In Search of Perfect Client Service

At first, I thought the multitude of thoughts was simply the failure of one's mind to bring order to the thinking process as a result of too many cocktails.  But I didn't have that many last night, so maybe I just needed to think harder to bring order to chaos.  Maybe there was a central theme to the chaos of my mind.

Thought 1.  I saw something that reminded me of what remain two of the most popular posts I've made since I started writing this blog, After the Mistake andAfter the Mistake Redux.  The central theme is the importance of owning up to mistake and saying you are sorry for it.  Easy to say, hard to do.  I know that from firsthand experience.

Thought 2.  The laughable way celebrities and athletes (and others to be sure) apologize for bad behavior.  "If anyone was offended by my stupid remark [or replace with description of your stupid behavior], then I want to apologize for the fact that your were offended by something I did not mean to be offensive."  You get the drift.  Randy Pausch includes a chapter in one of my favorite books, The Last Lecture, on why a bad apology is worse than no apology at all.

Thought 3.  My friend Dan Hull frequently uses his fantastic blog What About Clients? as a pulpit to teach lessons on the importance of writing well.  I love every such post.

Thought 4.  I am a fan of passion in argument, mainly because that's how I am.  I never have been able to pull off the "aw shucks, I am just a country lawyer" approach of Jimmy Stewart, or the scholarly, dispassionate Supreme Court advocate.  Think Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind.  I'm no Clarence Darrow, but I live in that neighborhood.

Thought 5.  This one might be the outlier, or the trigger.  Who knows.  But I listened to Roseanne Cash and Bruce Springsteen sing Sea of Heartbreak.  I cried, it was so moving.  "The lights in the harbor don't shine for me ....on this sea of tears, the sea of heartbreak..."  The way great lyrics evoke feeling is one of life's great mysteries, at least to me. 

So, how does this come together?  Effective communications, whether written, spoken or sung, have the ability to evoke feeling.  In the case of apologies, they should as well.  If you or your team has screwed something up for a client, follow the approach discussed in my earlier posts on handling mistakes.  But you should feel pain about the mistake, and you darn sure ought to communicate that to your client in a manner that evokes feeling.

Okay, so maybe it was the Bushmills from last night after all.

 

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They (and have you ever, like me, wondered who they are?) say that nature abhors a vacuum.  I was reminded about the wisdom of this gem during a recent deposition.  My witness was testifying about the sale of a company and management's why management was releasing information to the employees.  As she said, " you can never stop water-cooler conversation, so you'd better be influencing what's said.

This made me wonder how many law firms have visited their clients to talk about how the firm is responding to the new economic reality, what the new business model will be, and so forth.  Seems like a great excuse for an invaluable conversation.  But that's just me.

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I received an email yesterday that began "Hi Patrick J."  It caused a flashback to my childhood.  When my mother was angry with me, she called me Patrick J. When she was really ticked off, she called me Patrick John.  And when it was certain she was going to whip my sorry behind, it was all three names, Patrick John Lamb.  I knew what punishment was on the horizon just by what portion of my name she chose to call out.

So I get this email and immediately wonder why my mother is sending me an angry email.  Turns out it was an email selling me something.  Buy now and you get a free toaster, plus a chance to win other cool prizes.  So I started thinking about how I address emails to people I haven't met yet.  If a person's name is William, does he go by William, Will, Bill, or something else.  If I write "Dear William" and everyone knows him as Bill (think Bill Clinton), you immediately brand yourself as uninformed, especially if there is information you could find on the web that would tell you he goes by Bill.  My default is this:  if I don't know the person or haven't been introduced via a common friend (the 1 degree rule), I use "Mr."  For women, I use "Ms." because I usually don't know the whether the person is married, kept her maiden name or is one of many women who prefer the neutral "Ms."  I tend to introduce myself as Pat as an indicator that I am comfortable with the informality that using Pat instead of Mr. Lamb or Patrick implies.

That's my rule of thumb on forms of address.  Anyone have different rules that they follow?

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More litigation results from bad drafting that one can possibly imagine.

