In my first year of having my firm, I was sending emails at 11 p.m. apologizing for not having sent an earlier email.
I did not know at the time that I was training my clients to expect that. I did not know that the lawyers who last in this profession are not the ones who answer the fastest. They are the ones who set the expectations right at the beginning.
On September 17, 2026, I sat in a CARL webinar on client management with three senior immigration lawyers: Ali Esnaashari (Toronto), Ruth Williams (Alberta), and Patil Tutunjian (Montreal). Three different practice models. Three different provinces. Same three lessons, over and over.
I want to share what I heard, filtered through what I have learned the hard way in my own practice. Three lessons. If you are a young lawyer reading this, I hope you save yourself the two or three years it took me to learn each one.
LESSON ONE: SET EXPECTATIONS BEFORE YOU SIGN THE RETAINER
Every difficult client I have had became difficult because I did not set expectations clearly at intake.
The panel kept coming back to the same idea. Front-load your friction. Do not wait until you have a problem client to introduce your communication rules. Introduce them on your intake form, in your engagement letter, before you have accepted any money.
Tell your client that processing times at IRCC are what they are. Explain that months of silence are normal, not evidence that you have stopped working the file.
Tell them your communication windows. I now write into every retainer: I respond to emails within two business days. I do not respond to weekend or evening messages except in emergencies like removal hearing. I lost sleep for two years before I wrote that sentence.
Tell them the fee structure. And when a client tells you they will pay after you win, hear that for what it is. I used to believe them. I won their files. They disappeared.
I once agreed to a payment plan for a client whose income exceeded the Legal Aid Ontario threshold but who told me she could not afford full fees. I won her Refugee Appeal Division case. She disappeared without paying a single instalment. I was young enough to be shocked. I am not shocked anymore: pro bono, LAO, or private retainer. Take a retainer. Take a real one. If they cannot pay a retainer, they cannot pay you at all.
The panel said something I keep coming back to. Bad news in writing is your armour. Every unfavourable assessment, every difficult risk, every payment expectation, follow up with an email that repeats the same thing. Your future self, defending against a complaint or a small claims proceeding, will thank you.
LESSON TWO: THE ANXIOUS CLIENT NEEDS STRUCTURE, NOT REASSURANCE
I used to think an anxious client needed more of me. More availability, more emails, more calls, more reassurance. That was wrong.
An anxious client needs less of me, delivered in a more predictable structure.
The panel described the same technique. When a client is anxious, pick up the phone instead of responding to their long emotional email. Acknowledge what they are feeling in one or two sentences. Give them the substantive answer in another two or three. End the call. Then follow up with a short written summary.
Set a next-contact date. Not "we will keep in touch." A specific date. A person with an appointment on their calendar is calmer than a person waiting indefinitely.
I have made this mistake in the other direction more than once. Early in my practice I would work on files until 1 or 2 a.m. trying to save a case. Then I would send the bill. My client would tell me they never asked me to work through the night. They were right. I had chosen that. And they had never seen the choice as anything but my own.
Structure protects the client. It also protects you.
Know when to refer out. Some of your clients are carrying trauma that you are not equipped to hold. Trauma-informed practice does not mean becoming their therapist. It means recognizing when your client needs a settlement worker or a psychologist, and having those referrals ready before you need them.
The other side of this is harder. Some clients will not respect your limits no matter how kindly you set them. You can end the retainer. You should end the retainer. If a client is berating you, ignoring your written instructions, or contacting you after hours after multiple warnings, you may withdraw. Do it in writing. Do it early. Do not carry a poisonous file for a fee.
LESSON THREE: THE SKEPTICAL CLIENT IS NOT TESTING YOU
When I opened my practice, I looked young. I was the first racialized woman lawyer to own a firm in Kingston. My story of being a refugee was published in the Toronto Star. Many of my clients, especially those who brought a relative to the consultation, quietly assumed I didn't know what I was doing.
I used to prove myself. I would stack up my degrees, my calls, my recent cases, trying to prove I belonged.
That never worked.
Now I know what worked was calm. What worked was letting the client's cousin propose the AI-generated strategy that would obviously fail, then asking, "If we tried that and the application was refused, what would you want to happen next?" Most of the time, the client stopped fighting me and started listening.
If the client insists on an approach against your advice, get written instructions from them. Not a text. Written email. This is the panel's standard advice for the same reason it was mine before the panel. Written instructions transfer the risk of a bad outcome back to the person choosing it. Most clients, faced with signing that they are proceeding against counsel's advice, decide to accept counsel's advice.
If a client crosses from skepticism into disrespect, do not tolerate it. End the file. Refund the unused retainer. There are enough clients out there who will treat you like a professional. You do not owe your dignity to anyone who does not.
A CLOSER
I want to tell you about the file I still carry with me.
A father facing removal. I worked the file day and night on a low bono rate, even lower than the LAO rate. I talked to about ten senior lawyers in this area, and they are the best of the best. All of them told me the case was dead. I lost. He was removed with his child. The unpaid balance on the file was significant, but that is not what still hurts. What still hurts is what he said to me at the last meeting. He asked why I got to stay in Canada with my children, and he did not get to stay in Canada with his.
I did not answer him.
I have thought about that call more times than I can count. I think about it when I am setting a boundary. I think about it when I am terminating a file. I think about it when a client tries to make me carry a weight that is not mine.
You cannot save every client. You will lose cases, especially when the case was already so damaged before it was handed to you. You will lose sleep. You will lose relationships that felt real at the start.
You cannot let a losing client make your identity the reason you failed them. You cannot let anyone weaponize what it took you a lifetime to build.
Client management is not a soft skill you pick up on the side. It is the professional skill that determines whether your practice grows or your practice breaks you.
Learn it earlier than I did.
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Source: Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Building Your Own Refugee and Immigration Practice, Part 3 - Client Management. Panelist: Ali Esnaashari, Ruth Williams, and Patil Tutunjian. September 17, 2026.
Dr. Ningjing (Natalie) Zhang | Founder, BridgePoint Law Professional Corporation | Offices in: Kingston, Toronto, Shanghai
Email: natalie@bridgepointlaw.ca | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nzhang-ont613 | Firm: https://bridgepointlaw.ca/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Ningjing (Natalie) Zhang is the founder of BridgePoint Law Professional Corporation, a boutique cross-border immigration law firm with offices in Kingston, Toronto, and Shanghai. She serves immigrant families and business owners with clients in the United States, China, India, Australia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and beyond.
Natalie is Vice Chair of the OBA's Sole, Small and General Practice Section (SSGP) and a returning executive member of the OBA Immigration Section and YLD East. In 2026, she was named the Inspirational Entrepreneur and one of Kingston's 40 Under 40 by Kingston Economic Development Corporation. She is an author of Thomson Reuters' Fiduciary Duties in Canada.
Natalie practices in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, with a particular focus on business and corporate immigration, individual immigration, Federal Court immigration litigation, and cross-border matters between Canada and China.
Any article or other information or content expressed or made available in this Section is that of the respective author(s) and not of the OBA.