A young lawyer with a hard-to-pronounce name is bullied by an older opposing counsel. First, the older opposing counsel sends repeated communications in which he misspells the young associate’s name. Second, when first meeting in person, the older attorney observes that the young associate wears a weighty ring on her right hand. When shaking hands, he uses a significant amount of pressure so that the young woman experiences pain when her middle finger and pinkie are crushed against her ring finger. What to do? The young associate seeks counsel from the gray-haired partner at the end of the hall and from family. The gray-haired partner suggests that she address the opposing counsel as only “Billy Bob” in future communications. A family friend suggests a jiu jitsu move that allows the young woman to transfer the pressure intended for her own hand back on the opposing counsel when they next meet and exchange handshakes. She does both. The opposing counsel stops misspelling and mispronouncing her name, and he now shakes her hand respectfully.
Litigation lends itself to bullying behavior by judges, attorneys, litigants, and witnesses. Bill Eddy, in his recent book, “Our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them, How to Stop Them,” contends that “[a]dult bullies have high-conflict personalities,” concluding that such individuals share the following characteristics:
- They habitually deflect responsibility by attributing fault to others, rarely acknowledging their own role in situations.
- Their worldwide view tends to be polarized, categorizing people and situations into stark, opposing extremes, with no middle ground.
- They frequently display intense and disproportionate emotional reactions to events or circumstances.
- Their behavior often included highly destructive or unethical actions that fall far outside societal norms and typical moral boundaries.