Excellent writing is a critical component of excellent client service.

My friends at What About Clients have two terrific posts on good writing.  The first reminds us that writing well is hard work.    The second discusses client-centered writing and advances the argument that over-reliance on forms "tends to perpetuate bad legal writing."

WAC? is on the money.

There is a delicate balance to be struck between providing clients the value of not re-inventing the wheel and the benefit of thinking about each problem anew.  But in each case or contract or matter, it is important to discuss that balance with your client.  Sometimes, good enough is good enough.  Sometimes, only the best will do.  The key is that client must be the one to make that decision.

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You can't.  But it's amazing how people keep trying to ignore that old gorilla.

As I've mentioned, I was listening to a panel of General Counsel share some stories last week.  This story was told by one of them.  The took a case to trial.  And got hammered.  Way beyond what trial counsel had predicted as a worst case.  As the GC said, "okay, it happens."  So he's waiting for a call from the trial lawyer or the relationship partner.  The phone is silent.  So finally after a couple of days, he arranges a meeting with the relationship lawyer.  When the meeting starts, the lawyer looks at the GC and says, "okay, what do you want to discuss?"  Needless to say, the GC was floored.  I think it's safe to say the relationship didn't continue as before, though that was not explicitly stated.

The near universal reaction to this story is laughter and disbelief.  But the story is true.  So let's look for a couple of lessons.  First, does anyone think the GC didn't find out about the bad result?  After all, don't lots of companies remain blissfully ignorant  of large verdicts against them?  So the GC then had the delightful task of talking to the CEO without input from their law firm.  Don't ever let clients hear bad news from someone else.

Second, when summoned, don't ignore the gorilla.  It's not like the GC doesn't know it's there.  You just look foolish when you ignore the obvious.

Third, nobody can guarantee great results every time.  You don't look bad by acknowledging  disappointment in the result.  Come ready to work out a plan to fix what happened.

These are the obvious lessons.  There are others, and perhaps people will offer their lessons learned from this example in comments.

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Mark Slatin has a most interesting post on Trusted Advisor.  In Transparency and Selling, he writes:

Yet, we’re trained to go in come back with information that will close the sale. Hunt it, kill it and bring it back to eat.

• What if, instead of dancing around an answer we don’t know, we just admit we don’t know?
• What if, instead of promising something we probably can’t deliver, we admit that and then tell them what we can do?
• What if, instead of offering “teaser” pricing and then covertly getting it on the back end, we share our cost structure?

These examples are counter-intuitive--downright treasonous in some circles.

Without the pretension, void of false promises and out on a limb – we are, admittedly exposed, naked and vulnerable.

But wouldn’t you rather buy from a seller who is willing to show you his cards, even if--perhaps because--you both know it might cost him the sale? That visceral reaction works in reverse when transparency dominates relationships (think Madoff, Blagojevich).

There are some great insights here.  One thought that immediately pops up is the pressure to cross-sell.  I wrote about that issue in Can I introduce you to my partner (pssst--what's your name?)?  But Mark's piece provides much more insight into the notion that selling is all about building trust and having the client's needs come first.

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Last Saturday, my wife slipped and broke her wrist.  Yesterday, her wrist was surgically repaired.  She's doing fine. 

I learned a couple of things while at the hospital that are germane to this blog.  Here they are, in no particular order:

1)  Your waiting room says a lot about you.  A few weeks ago, I wrote "My now daily trip to the car dealer" in which I lavishly praised my Lexus dealer's customer waiting room.  As impressed as I was with my Lexus dealer's waiting room, I was appalled by the shabbiness of the Hospital's waiting room for people whose family member was in surgery.  Cheap, worn out furniture, lack of connectivity, lack of space, lack of refreshments and facilities combined to make the waiting room an unpleasant area. 

2)  Communication is important.  Surgery was supposed to start at 9:30 and last "an hour to an hour and a half at most."  At noon, when I hadn't heard anything, I asked the volunteer in the waiting room to check in to see how things were going.  "We're not supposed to call the OR."  I encouraged her to make an exception, which she did.  She reported that surgery had not started until "a bit after 22," which, coincidentally was about the time I started worrying whether everything was okay.  Just think how easy it would have been to share that information.  Frankly, I had more insight into the progress the car technician was making on my car's oil change.

