February 15, 2026, for the WSBA Solo and Small Practice section.
We know the surface level needs that clients have. Are they and you aware of their below-the-surface-level needs? Some of these needs are not spoken and some are unknown to the person.
A simple example of such a need, for about 25-35% of any given population, is to avoid conflict. By a similar percentage in another group of people is the opposite need.
There are multiple levels of unspoken and unknown (U&U) needs. To examine one relevant level, we’ll use research on what clients want because these wants are actually needs. We’ll also look at needs from a trauma perspective. In both cases, we’ll identify some client counseling techniques you can use to identify and address these U&U needs. Addressing these needs with a gentle approach can give the client both a better perceived outcome and an unexpectedly rich and rewarding experience.
For the trauma perspective, we will look at the trauma-informed care (TIC) frameworks in the TIC article on Wikipedia. Participants may wish to scan the article and note the sections describing the many types of trauma, TIC frameworks, and the general techniques including family law attorney Sarah Katz’s adaptation. If you do DV work, there is a section specifically for that.
Session details
| Host | Solo and Small Practice section, Washington State Bar Association |
| Date and time | Thursday, January 15, 2026, Noon-1:30 pm |
| CLE credit | 1.5 “Other” credits |
| Format | Online |
| Cost | $0 Solo & Small Practice members $5 Law students $35 to Join section and get free registration $35 Standard / non-section members |
| Registration | Register online WSBA Sections |
Presenter
Mark Baumann is a 37 year litigator and has served as a mediator and judge pro tem. His practice now focuses on “litigating” without going to court. He has been studying the science of conflict for 25 years and completed an LLM equivalent in Interpersonal Neurobiology studies. In the last 13 years he has focused particularly on how childhood attachment experiences impact adult information processing and decision making. He has created a client counseling model, the Integrative Client-Centered Model for lawyers, The ICCM ports many traditional counseling and therapy techniques, and adds several lawyer specific techniques. Mark created a listening model for lawyers which updates active listening and is useful as a go to model for heat of the moment needs. Mark is developing the Conflict Model, a trans-disciplinary perspective for lawyers to capture the “human element” of conflict and client counseling. Two of his websites are ICC.institute and ConflictScienceInstitute.com.