Law Practice Today

Often the biggest barrier to a successful lawyer-client relationship is the presumption on both sides that the lawyer has all the answers and will communicate whatever the client needs to know, whenever it’s necessary. If this kind of thinking ever had any validity – a proposition that’s doubtful at best – it certainly carries little weight in today’s society. Perhaps because of the interactive nature of the Internet, it seems that voters, consumers, patients and shareholders increasingly feel empowered to reject being spoon-fed information by government officials, advertisers, doctors and corporate executives. Instead they demand to be co-equal partners who are kept fully informed about what is being done to affect their lives, and who have no hesitation in suggesting ways that it can be done better.

In a recent column we explored the idea that regular communication with clients during the engagement is the best way for lawyers to have satisfied clients who pay their bills. A bill that is the culmination of an active, ongoing communication process enhances a client’s understanding of the benefits received from the work that lawyers do. Firms that don’t get paid usually don’t communicate with their clients to show they understand what their clients want and that they are providing it. Client satisfaction and client communication are synonymous.

 

Defining What Clients Want

Plenty of research bears this out. In just one example from several years ago, a survey sent out by the Robert Half legal placement firm asked a cross-section of lawyers, “When clients are deciding whether or not to continue working with your firm, which one of the following attributes or considerations would you say ranks highest on their priority list?” The resulting ranking was as follows:

• Reliability/trust 45%
• Relationship with client 20%
• Industry specific knowledge 14%
• Timeliness/meeting deadlines 9%
• Billing rates 7%
• Diversity at your firm 1%
• Other/don’t know  4%

In other words, being a professional that clients can depend on and work in partnership with (expressed in such fundamental concepts as “do what you say,” “finish what you start,” and “tell me what you’ve done”) represents the single most important value for clients – at least in the minds of the lawyers surveyed – and likely in the minds of clients, as well. Few people actively seek out lawyers just to forge a rewarding personal experience. But creating the foundation for such an experience certainly makes for the best lawyer-client relationships.

 

Structuring Status Reports

Create this foundation by reaching out proactively to your clients. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Send status reports on a regular basis. Status reports can be particularly valuable because they demonstrate that you are on top of your job and are actively working to accomplish what the client wants. Status reports do not have to be a detailed administrative burden. I recommend a simple form, reflecting one originally developed by Michigan attorney, Wes Hackett, a good friend. It can easily be saved as a word processing file, with appropriate boxes to be checked and blanks to be filled in for a few basic categories. The goal is to show clients what you are working on now (for example, litigation boxes might include case evaluation, research, pleadings, motions, and so on), what you might need from them, and what your next steps will be. Particularly useful is a section that shows clients the current status of their financial accounting with the firm and if they need to make it current. If you’d like a copy of the complete form, send me an email.

Using a tool like this shows your clients how highly you value them by how much you communicate to them and interact with them. It makes them feel they are part of the team, and they will respond with their loyalty. Don’t worry about whether you are unnecessarily bothering them. Clients appreciate communication; the more, the better. “Paper” clients, keep them informed and tell them what's happening at every point of the process (both for transaction and litigation matters).

A good next step beyond status reports is to actively involve and document a client’s participation in a matter. On the megafirm/multinational corporation level this can involve client extranets and shared case management software, but for most lawyers and law firms these tools are too expensive and cumbersome. Yet keeping track of what you need the client to do and when and how it was done doesn’t require complicated record-keeping notations. Consider a simple grid with four column headings: Task to Do, Person to Do It (lawyer or client), Date for Completion, and Completion Confirmed. Keep the blanks constantly filled in for every step of a matter, and include the ongoing record in the status report.

 

Building Loyalty

Such an interactive process can be an important part of building what every law firm should prize in its clients: loyalty. This is a fluid concept in today’s legal world, as clients seem to use RFPs and beauty contests to change law firms with increasing frequency. Many firms, however, continue to maintain client relationships measured in years and even decades. In such situations the client typically gives the law firm the opportunity to respond to changing competitive conditions (whether proceeding from the client itself or from competing law firms), calls the law firm first when new needs arise, and continues to maintain the relationship as new needs arise. Law firms build this kind of loyalty by communicating frequently to say what they’re doing now, and to offer something new that competitor firms don't or can't.

Firms that communicate shouldn’t be afraid of the RFP process. Clients may send out an RFP that signals they are looking for their current firm to do something to justify continuing the relationship. A firm that has established its position with the client through ongoing communication – status reports and the collaborative process behind them – need not worry about competing on price, which invariably is self-defeating. The kind of collaboration that creates loyalty ultimately is the foundation for a true lawyer-client partnership.

 

Getting Real

The bottom line is that partnership is defined by performance. Performance is a factor of many different things: communication, understanding and focusing on the corporate client’s objectives, use of technology, and specialized knowledge. In a true partnership the collaborative process goes both ways and benefits both sides. Communication skills are obviously vital ingredients to a successful lawyer-client relationship. It's essential that the client knows what the lawyer is doing, and that the client approves of the tactics to be taken to achieve the client's strategy/goal.  The lawyer can only provide services successfully by understanding the intent and desires and wants of the client. Lawyers must communicate with clients at their level of understanding, and do so frequently. If clients don’t recognize the benefits of what has been done, they will become dissatisfied and no amount of marketing effort will retain them.

This has to be realistic. Too many law firms today assert that they want to “exceed” client expectations. However the degree of “exceeding” can be hard to define. Client expectations may have originally been set too low, and the lawyer did not explain at the start of the engagement what kind of performance was reasonable for the client to expect. In this sense, “exceeding expectations” represents a communications failure by the lawyer that amounts almost to deceit. When clients realize they are being fooled, their reaction is often anger. And a law firm with angry clients is one doomed to failure. It’s far better to be open and honest about objectives, and to work as a team with clients to pursue them.

The other dilemma created by exceeding client expectations is that, human nature being what it is, clients will expect even greater exertion and achievement next time. At some point it becomes impossible to continually exceed what clients want – the best you can do is meet expectations.

 

Validating the Trust

That’s the beauty of tangible, realistic tools like regular status reports. They symbolize for clients, in a very understandable way, that their lawyer is involved with and committed to them. Clients want to feel that they are part of a team in working with their lawyer. Collaboration is the culmination of such teamwork, in which lawyer and client work together to assess needs and develop a proactive, interactive law approach, making recommendations to each other about actions and decisions that are mutually beneficial. It validates the trust that should be present right from the start in every engagement. I love the phrase, "No man is an island unto himself." And that is particularly true in the collaborative process of delivering legal services to appreciative clients. The result defines an enduring client relationship.