The moral of this story is that I would rather do my waiting at the Lexus dealer.  But, for here, isn't the moral that if people visiting your office have to wait, it's better that the wait be a positive experience?  Won't that make it more likely (even if just a little bit) that people will come back?

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"I will be out of the office until Tuesday, August 19.  If your matter is urgent, please contact my assistant, Robin Hood, at 222-555-7777, or reach me on my cell phone at 222-555-9999.  Thank you."

You have a Blackberry--everybody does.  Use it.  This is the 21st Century.  We have technology that allows people to communicate from virtually any place on the planet.  You're in a service business.  Act like it.

To really ice the cake, there are a staggering number of times when, within minutes of receiving the delightful auto-reply, I get a responsive email.  Gee, thanks for the chance to get two emails.  I really don't get enough so you really made me feel special.

To be sure, there are places on the planet where you cannot communicate remotely.  If you go to one of those places, by all means, take advantage of the auto-reply feature.  And there are times--trials come to mind--when you will simply be unable to respond in a predictable or timely manner.  Again, feel free to use the auto-reply.  But the occasions when use of the feature is justified are very limited. 

Thank you for letting me vent.

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For you GCs in the audience:  how is it possible for this to happen? How is it possible a firm can spend that much money and you don't know the detail of what the firm is doing? On a matter of this importance, where the fee is going to be large, you would have a detailed discussion with outside counsel about what work would be done, who would be doing it and how much it would cost. And when bills suggested outside counsel wasn't following the game plan, a discussion would ensue. I just don't understand.

For the private practitioners out there, same story, different questions.  How is it possible you would let a client be surprised by your fees on a matter of this size and importance?  Given the scale of the document review, how could you have avoided a detailed conversation about alternative ways to approach the review, the cost of each and the quality issues involved?  I just don't understand.

Seriously, I am not asking these questions rhetorically.  Obviously I've missed something in my 26 years of private practice, and since I've never been an inside lawyer, I am missing out on insights that experience may have provided.  I invite comments.

ADDENDUM:  Who says we lawyers are not in danger of becoming a caricature of ourselves?  From the irreverent blog, Above the Law, this take on one aspect of the suit:

Martin Rose, the Dallas lawyer representing McAfee in the fee dispute, alleges in his latest complaint that WilmerHale, which brought in East Coast lawyers to represent Goyal in a San Francisco trial, charged almost $200,000 in expenses for luxury hotel rooms, limousines and charges for room service and bar tabs. The software company described WilmerHale as "unrepentant in its greed."

C'mon, Mr. Rose, you're a lawyer, you know better -- drop the faux indignation. We're talking Biglaw. This is how they roll.

(Seriously, for a case that went to trial, $200K in expenses does not seem unreasonable. Sometimes firms take over an entire luxury hotel in connection with a trial. Don't expect them to stay at the Motel 6.)

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We've all experienced this.  You call someone.  The message starts.  "Hi, I'm away from my desk...."  And it goes on and on.  And on some more.  Ever hear this kind of message: " I'm visiting a really important client in a really exotic city and won't be back in the office for several days.  However, through the genius of Alexander Graham Bell and a bunch of other tech guys, I'll be able to call you back even before I get back to office.  If I feel like it."  Then, the person goes on to reveal the obvious in a manner that suggests he or she is leaking highly classified material:  "At the sound of the beep, leave your name, number and time you called."  Meanwhile, at your end of the phone, you've finished your coffee, written a 15 page brief and decided on your next vacation.  And made the reservations.  Too Much Information!!!!

Is there a person in the world who is not familiar with voice mail?  Does it matter whether you are away from your desk or playing video games on your computer?  Does it matter where you are or when you'll be in your office next?  It seems to me there are only two relevant pieces of information--your name (so the caller knows he or she dialed correctly) and when you'll respond--quickly, or because of circumstances (trial, vacation to remote mountain village), longer than normal.  And if the latter circumstance, it's probably best to provide an alternative number in your firm so your client doesn't choose to call another.



