‘Only connect’? The role of emotion in the practice of social welfare law advice and casework

This article rejects the traditional dichotomy between rationality and feeling in law and legal practice. Drawing on law and emotion scholarship, it uses a qualitative research project involving clients, lawyers, and advisers to question the standardized view that emotion has no place in legal casework. It argues that interpersonal factors – such as trust and reassurance, adviser commitment, emotional support, empathy and sympathy, and emotional accessibility – have an instrumental impact on legal work. It develops this argument further by comparing the relational elements of telephone-only and in-person lawyer–client interaction. It considers how these modes of delivery differ at an interpersonal level and explores the possible implications for clients, lawyers, and legal practice of any emotional dissimilarities between telephone-only and face-to-face services. This analysis concludes that the potential for greater emotional engagement as a result of in-person contact may have significant advantages for clients with more complex needs and/or cases.