This Is Fine: Making Peace with Being the Villain
The start of a new year always comes with the same quiet lie.
This year will be calmer. This year, if I do things just a little better, no one will be mad/disappointed/frustrated/(insert negative emotion here).
I’ve been doing this long enough to know better.
As we head into 2026, I’m carrying one hard-won truth: I will be the villain in someone’s story—not through carelessness, but because the job guarantees it.
There will always be a client who believes something should take half the time it does. They’re living inside the urgency of their own crisis, not the reality of court calendars, agency backlogs, opposing counsel delays, and things that simply cannot be rushed. When the process disappoints them, it has to land somewhere. Often, it lands on the person closest to it. And client frustrations, in our firm, land at the top of the food chain (it’s me – hi).
There will always be a potential new client who is certain we could have helped—if only we wanted to. When we say no because the law doesn’t support it, the risk is too high, or the case isn’t the right fit, that “no” becomes personal. It becomes a one-star review from someone we never represented. That’s not a failure. That’s the cost of discernment.
There will always be employees who leave—sometimes abruptly, sometimes lovingly, sometimes without explanation. You’ll replay conversations in your head, wondering what you missed. You’ll question whether you could have done more, been clearer, been better. And sometimes the answer is yes. But sometimes the answer is that your best wasn’t what they needed, and that has to be okay. You can’t build a workplace where no one ever leaves disappointed.
And there will always be attorneys who devalue what you do because they don’t see your day-to-day. They don’t see the operational decisions that shape outcomes long before a pleading is filed—the case posture evaluations in the shower, the discovery strategies mapped in the carpool line. They don’t see the weight of choosing integrity over convenience. Of refusing to make a misrepresentation to the court, even when it would be easier. They don’t realize—or don’t care—that their doing the wrong thing has real life consequences.
So, here’s what’s changing for me in 2026.
I’m not carrying every complaint like it’s a referendum on my competence. I’m not confusing disappointment with failure. And I’m not burning energy trying to control stories I don’t get to tell.
Instead, I’m being more intentional about what I’m leaving behind and what I’m taking with me.
What I’m Leaving in 2025 / What I’m Taking into 2026
Leaving in 2025:
- Taking every complaint as a personal failure
- Trying to out-explain unrealistic expectations
- Absorbing frustration that actually belongs to broken systems
- Letting other people’s urgency dictate my ethics or boundaries
- Carrying guilt for saying no to cases that were never ours to take
- Replaying a departure like a failure I could have prevented
Taking into 2026:
- Clear, honest communication—even when it disappoints people
- Stronger boundaries around time, energy, and emotional labor
- Confidence in decisions made with integrity and experience
- The understanding that being disliked is sometimes a byproduct of doing the job well
- A longer view of success: for clients, the firm, and myself
- Less explaining. More holding ground.
- Acceptance that not every professional relationship will end with closure or clarity
Being effective does not guarantee being liked. And being liked has never been the job.
If you’re heading into a new year feeling bruised, misunderstood, or quietly carrying resentment from stories you didn’t get to correct, this is your permission slip to put some of that down.
You don’t need to win every narrative. You just need to be able to stand behind your decisions when the noise dies down.
That’s the energy I’m bringing into 2026. I encourage you to do the same.
(Ask me again in March how it’s going.)