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   Life without email?  Probably not happening.  But what about a day without email?  Just imagine--an entire day where you actually had to ... speak with people.  Gulp!

    As I was driving in this morning, I was, as always, listening to NPR.  The story that caught my attention was one on email-free Fridays at U.S. Cellular.  You can listen to the story here.  As I was listening to how how a technology company copes without email on Fridays, I was taken with the idea of how much less frequently I speak with people now.  And I suspect I'm not that unusual (at least in this regard!).

     Seriously, what do we miss out on when we email a client rather than speaking on the phone?  The human connection that occurs through voice communication (which is less than face-to-face dialog) generally cannot be replicated through the keyboard.  Certainly not every communication need be or even should be by phone or in person.  But be honest, aren't there times where it would be better to pick up the phone and instead we just let our fingers do the talking?  Those are the opportunities we should keep track of and evaluate--honestly. 

     Maybe we should adopt our personal email free Friday (or Tuesday) and use that day each week to talk to the people with whom we want strong and lasting relationships.

ADDENDUM:  Special thanks to Dan Hull for his mention of this post in What About Clients.  But even more thanks for his reference to a year old post he made along very much the same lines.  As usual, Dan more eloquently framed the issue:

But what happened to voices, vibes, faces, bodies, winks, hand gestures, touching another's hand or shoulder impulsively, stares, grins, frowns, hand-written thank you notes, human electricity, NOT-typing, non-virtual joking, yelling, ragging and flirting, occasional confrontation, intimacy and the "god-in-the-room" magic that starts with two breathing humans in one real place.

This Friday, pick up the phone.  Or pick up your feet. 

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Trust me, for a moment at least, that all of the following points eventually will come together.

Every time I have the opportunity, I ask in-house counsel about whether their lawyers conduct formal or informal satisfaction meetings.  Almost invariably, the answer is no.  I always follow up by asking whether the client would find such meetings useful.  With equal frequency, the answer is yes.

From time to time, I ask lawyers whether they conduct formal or informal satisfaction meetings.  Almost invariably the answer is no.  When explaining why, lawyers almost always say the same thing:  if there is anything wrong, my client will tell me.  The gist of their point is that their relationship with their client is special and how dare for me for even implying that something so gauche as a discussion is needed.

Last night, as I am watching multiple channels at once, I am caught by a moment on a Dr. Phil-type show where the husband and wife are discussing their most intimate problems in front of a nationwide audience (and with syndication, perhaps a world-wide audience).  Breakthrough after breakthrough.  The Dr. Phil-type host offers this profound insight:  "your problem is that the two of you don't talk about your problems" (except in front of this nationwide audience).  He then goes on at length about how every relationship has problems (I think "hiccups" was the technical term) and that only by identifying them and talking them through can you hope to keep them from growing from small problems to bigger ones and, with good and candid talk, put them behind you.  Hardly profound, but most certainly true.

Also last night, I watched two of my kids, within the space of a few minutes, go from being BFFs to being unable to be in the same room to being, once again, BFFs.  The solution, a short but candid talk (with yours truly in the Dr. Phi-type role) asking each to explain why she was upset and what her perspective on the problem was.   The eye-opening moment?  When each saw the other's perspective, their own assessment seemed "less correct" and their judgment less harsh.

How do these three vignettes tie together?  Many (most?) outside lawyers operate on the premise that their personal relationship with their client is different that all other relationships that exist between people on our planet.  Every relationship has its problems.  Oh, excuse me--every relationship except for that individual lawyer's relationship with his or her client.  That one relationship is special.  But do the math.  It can't be that every relationship between every lawyer and every client is "special"--that is, immune from the rules of relationships that apply in every other kind of relationship.  And if not all lawyer and client relationships are special, the question that must be asked by each lawyer is why my relationships are different from all others?  Lawyers are never good at asking that question and it is doubtful that this short rant will cause any epiphanies.  But suffice it to say, until lawyers wake up and smell the relationship coffee, they will be missing the opportunity to "bulletproof" their relationships.  (Click here for a discussion of BulletProofing, a Gerry Riskin term that is more important than ever in today's difficult economic times.)

