Are you working with a lawyer and wondering maybe it's time to part ways? Well, I can tell you as a
lawyer myself exactly what you should know, if you're thinking about moving on to a different
lawyer and by the end of this video, you're going to know exactly what those signs are.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, and I have actually been recognized as one
of the top attorneys in the country, and I've written a couple of bestselling books,
Negotiate Like You Matter and Breaking Free: A Step-by-Step Divorce Guide.
And I've helped millions of people through this YouTube channel and in my Slay programs and
all of my resources help them to negotiate their way out of drama, trauma, and chaos so that they
could step into lives of freedom, possibility, and purpose. If that's what you want, make sure you
hit subscribe and hit that notification bell. That way you'll get notified when I upload new content.
So let's talk about you're working with a lawyer, and maybe you've got a narcissist on the other
side. So you're already steeped in drama, trauma and chaos. I can tell you after having done
a survey in my Facebook group, which by the way, if you want to join,
it's Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zung. But I did a survey in there and ask them questions
about how long did your litigation take with a narcissist and how much did it cost you?
A huge percentage of people said it costs them over 100,000 dollars and more than three years. So
when an average divorce costs 15,000 dollars, and we're talking about an average with a
narcissist is over 100,000 dollars, you've got to be able to reign this person in.
I can tell you one thing for sure is that 99.9 percent of lawyers don't understand narcissism.
They haven't taken the time to really learn it the way I have and really understand the
dynamic of what motivates and incentivizes narcissists. It's not what most people think.
It's not even necessarily winning, because winning to a narcissist means that they're no longer
able to suck narcissistic supply out of you. So they continue to litigate even if they say they
want to settle, even if they say you're the one dragging it out, because giving making you squirm,
making you feel intimidated, upsetting you, dragging you through the mud, gives them
narcissistic supply. If you want to know more about what narcissistic supply is specifically,
you can definitely check out my video on that. But it's anything that feeds their ego. It's what
they feed on. It's their lifeblood, their oxygen. It's their water. It's their source of life.
They don't feel like they have any value unless they are sucking narcissistic supply
from people or situations around them. So they continue to jerk you through the
court system, and sometimes your attorney is part of that whole manipulation and scheme.
Not willingly, certainly unwittingly most of the time. But they don't realize that they're just
being led by the nose by this master manipulator. So one of the things you definitely want to
make sure that you have with your lawyer is that they will have your back. That they're
going to be willing to learn about narcissism. That they're going to be willing to understand
what drives them, what motivates them. In my Slay program I have all kinds of resources
that you can show to your lawyer and help your lawyer to understand what it is that
you're dealing with and who it is that they are going to be dealing with
so that they don't make mistakes in the litigation. So you want a lawyer who's going
to have your back, and you want a lawyer who's going to be willing to learn about narcissism,
who's going to be willing to understand what they're dealing with and act accordingly. So
that's the first thing, if this lawyer doesn't have your back, then it's time to go.
So the next thing that you are going to be looking for is if your lawyer is accessible
or writes you back or communicates with you. Is the lawyer communicating with you? Because if
you can't get in touch with your lawyer for days and days on end, then this is definitely not the
lawyer for you, especially when you're dealing with a high stakes, high conflict personality.
I know when I was practicing on a full-on basis, what I would do, especially
because I was extremely, extremely busy, I would carry more than 50 cases at a time at my height,
all high net worth, high complex, very highly litigated cases. I had a system which was
my paralegal was to be copied on every single email, and if I were in court or in mediation or
in a place where I wasn't going to be available, my paralegal would write to them right away and
say, "She's in court. She's not available today. Let's set up a call for Wednesday
at 10:00 AM," or something like that. Or I would come up with a plan with my
clients. Some of the clients would send me 10 or 12 emails a day, sometimes even 50 emails a day.
If that was the case, I would come up with a plan with those clients, like, okay, you're going to
keep all of your stuff that you want to talk to me about. Keep a notebook and we're going to talk
every Friday at 4:00 PM or even every day at 4:00 PM or whatever. We would set a time so that they
would know, okay, at that time I'm going to be able to talk to her and at that time I'm going
to be able to ask her what I need to. So coming up with a plan like that right from the beginning
where you establish how am I going to be able to communicate with you? What's the best thing?
But if you have a lawyer that is not willing to do that and they don't return calls for days on end,
and now it's two weeks later and you still haven't heard from them, that is definitely a sign that
you want to get rid of that lawyer. And if you think that a lawyer should definitely have your
back, give me an amen in the comments. Okay. So the next thing that you can look for,
a sign as to whether or not you should fire this lawyer, is whether or not they're fighting for
you. Are they fighting for you? Are they out there? Do you feel like they're an advocate?
Do you feel like they're up in front of this thing, or they hanging back? Are they
not sure about whether or not to move forward? Are they letting things go and not really listening to
the things that you're saying. Especially when you're dealing with a narcissist, you cannot
have that kind of lawyer. You need somebody who's strong, who's going to advocate for you.
The next thing is whether or not their billing practices are good. You should
be receiving a bill from them every single month, and it should be correct.
It should have very specific time entries. And if you're not receiving that on a regular basis,
then that's definitely going to be a problem. I know some lawyers who are so disorganized that
they will only send out bills, I don't know, every six months or nine months. It's not
on a regular basis and their time entries are very, very general, working on client's case
or something like that but not saying exactly what it is that they're doing. That's really,
really not the greatest. So I definitely would say that is a sign that you want to
get rid of that particular lawyer. So those are just some signs
that you should probably part ways with your lawyer in my Slay Your Negotiation
course I do have ways that you can find a lawyer that understands narcissism
in your particular area. You can learn more about that as slayyournegotiation.com
if want to know about that. If you are getting ready to
negotiate with a narcissist, make sure to grab my free Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet
at winmynegotiation.com. If you are negotiating with a narcissist and you want more support,
join me in my free private Facebook group, Narcissists Negotiators with Rebecca Zung.
If you like this video, give it a like, give it a share, drop me that comment, lawyers
need to be good. Amen. And make sure that you subscribe and hit the notification bell so that
you can get notified when I upload new videos. Thanks so much for joining me today. Remember,
today is a great day to start negotiating your best life. I'll see you in the next video.