Do you want to know if your lawyer happens to be a narcissist, or maybe it might be the
other person's lawyer? That's a narcissist. If you want to know the answer to whether
or not that lawyer is a narcissist check out this video and you'll find out the answer.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung. And I have been recognized as one of the top 1% of attorneys in the country,
and I've written a couple of bestselling books, Negotiate Like YOU M.A.T.T.E.R. and Breaking
Free: A Step‑By‑Step Divorce Guide. And what I do is I share my skills, the information
that I've gained on how to become a master negotiator, and also my knowledge of narcissism.
And I've combined them to help you be able to negotiate with narcissists in a way that
you'll actually finally start to see movement. Actually finally, start to get somewhere without
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or years and years and years. And if that
sounds good to you, then make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit that notification
bell. And that way you'll be right on top of all the best information. So, let's talk
about narcissists and lawyers. So, lawyers can be narcissist just like anybody else can
be a narcissist. And lawyers can be narcissist for other narcissists.
And basically, they say one in 10 people are narcissists on the planet. And I tend to think
that it's actually a little bit more than that, but basically, anybody can be a narcissist.
It's not just that person that you happen to be married to, or in a business relationship
with, or dealing with in your family, or wherever it is that you're dealing with that narcissist.
So, my dad used to have this expression that the percentage of idiots per population is
the same wherever you go. And I always thought that was really funny because it's so true.
And so obviously narcissists are attracted to positions where they will get a lot of
respect and have a lot of people adoring them and adulating them and all the things that
narcissists like. So, how do you know if the one that you're
teamed up with happens to be a narcissist? I mean, narcissists tend to want to be in
these positions and they look good. They tend to be charismatic. They start off with love
bombing you just the same as any narcissist does. So in the consultation, they might be
love bombing you. They might be saying things to you like, "Oh my goodness you're ..." Remember
narcissists are very, very good at reading people. And if you want to know more about
why narcissists are so good at reading people, make sure you check out my video on why narcissists
are so good at reading people. But remember that they are, they're experts at reading
people. So, you know, during the initial consultation,
you might find them saying all the right things. They're promising you all of these amazing
outcomes, they're looking at you and they're saying, "Yes, I can get this for you, and
yes, I can't believe you had to deal with that." And all of it sounds absolutely perfect
in the initial consultation. I mean, you can contrast that with, how I always have done
my initial consultations, which is, I'll tell you straight up, this is the law, we're going
to go through. I mean, the way I do my initial consultations is you're going to tell me everything
that's going on, and how you ended up sitting in a chair in my office, or on Zoom, or talking
to me in the first place. And then I go through, I tell you, I'm going to ask you a bunch of
questions and get some information from you. And then I tell you that I'm going to give
you a short crash course in the law. And I'm going to apply the law to your particular
situation and tell you kind of basically what I think your best and worst-case scenarios
are just on a very 50,000-foot level. And kind of give you an idea of where you might
stand. And I certainly won't sugar coat things. And you know, if you are a person who makes
$500,000 a year, your spouse makes zero and you've been married for 25 years. You're probably
looking at an alimony claim and I'm certainly not going to sit there and tell you whatever
it is that you want to hear. But sometimes in the initial consultation, a lawyer might
tell you whatever it is that you want to hear in order to suck you into their web, into
their lair. So, be aware if you're hearing things that might sound a little too good
to be true, where it all seems so perfect, then you might be being loved bombed, and
you might be being sucked into a situation that in the end, you're not going to be so
happy with. So, the next thing that is going to happen
is that they start to devalue you. So, now they've said that all of these things are
going to be happening. And the next thing you know is they're hard to reach or they
don't respond, or they tell you certain things that didn't end up to be true, or they didn't
tell you things that you should have known. They didn't explain things properly to you.
And maybe they start making it your fault. Maybe they start saying things to you like,
"You were the one who created that problem." Or, "I told you from the beginning." Like,
maybe they're starting to gaslight you. Maybe they're starting to say, "I told you that,
I told you that that could never happen." And you're like, "I know that conversation
never took place." Or, maybe their integrity is off.
And maybe they're starting to bill you for hours that they didn't, not necessarily do
the work for. But you know, more importantly, I want you to look for red flags like, that
they were, telling you things, promising you things, future faking, Oh, in the future,
this is going to happen, and here's how it's going to go. And then it never really comes
to fruition, gaslighting you by saying, things are going to happen, and they don't. Devaluing
you by minimizing the things that you're saying. Maybe you're telling them that something happened,
maybe you're telling them that something is true and they don't believe you. You don't
feel supported by them. I mean none of that is going to be good. And if this sounds familiar
to you and this sounds really like, ah, something that you've dealt with, I want you to write,
I need a good lawyer in the comments. Okay. So when you're dealing with your lawyer,
you should feel like they're communicating with you. You should feel like these are the
things that if they're important to you, that you're being heard. So, and I have another
video actually on signs. It's time to fire your lawyer. And you might want to check that
out too. This is a little bit of a separate thing, but obviously, if your lawyer is a
narcissist, it might be a time to fire that lawyer. So, but if you're feeling devalued,
if you're feeling gaslighted, or gas lit, I don't know if it's that, what the word is.
But if you're feeling like you're not being heard, if they're not responding to you. If
they're future faking you, or they're projecting, they're not taking responsibility for their
actions. They are saying it was somebody else's fault
that something didn't get done. Maybe they miss a deadline or something. And you're like,
"Hey, what the hell?" And they're blaming it on other people. I know for me like I've
had times where my staff has missed deadlines on filing things on time. And I've had to
straight up say to the client, that is something that happened. My paralegal didn't file it
on time, but she's under my reign. And so it's my responsibility. And I've had to like
give credit on the bill to the client for it, and eat that, which really didn't make
me happy. Because now I'm not so happy with this paralegal. Right. But that's what I had
to do in order to let the client know that I'm taking responsibility and that they matter
to me. And because I valued them as a client, we were going to take steps to make amends.
Hey, lawyers are people too. Obviously not everybody is perfect. There's going to be
times that things happen, that you don't like or whatever. And certainly lawyers cannot
guarantee any outcomes. So anytime you have a lawyer, who's guaranteeing you an outcome,
definitely run the other direction. Because you know, we as lawyers are mortal human beings
and we can only do the best that we can. And sometimes things don't always go the way that
we want them to, or the way we think they should or the way it seems like they should.
So, but just make sure that you feel like they're on your side, they're doing the things
that they're supposed to do. And you know, those little like, red flags that pop up,
the little hairs on the back of your neck are like, "Hmm, you feel it in your gut, right?"
It's the same thing that you feel with any narcissist, when you're in a situation like
that, that you feel those red flags, you know that they're there, you feel it in your gut.
And if that's what's happening for you, then it might be time for you to move on and find
a different lawyer because that lawyer is never going to have your best interest at
heart. Narcissists are narcissists. So, they're only going to have their own interests at
heart, their own situation, not anything about you. And so you don't want that to happen
to you. So you know, if you're paying all this money to a person, you need to have somebody
who's going to be on your side, and part of the overall strategy that you are going to
be creating, hopefully through my S.L.A.Y. program, or just even through watching my
videos and taking the tips that I'm giving you here.
So, if you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist, or with anybody, make sure
to grab my free, crush my negotiation prep worksheet at winmynegotiation.com and also
come join me in my free private Facebook group for more support at Narcissist Negotiators
with Rebecca Zung. And if you liked this video, like it, share it, drop me a comment and make
sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell. I'm so glad that you stopped by today.
Never lose heart, never give up, never give in. And remember that today is a great day
to start negotiating your best life. And I will see you in the next video.