5.1 The Client Interview (the First Meeting's Craft)

The interview's sequence (the six stages): The preparation — the file's pre-read; the documents' request; the venue and time's setting (the private room — the confidentiality's physical base); The opening — the introduction and the role's explanation; the confidentiality's assurance (the trust's foundation — the client's candour's price); the fee's and the process's honest preview; The listening — the narrative's allowance: the client's own story FIRST, without interruption (the interruption loses the facts and the trust); the empathy and the patience (the client's distress acknowledged, not judged); The questioning — the funnel: the OPEN questions first ("tell me what happened"), the CLOSED questions after ("on what date?"); the chronology's building; the gaps' and inconsistencies' probing (the gentle "you mentioned... but earlier..." — the discrepancy resolved, not the client accused); the sensitive matters' care (the family violence, the sexual offences — the trauma-informed discipline); The facts' verification — the documents' review together; the timeline's construction; the summary's feedback: "What I heard was..." (the error's correction-moment — the misunderstanding caught at the source); The closing — the next steps' explanation; the realistic expectations (the no-guarantee rule — the outcome's promise is the profession's sin); the timeline's honesty; the follow-up's arrangement; the memo-to-file (the interview's record — the professional's discipline). The ethics throughout: the competence (the referral where the matter exceeds the skill);…