"Is Grandma Drugged Up?" is an interesting CNN article on overmedication of senior citizens with some valuable information and links. This isn't my usual fare here, but I figure that many of you practice elder law, most others have elderly relatives and all of us hope to become elderly some day.
If you were to try to boil down into three words the most important thing for a law firm to focus on to succeed, you couldn't go wrong with "superior client service." Leo Bottery did a post listing numerous Client Service blogs, which revisits a list Dan Hull published in early 2007. I'm happy my blog was on the list and inspired to do more client services postings the remainer of the year. But, the main reason I point this out to my readers is the great chance to do a little client service improvement in your own law firm. Here's one idea. Take 90 or so uninterrupted minutes with this list of blogs and a legal pad and pen. (See, I'm really an old fashioned guy at heart who still likes a pen.) Visit several of these blogs. Read the most recent posts and click on some of the categories or past month's archives. There are 30. So if one doesn't speak to you, move quickly on. Make some notes. After some time for reflection, try to come up with three simple ways you can improve your client services. E-mail the other decision makers and set a quick meeting to discuss implementation. (Hat tip to Larry Bodine.)
I used to practice family law. I concur with one lawyer's observation that family law gives you the opportunity to interact with a lot of good people at the absolute worst time in their lives. It can also be a very rewarding type of practice. Here is a great idea from the American Bar Association Family Law Section to better serve your clients and perhaps make some children's lives better in the process.
The ABA FLS makes available “handbooks for your clients and their kids." If you buy these in bulk, they are at such an affordable price that you can give one or more handbook to every divorce client. Titles include My Parents Are Getting Divorced, Frequently Asked Questions about Divorce, What Your Children Need...Now, Coparenting after Divorce and Surviving Your Divorce and Beyond. If you buy over 25 copies of a particular handbook, the price drops to four dollars each and if you buy over 100, they are three dollars each (plus S/H.) What a great client service!Many lawyers have been doing this for years.
This offer is not limited to members of the American Bar Association.
Here's the webpage for these client handbooks, with the cover photos and the tables of contents as well as the links to order online.
Here's the downloadable order form in PDF format that I feel is more clear on the exact pricing than the ABA Web store. However, for the next week, you would probably want to order through the ABA Web store because shipping is free to all U.S. destinations for orders placed through that method during August, 2007. Even when shipping is no longer free, this is still a great bargain and a way to make a positive impact in the lives of your clients and their children.
The ABA GP Solo and Small Firm Division put on some nice programming at the ABA Annual Meeting. (And I'm not saying that just because they asked me to speak.) I participated in two 90 minute programs called Perfecting Your Practice and Protecting Your Practice. I joined Uber-consultant Ross Kodner, Catherine Sanders-Reach from the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center and Hawaiian legal technologist Ben Schorr for what we hope was a thought-provoking exchange of information.
The materials for those sessions have been placed for download online, along with some other materials. Let me focus on two sets of the materials, although all are worthy of your attention.
Perfecting Your Practice is about creating and maintaining good client relations. We talk about listening to your clients (as many of you know, this is one of my favorite topics,) setting expectations, client communications during the representation and handling the matter effectively. The materials available for download are brief and can be reviewed in a few minutes, but the concepts are a life's work.
The Sweet Spot: Buying Law Office Technology is a program Ross did for the OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference in late June, but you can also download it here. It gives advice on buying laptops, desktops, phones, cameras and more. You don't want to miss this one.
Sadly, hardware buying this year may be more difficult as there are now signs that Microsoft won't be able to ship its new operating system Vista by year's end. It sure is a lot more simple to buy a computer with the OS installed than to upgrade. We'll just have to wait and see at this point. But if you do buy a new computer make sure it is at least Vista Capable and probably Vista Premium Ready. See all of the specs here. 2006 is not the year to cut corners when buying computers. There are many new features of Vista that you will want sooner rather than later.
All of the materials I mentioned above, including Protecting Your Practice, can be downloaded here. There is a ton of great material at the link. Have fun reading and feel free to e-mail me any comments or suggestions.
The subject line of this post is obvious in many ways, but there's really some depth behind it. In all of our endeavors, we are generally satisfied when we get what we expect. (Well, that may not be true for the pessimists, but this post isn't about them.)
Therefore it is important to the attorney-client relationship to do your best to make sure that the client has realistic expectations. It may be tempting when the new client is retaining your services to err on the side of "closing the deal," but it is a poor long term plan. When the client predicts an unrealistic result, it is tempting to say "Well, retain us and let's see" or "Possibly." But be careful. It is appropriate to explain that there are many undertermined facts and/or questions of law. But starting the attorney-client relationship with a client who believes that they are likely to get certain relief when that isn't that case is going down the wrong path. You can leave the predictions to the psychics. But you can't leave a new client with a false belief.
Equally important are client expectations about how the attorney-client relationship will be managed. Modern technology allows us to be available to clients around the clock. That might even be acceptable if you have only one really well-paying client (who would have to sleep and have a life of their own.) All of us need down time and all of us have shifting priorities. Our clients need us to be there for them when it is required, but not on every whim. Patricia A. Yevics, Director of Law Office Management for the Maryland State Bar, has a great article entitled "Taming the Beast: Managing Client Expectations in a 24/7 World" in the June 2006 issue of GPSolo magazine. She has great advice on establishing client's expectations about communications with your office.
