freely admitted to the allegations (some of which included sexual battery), saying they were 'no big deal.' I hated every bone in his body."
—44, California
3."I had a case where I was representing a man who was denied his wife's life insurance money due to the circumstances of her death. Every time I spoke with him, I just had this gut feeling that he killed his wife. I ran background checks and did a pretty deep dive into his personal history. Turns out, he had a previous wife who died under the exact same circumstances 10 years prior, and he had several domestic violence charges over the years."
"I ended up getting him the money from his wife's policy. I couldn't prove anything, and this wasn't a criminal case, so it wasn't my job to delve into any of that, especially because he was my client. I looked him up recently, and he's dead. POS."
—29, Pennsylvania
4."I was a corporate lawyer working in big law, specializing in financing/lending to major corporations. I helped this large entity through a huge round of financing. It was the worst transaction of my career — the client was incompetent and impulsive. They couldn’t get their act together, and it forced me to work all throughout Christmas and New Year's. I literally had to cab to their family home on Christmas Day to get them to sign paperwork."
"The deal closed, and I tried to move on with my life. A few weeks later, the CEO of the company was arrested for sex trafficking minors. I’ve never regretted a client more."
—30, Canada
5."I represented a client in a divorce. She regularly told me how abusive and horrible her ex was, and she was right. I had videos of of him berating their young daughter and screaming horrible things at her, and photos of the bruises he left on their teenage son when he brutally beat him with a belt (which he did frequently). He was living with an equally horrible woman who hated the kids, so my client (who had her own limitations, but was by far the better parent) was fighting for primary custody. I litigated that case for four years, and finally, reached a settlement that would give my client primary custody. When I drafted everything up and sent it to her to review, she told me abruptly that she'd gotten a new boyfriend who didn't want kids, so she was going to move out of state with him and leave the kids with her ex — and that's exactly what she did."
"Their son moved out of the dad's house the minute he turned 18 and went no contact with both parents. I was completely disgusted with the mom for leaving them; it was awful. Last I heard, the daughter was high school age and had moved in with a relative — I think her aunt. It absolutely broke my heart that my client left them there since I had reviewed all the evidence of how awful he was while preparing for the custody trial, so I knew how he treated those kids. I convinced my client to ask for as much visitation as possible — full summers, school breaks, etc. to at least give those poor kids a break, but I later found out she never exercised it because she was busy traveling with her boyfriend in the summer. I have no idea what happened. She fought for custody for four years and then abruptly just said forget it as soon as she started dating the new guy. As a mom myself, I couldn't fathom it. She married that new guy, it went south quickly, and she called me to do her second divorce. As you can imagine, it was a hell no from me."
6."I’m a criminal defense attorney, and I hate pretty much all of my clients. They’re all horrible, entitled, and annoying. I’ve defended the worst of the worst. Those who’ve committed the most awful crimes you can think of. But I don’t regret representing any of them. I pretty much just have no soul at this point."
"Also, I’m a public defender, so I don’t even make that much money, and I can’t choose my clients."
7."I represented a criminal defendant charged with simple domestic violence against his girlfriend. The guy was my age, easy-going attitude, and we probably would have hung out together had we met in high school. He calmly explained to me that his girlfriend was blowing a simple argument out of proportion and that this was all a big misunderstanding. No, he never touched her. No, he never choked her, as it said in the charging documents. No, he never threatened to kill her in her sleep. She was off her medication and filed the charges as a way of getting back at him for not doing the dishes. I decided, right after meeting with him, that I was going to fight like hell to get the trumped-up charges dropped."
"I filed motion after motion and went to every court hearing with the determination I never had before in a case. I saw a lot of myself in the client and wanted to see proper justice was served. I went far above and beyond for this case. I thought about it at night and on weekends. I crafted motions while shampooing my hair and dictated arguments while sitting in traffic. On the day of trial, the prosecutor lays a stack of 30 pages of printed text messages between my client and the victim where my client says, 'I am going to f-ing kill you if you testify' and 'things are going to get a whole lot worse than that night (the night at issue) if I go to jail.' I approached my client with the stack of text messages, and all he did was grin a sheepish 'guess you caught me' grin and said nothing. I immediately realized that he had been lying to me the whole time and that he was a master manipulator. It's been hard for me to trust people ever since that case. I only regret staying awake at night planning/preparing how I was going to ensure justice was served."