Now, does anyone what to discuss being shortsighted?

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Check out this post about excess verbiage in blogs at Instabloke. 

I plead guilty.  I promise to do better.

Good lesson about every kind of writing.  Marketing materials.  Emails.  Letters to clients.  Briefs.

Each word should be essential to the communication. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

How frequently do we complain?  We all do so a lot.  Sometimes we complain about things in the presence of our clients because they also are our friends.  And because we are lawyers, are complaints are spiced-up and witty.  Next time, maybe not so fast.

I received an email today from my brother-in-law, a retired Naval officer, which has given me pause to think further about complaining.  Here is the story relayed in his email.

The Setup
         Luke AFB is west of Phoenix and is rapidly being surrounded by
civilization that complains about the noise from the base and its planes,
forgetting that it was there long before they were. Apparently, an
individual who lives somewhere near Luke AFB wrote the local paper
complaining about a group of F-16s that disturbed his/her day at the mall.

The complaint:

         "Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base: Whom do we thank for
the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely 9:11 a.m., a tight
formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over Arrowhead Mall, continuing
west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet. Imagine our good fortune! Do
the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel we need this wake-up call, or were they trying
to impress the cashiers at Mervyns early bird special? Any response would be
appreciated."

Here is the response:
         Regarding "A wake-up call from Luke's jets" (Letters, Thursday): On
June 15, at precisely 9:12 a.m., a perfectly timed four-ship flyby of F-16s
from the 63rd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of
Capt. Jeremy Fresques.

         Capt. Fresques was an Air Force officer who was previously stationed
at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on May 30, Memorial Day. At 9
a.m. on June 15, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial Park in
Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son and friend.

         Based on the letter writer's recount of the flyby, and because of
the jet noise, I'm sure you didn't hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of
taps, or my words to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques as I gave them
their son's flag on behalf of the President of the United States and all
those veterans and servicemen and women who understand the sacrifices they
have endured. A four-ship flyby is a display of respect the Air Force pays
to those who give their lives in defense of freedom. We are professional
aviators and take our jobs seriously, and on June 15 what the letter writer
witnessed was four officers lining up to pay their ultimate respects.

         The letter writer asks, "Whom do we thank for the morning air show?"
The 56th Fighter Wing will call for you, and forward your thanks to the
widow and parents of Capt. Fresques, and thank them for you, for it was in
their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation of their lives.


         Lt. Col. Scott Pleus
         CO 63rd Fighter Squadron
         Luke AFB

The moral of the story is obvious.  As for me, I hope that before I next complain about something about which I know less than all of the story, I remember the picture of the missing man formation and how utterly small the person who wrote the witty complaint must have felt when he read the response. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

I received the July 2007 issue of Litigation News from the ABA today.  The lead article reported on a 2006 survey conducted by the Association Of Corporate Counsel (incidentally, no longer known as the American Corporate Counsel Association, as it is referred to in the article), and then discussed a Section of Litigation program from the recent annual meeting which discussed the results of the ACC survey. 

The program's written materials contained a list of top ten rules for dealing with outside counsel.  The Number 1 rule:  "Do not countenance surprises!  Neither accept them from outside counsel nor be the reason for them happening to your client." 

We have heard this cardinal rule so many times that it is hard to understand why any lawyer would breach it.  Certainly, fear of communicating bad news plays a role, but the news is going to be communicated at some point.  Why compound the problem?  Likewise, the notion that "I can fix it before they find out" probably is in play some of the time.  But who can point to situations where the client hasn't ultimately found out, only to be angry that you tried to pull a fast one. 

Trust is the cornerstone of a meaningful relationship between inside and outside counsel.  Communication--and following Rule No. 1--is the essence of trust. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

Mistakes.  Everyone hates them, but everyone makes them.  The thing that separates great client service from lawyers looking for new clients is how you deal with them.  Some time ago, I provided a prescription for dealing with mistakes in my post, After The Mistake.  Noted blogger Jim Calloway picked up on my post here, which was special for me given Jim's stature in the blogging community. 

