representing and examining a narcissistic client - help from other lawyers?

[rookie]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but I don't know where else to discuss this problem since my supervisor is away for another week - we will discuss this when he returns, but in the meantime I need answers!

I'm a law student working at the legal aid clinic at my law school and I represent clients charged with criminal offences that do not carry jail time. Here are the details on this particular client:

-charged with numerous regulatory offences related to his profession which carry heavy fines
- was a self-represented litigant after being unable to pay his previous, highly-regarded lawyer at a top defence firm
-the case is now being managed by a case management judge because it has taken unreasonably long to be resolved and there is a pre-trial conference next week at which I will be expected to estimate the length of the trial based on the number of witnesses, issues etc.


I have always felt ill at ease and vaguely uncomfortable around this person without knowing why, as have others. The first time he came in for a consultation, the receptionist said he was namedropping all the top lawyers he knew and she came in ahead of him to warn me not to be intimidated. He also LOVES to talk. My meetings and consultations with him are 4 times as long as with any of my other clients because all of his answers to questions are speeches about how the simple thing I asked about can't be answered without going back to this string of events from 1989.... in which he always either does something extraordinary or is wrongly treated by someone else or proves someone else to be a liar/incompetent, but never admits to any wrongdoing or blame on his part. He gets extremely angry if I try to interrupt and ask him to just answer the relevant part of the question pertaining to these charges. He also apparently loves litigation - he has a human rights complaint on behalf of his sister, which to me sounds without merit, and was ruled to be without merit, but which he is still fighting even though his sister wants to drop it because she is too dependent/needy/vulnerable, and the judge didn't know the law, according to him. I searched online and found he has brought several civil suits for very small slights or losses, and lost them all. He recently told me that he attended an event held for a minority group to which he does not belong, and insisted on sharing his story with them which was basically just how sympathetic and non-racist he is, while others were talking of their suffering and problems, and he told me he was proud of being the only non-minority there and he is so much more progressive than others.

Another thing I find strange is that he really over-shares information. For instance, we appeared before a judge to extend the timeline on the case. He told me after that he knows the judge but didn't know if the judge remembered him. I asled "oh, how do you know him", expecting a 1- or 2- sentence answer, and in the course of his answer, he shared sexual information about his partner and intimate details of the relationship which made me extremely uncomfortable - when I point-blank said I did not need to hear that and would rather not discuss it, he insisted it was part of the story and got annoyed that I interrupted him, when in fact the only purpose I could see for that information was to make him look sexually superior and his partner extremely needy and dependent on him. He's also shared how he doesn't get along with any family members except one sister and can't work with other people and numerous other personal things completely irrelevant to the case. And he constantly trashes his previous lawyer (who he could not afford) and is in the process of suing them for incompetence.

Now, the legal problem. He has a very complicated and technical-sounding explanation for his regulatory offences, which sounded initially plausible to both myself and my supervisor. It is so complicated that it was determined that I would need expert witnesses - it is certainly far outside of my sphere of knowledge - so I was investigating retaining an expert. So far I have spoken to 5 of them and they all completely debunked the defence - it seems that while it is superficially compelling to a point, it doesn't conform to established evidence or practice and is based on too many hypotheticals. When I shared this with my client, he just insisted that I don't understand the explanation and didn't describe it to them correctly. I told him what I had told them (which I just copied verbatim from one of his many letters which I will discuss in a minute) and he didn't say anything else. The case conference judge is expecting a witness list from me next week and he told me no problem, he's got tons of people who can vouch for him, but he refuses to give me their names and insists that he must speak to them first.

The other issue is that he wants to testify, and at first I was OK with this because a lot of the information he wants in can only come from him. But now I am not so sure it's a good idea. He has a huge file because from the beginning, and increasingly so since he was self-represented, he had a habit of writing long, long letters telling his story. He wrote them to high-level government officials, just explaining himself to them. He wrote them to the prosecution and prosecution witnesses. And of course in these letters, he started out trying to defend himself, but made a number of damaging admissions and contradictory statements, and even gave himself a motive for the offence. When I pointed this out to him, he was genuinely shocked and said he thought it was the opposite - a compelling reason why he couldn't have committed it. The other disturbing thing is that this offence caused a lot of suffering. Most of my clients whose actions have, however inadvertently, caused pain, acknowledge that on some level and show some kind of remorse, guilt or regret - "I'm sorry I broke his nose - he was asking for it, but I didn't mean for that to happen" - but with him, it's all about his losses, his reputation, his business, how he has suffered - nothing even about his partner's suffering let alone those who were hurt, because according to him, that's a normal risk and people are too sensitive for being concerned about it. However, he was furious at me because I refused to accuse the judge of bias for an off-handed remark about him. I received a 3-page letter from him demanding the right to tell his story to the judge - who is only there regarding timelines and not the merits of the case. When I told him this, he erupted in a rage, swearing and yelling about how badly the accused is treated by the system (which I agree is true, but not so much in that context.)

Needless to say, between the rambling answers, the damaging admissions and the lack of remorse, I think he'd be a disaster on the stand and I don't know if I have the skills to contain him adequately. The prosecution offered a very good deal with much less fines than if he is found guilty but he insists on going to trial because he wants everyone to know his story and protect his reputation, and he insists on taking the stand. Since it looks as if I won't have expert witnesses, it seems to me that the better course is to tell the judge I am not calling evidence and try to do as good a job as I can on cross-examination (there are some inconsistencies and evidence of animus - probably with good reason since my client is such a tool, but still) and leave it there. If he testifies, even if I do succeed in controlling him on direct, which is doubtful, he will be destroyed on cross. On reading up on his personality traits, he appears to have some strong narcissistic traits (I know, I am playing armchair pscyhologist and this is not an official diagnosis, but I am desperate) and if the other side has figured this out, they'll have no problem discrediting him.

It is his right to testify so if I cannot talk him out of it and he does anyway, what do I do? Besides the fact that if he loses I can expect him to try to destroy or hurt me in some way, are there ways that I can control him on the stand? Also, to prevent the contents of his letters coming out on cross, is there an argument that they are not admissible if they were written without the advice of a lawyer? My supervisor said that if he insists on going to trial and testifying, I should have him sign a waiver that this is against legal advice, but besides that, I would like to at least limit the damage.

Has anyone here represented a narcissist before? Any tips?

I apologize for the length of this. Perhaps my client is rubbing off on me....


PS... I should mention that there are a number of constitutional arguments that could be good, depending on the judge and my performance, so IF those work, there's no problem - but he doesn't want to "win on a technicality" - he really wants it to be on the strength of his explanation and he really wants everyone to know he was right.

And one more thing - I'm concerned about my negative feelings for this client. For most of my other clients, I tend to have the opposite problem - overly empathizing and identitfying with them and feeling they got a raw deal. How do you represent someone you really don't like?