—36, Michigan
8."When I was in law school, I worked in the public defender's office as a law clerk representing clients in the bail court. One particular client told me that he has mistakenly been charged with felony-level domestic assault. (In Minnesota, you can be charged with a felony domestic assault when you have two prior domestic assault convictions). Sure enough, he only had one prior domestic assault conviction, and the prosecution had charged him using one domestic assault conviction and one 'regular' assault conviction. After informing the court of the charging error, the judge set the bail low enough for him to be released. However, he had a long history of 'regular' assault felony convictions, and even though I'd done the right thing for the client, I couldn't help but feel like I was just sending him back home to assault his spouse again."
"I currently work in business law because I was too weak-minded and weak-hearted to take on the job the public defenders do. They are the real heroes and should be paid more!!!"
—40, Minnesota
9.Criminal defense attorney here, so where do I begin?!? It was a juvenile case. A prospective teenage client and his mom are in my office looking to hire counsel. He says he got caught with a joint in his car when he was pulled over for speeding. I spend the next hour or so walking him and his nervous mom through the juvenile process and how for a simple case involving a little marijuana joint, ultimately the system was actually going to go really easy on him. Relieved, he and his mom step out of my office, and while his mom is making arrangements with my paralegal to sign my contract and hire me, the child pops his head back into my office to say, 'I just have to tell you — it wasn't a joint. It was a bag of cocaine. A big one. Oh, and can you not tell my mom it was anything other than a joint?'"
"Needless to say, 99% of what I just told the mom about how the case would likely play out was immediately worthless; the system was surely going to treat him much more harshly for a big bag of cocaine versus a single joint...but I couldn't tell the mom the truth without my client's permission. Lesson: As an attorney, you WILL get lied to your face, get used to it!"
—53, Texas
10."I was representing a duty client at the police station who had been arrested for having indecent images of children. It was a fairly straightforward offense, and he admitted to having a number of pictures straight away, although he didn't seem to understand the impact on the victims (I guess that's usual in these types of cases), who were not children he knew and seemed to be in another country. The part that really got to me was the officer was asking him about two particular photos, which were clearly of the same child but about five years apart, she had been being abused all this time."
"He said quite flippantly that the picture of when she was younger was 'rare' and a 'collector's item,' like he was trading Pokémon/baseball cards. It was that he couldn't see these poor children as being human or having any worth that really made me question what I was doing that day."
—36, UK
11."I worked with a client who was a pathological liar and killer. This was a big case and more than one attorney represented her. I believe that every person deserves representation in court. I believe in due process and the law. It’s something that matters a lot to me, but I was not prepared for the death threats or the hate I would get for representing her. I was just doing my job. I didn’t choose her. I didn’t want this case. It ruined my public image and the way people see me. I’ve gotten letters to my house calling me a snake, greedy, or sicko. The threats didn’t stop after the case. It didn’t help to have a client who was dishonest, even to her attorney. There was no winning this case. It was a disaster, and I didn’t sleep for the majority of it. She was found guilty. What she did was truly horrible, and I'm glad justice has been served."
"I was just doing my job and as an attorney — you don’t always like the client. When the court appoints you to represent someone, it doesn't mean that you believe them or want them to go free. The amount of people who think I am best friends with her is absurd. Asking how can I sit beside her and defend her. How can I be so stupid to believe these outlandish lies? How can I want her to go free? I don’t. I’m doing my job. Doing my job cost me my reputation as a good person. Everyone thinks I’m on the team of a child killer and like them and want to help them when that was never the case. Please don’t judge us. Sometimes the court appoints you, and you do the job the best you can. It doesn’t mean you don’t want justice or that you want an evil person to be free. I couldn’t stand this client, and she belittled every witness as they testified. Smirking and whispering to us, and I get home to see 'child killer laughs and jokes with her attorney as gruesome details and photos of 11-year-old shown.' I told her to stop talking and sit still. I was happy with the verdict, and I believe the jury made the right choice. I still have to look over my shoulder and receive threats daily. It will never end for me."
—50, Colorado
12."I represented the friend of a former client who was accused of raping a woman related to a prosecutor. He had an alibi cop who claimed that he was on the other side of town at the time. I won. Two years later, he was charged with beating a woman in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I felt sick."
—80, Michigan
13."As a divorce/custody attorney, I've represented many clients whom I viewed to be reprehensible. Every client has their story, and attorneys typically don't find out their client is the problem until they've been in the case for a while. My biggest regret to date is a client I represented in a child custody matter. He gave me the ick (to the extent I didn't want to be alone with him), but my boss took the case and assigned it to me. He claimed his ex-wife had a history of calling child services against him whenever they weren't getting along. He supported his claim with several unfounded reports against him. We were successful at trial, and he was granted significant unsupervised time with their pre-teen son. A few months later, he informs me there are pending rape and sexual assault allegations made against him with child services in his position as an in-patient mental health professional."