Those great folks at PracticePRO have a great feature on dealing with the difficult client. It has four parts, including the brief summary at this link, which will take you to a fourteen page paper on the topic. There are also two extremely useful forms in MS Word format. One is an "administrative" document outlining how the law firm operates, including many topics such as hours of operations, how to make appointments and why you shouldn't just "walk in" to see your lawyer. The other Word document details billing rates and practices in plain English. (Well, Canadian.) It is hard to overstate how beneficial these documents could be if customized to your practice and given to every client.
Readers of this blog are seeking law practice tips. Well, here's a huge one. Read all of the information linked about--twice. Schedule a meeting with your staff and discuss how you help your new clients have realistic expectations. With the guidance of the forms noted above, draft handouts that will be given out to every new client in your two largest areas of practice. Implement the policy and set a review date for six months from now.
I have several good friends and colleagues who do similar work for other state bars and Canadian law societies. We have some great discussions via e-mail. Recently we had a lengthy discussion about who or what answers your phone. For many law firms, economic reality dictates that the firm should no longer pay a full-time employee just to serve as receptionist with occasional typing duties. But often the alternatives can be unattractive. Outsourcing to a live answering service can be expensive and cause concerns about client confidentiality. In addition the quality of service may be uneven or generally poor. (Of course having a minimum-wage, unmotivated employee in-house may be no better.) On the other hand, having a phone call answered by an automated answering system can seem less than professional. Many clients detest voice mail.
A summary of our discussion was prepared by Ellen Freedman and posted on her blog here. This is a long post, but this is an important and often-overlooked issue. Your receptionist, in person or on the phone, is often the first person that gives an impression of the law firm to a new client.
Developing new client service models is an important aspect of law firm planning and management. There is no doubt that clients have different expectations about service now than a generation ago. Some of this is related to technology. E-mail allows us to exchange messages hourly as opposed to the old "mail a letter and wait three days" mentality. Client extranets allow for an expanded type of client service. Generally speaking, clients know what is possible and they feel like they pay a premium for legal services and should receive a premium service. if their services are not convenient, timely and efficient, then they may seek alternatives. This would include non-lawyer and Internet legal service providers for the consumer and in-house counsel or offshore providers for the corporation.
So I suggest that all lawyers would benefit by reading one of my favorite blogs, Dan Hull's Whataboutclients.com. He writes many thoughtful and provocative posts. He also looks for other online articles about client service and references them. He's been posting rules about client service. The first six are here and include:
1. Represent only clients you like.
2. The client is the main event.
3. Make sure everyone in your firm knows the client is the main event.
4. Deliver legal work that changes the way clients think about lawyers.
5. Over-communicate: bombard, copy and confirm.
6. When you work, you are marketing.
Good material. Rule #1 may not always be possible for the criminal defense lawyer, for example. But thinking about these things and reading Dan's extended commentary will help your law firm develop a plan for success. (Rules 7 and 8 have been posted, but you'll have to go to Dan's blog to find them.)
The Ten Commandments of Client Relationships has been around for a while. The Canadian Bar Association indicates that it originated with the Queensland Law Society of Australia. These simple ideas help you set the tone you want for your staff and publicly affirm your commitment to good client service. This PDF is formatted to easily print, frame and display in one or more locations in your office. This document includes such gems as "Clients are not an interruption of our work. They are the purpose of it." and "Clients are not dependent on us. We are dependent on them."
Appearing rude or arrogant is something we lawyers need to guard against. The temptations are many. At how many Christmas parties this year will you walk by a group and hear someone make a patently ridiculous statement about a legal matter? The temptation to stop and correct is strong, but if you do, those people will just think something negative about you. New lawyers and experienced lawyers often have difficult relations in negotiations as the young lawyer thinks "this old guy hasn't kept up on changes in the law" while the experienced lawyer thinks "they may have taught you that in that fancy law school, but Judge Whitehead isn't going to rule that way." It becomes easy for either side to view the other as arrogant.
I got a kick out of Oklahoma City lawyer Douglas Sorocco's post "Blackballed - You are the Brand" about how one rude lawyer got her entire firm blackballed from possibly representing a Fortune 100 client. Too bad she'll probably never see Doug's post about her.
Does your law firm provide an extranet for any clients? Do you understand why an extranet might be useful? Could an extranet actually pay for itself? Continuing my emerging Dennis Kennedy theme week, here's his article on Extranets. It is a concise primier.
A recent article in the Fulton County (Gerogia) Daily Report adds one more item to the list of things you should never say in an e-mail, which is paraphrased as: "Gosh, I just may have made a $1,000,000 malpractice mistake." When the law firm was fired and the files were turned over to the client, a copy of this little gem surfaced in the case file. Of course now the client is suing the law firm and using this as an exhibit. Read the story here.
As hard as we try, we will still all make mistakes. Losing your keys is one thing, but a mistake that impacts a client matter will keep you awake at night. How do you deal with such an error? Well, the first and hardest step is to immediately contact the client and let them know. Far better for them to hear it from you than elsewhere. Patrick Lamb offers some thoughtful advice about the steps to take in his After the Mistake post on his In Search of Perfect Client Service blog.
"In many ways for lawyers the initial client interview is like a first date. You do not know each other that well and hope to get better acquainted. There is often a bit of tension or wariness. There are lots of unanswered (and unasked) questions, and it may have its awkward moments. But both of you hold out the hope that this may turn into a long term, mutually beneficial relationship."
That was the beginning of an article I wrote on The Initial Client Interview some time ago. I believe this is still very worthwhile reading, particularly for young lawyers. It covers the agenda of the interview, good listening skills, the critical issue of what potential clients to avoid, attorney's fees and managing the information. There is even a link to a few sample client intake forms donated by Oklahoma lawyers.
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