Practitioners in both the legal and medical world have discovered that there is an optimal and suboptimal way to talk to senior clients. These insights into effective communication are especially helpful for lawyers dealing with clients in stressful situations who need to solicit cooperation without frightening or overly worrying their clients. Senior communication skills are vital to anyone who deals with aging clients in their legal practice, including corporate, estate planning and litigation.
We often struggle to explain the befuddling behavior of our elderly clients. Why is my 91-year-old client so preoccupied with what will happen to his cherished philosophy book collection upon his passing? Why did our client Mabel grill my students about their hometowns and undergraduate alma maters before agreeing to our clinic's free legal services, taking copious notes of every response they gave? Why do some of our senior clients dwell on stories about their past that hardly seem relevant to their need for durable power of attorneys for finances or health care?