"(He worked at a now-shut down facility for youth with legal issues, typically in the foster system). He requested I represent him at the child services proceedings, and my former boss consented. As he denied the allegations, I could tell he was lying and likely did what he was accused of and more. My former boss wouldn't allow me to fire him, telling me that I'm 'paid to take the cases assigned to [me].' So, I sent him for a polygraph to see how he'd do before the police (who were now involved) did one — he failed so badly that the polygrapher called me to tell me to not let him anywhere near the police polygraph. I had to threaten to quit before my former boss allowed me to fire him. Due to a lack of evidence and the victim (now an adult) not being 'credible' due to his criminal history, no charges were filed. I regret going to the mat to get him unsupervised time with his son, as those allegations against him regarding his son were likely true, even if unfounded by child services. I gave my file with all of my notes (oops) to his next attorney, so they'd know who they were dealing with. As I now work for the courts, I've checked on the custody case, and he has no contact with his son."
—32, Pennsylvania
14."Not me, but I grew up in a family of lawyers (both my parents, my uncle, and now my oldest brother). My dad does white-collar criminal defense. Years ago (in the '90s maybe), my dad and his firm had the pleasure of representing or dealing with Donald Trump. He said Trump greeted him and his coworkers in a robe and was just a general ick. My dad really hated Trump. However, he had dealt with Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, many times before and said she was great."
"He never liked Trump but kept hoping that maybe his sister would be a good influence."
—30, New York
15."I represented a jailhouse lawyer who wrote his way out of prison. He was accused of robbing a gas station. I won his case by researching similar cases in the area and found one where the perpetrator matched the description of my client. I argued mistaken identity and won. I then got him a job as a paralegal in a legal services office. He stole from them."
—80, Michigan
16."I represented a woman in a divorce case. She had a list of unreasonable demands that never would have been given to her by a judge or jury. She was a truly horrible and extremely difficult person to deal with. I got the husband to agree to literally everything on her list; the only thing he wanted in return was a hard date on which she would move out of their house (it was being foreclosed on). She wouldn’t give a move-out date, not even a range. So, he decided to play hardball with her. She was abusive to myself and my staff, and was so horrible I had to withdraw from her case."
"I looked up the final decree of divorce after some time and saw that she only got the absolute bare minimum. I was so glad, she was a horrible person, and I was overjoyed that she got what she deserved, which was almost nothing."
—37, Texas
17."I'm a lawyer, and just, like, 90% of clients, man... We ask very detailed, specific questions for a reason, because we need to convince other lawyers of your and our case, and it always comes down to the details, especially those that we need to prove. What happened with who, when, where, and what exactly did they say. So, when we ask you, like, five, detailed, numbered questions, please don't just answer with like a vague answer to two of them. We're trying to help you."
"Same goes for when we ask for proof of stuff. We're not just being a-holes (I hate it, too), we're trying to be able to tell and SHOW the other lawyer, that we've got XYZ. Oftentimes, we don't get paid unless you do, so PLEASE help us. It's a very adversarial field, and no one does anything unless they have to, hence the need for evidence. I guess you could say we just write passive-aggressive emails with thinly veiled threats all day long. And I was good at my job."
And finally..
18."The county bar association where I practiced had a program of low-cost initial conferences for new clients. At the time, the cost was $30, $15 of which went back to the bar. A gentleman made an appointment with me to discuss his proposed divorce. When the time came for the appointment, his mother had come, too. I went through the explanation that anything he said would not be confidential if his mother was present, but he didn't care. He wanted her to see and hear what I had to say. Only that's not the way it worked out. He began talking immediately and did not want me to say anything. He had numerous scatological complaints about his wife."
"He told me many intimate details about her that were not relevant, and most of his complaints were sexually explicit. North Carolina is a no-fault divorce state in most circumstances, I didn't need to hear what he felt was so grievous, and it was really awkward in front of his mother. I finally cut him off and told him that I would not be able to represent him. After he left, it occurred to me that he just wanted an excuse to make sexual statements in front of his mother and to a woman lawyer."
—80, North Carolina
Fellow lawyers, if you'd like to anonymously share your experience with a client you regret representing, you can feel free to use this Google form.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