Given the importance of dealing with mistakes, I read with great interest Charles Green's post, Apologies, Forgiving and Forgiveness, in his Trust Matters blog.  Charles obviously is the real deal, so his writing is worthy of your attention.  He picks up on an article by Martha Beck, Always Apologize, Always Explain, in Oprah magazine.  Green's post picks up on an important issue--the expectation of forgiveness that frequently accompanies an apology, and how that expectation actually undermines the apology.  He writes:

It’s instructive that the ninth step of the Twelve Step program literature (you know, the one that pops up in Seinfeld and other sitcoms—the one about making amends), also doesn’t allude to forgiveness. In fact, none of the 12 steps do.

I think this is because Beck, and the 12-Step program, recognize that life is a messy business. To forgive, one has to have a very clean heart in the first place.  And we—I’ll be clean here and just say I—rarely do.

If I’m in a rush to forgive people, I most likely am still judging them for some harm they did to me.  If I’m consternated about being forgiven, well, that’s all about me; and apologies don’t come from a good place if they’re all about me.

Apologies should not be tainted by forgiving, or by seeking forgiveness.  Those have their place, but it’s elsewhere. 

A good apology tries to set aright something that you set awry by impinging on another’s will.  It’s only appropriate that the apology itself refrain from further imposition of will. Hence the separation from forgiving or forgiveness.

Thinking about this has made me wonder about whether law firms ever really discuss handling mistakes or, better yet, provide training to their lawyers.  Mistakes are such a taboo topic that most firms seem to operate on the premise that they only happen to other firms.  Yet every day we read about one firm or another being sued on account of matters that certainly appear like ones that could have been worked out.  Time to rethink the issue.

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Tom Collins at morepartnerincome has a most interesting post on telephones and the use of voicemail.  Tom's post picks up on an article by Dan Pinnington in Law Practice.  Tom picks up on this advice from Pinnington:

1. Open with your name and title so the caller is sure they reached the correct mail box.

2. Update the message daily to include details of your schedule.

3. Indicate whether you’ll be checking voice mail or when you will be back in the office.

4. Always give the caller an option to transfer to a live person.

5. Encourage the caller to leave a detailed message.

6. Let the caller know when they can expect their call to be returned—after noon today, within 24 hours by the next day, etc.

I have to take issue with some of this advice.  I never include details of my schedule.  Clients are not concerned with your work for others--they want you to do your work for them.  If I said "I'm in a meeting today", some would not stay on the line long enough to hear that I would check messages hourly.  Or they might think their issue is not as important as my meeting, trial, etc.  Same rationale goes for saying when you'll check voicemail.  If I am not able to check my voicemail several times an hour, my secretary is monitoring my voicemail and will let me know by email to my blackberry that a client has called.  Lastly, I do not believe in announcing when calls will be returned because the time is different depending on who you are.  Client calls are returned within minutes if possible.  Vendor calls or calls from opposing counsel might be longer.  Reporter calls also are returned immediately if at all possible.  But cold calls from guys selling their favorite stocks are never returned, so I won't create an expectation that I will get back to them.

The last issue is the most important--do you have calls received during business hours go automatically into voicemail or do you have your assistant screen calls and give the caller the opportunity to leave a message or not?  Personal preferences on this issue differ.  Here's why I have my assistant screen my calls:  If the call is from a client or a prospect, my assistant will email me so I can respond immediately (unless I am in court in which case she determines whether a call at the end of the trial day is adequate or whether someone else can handle the call).  But one thing we have found is that my assistant is able to answer a fair number of the incoming questions or provide the information the client is seeking.  She not only saves me time but incurs a lot of goodwill by getting clients the information they need on the spot.

The bottom line is not a right vs wrong answer but rather this--make sure your methods of handling incoming calls are well thought out rather than an after-thought. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

With thanks to Matt Homann (the [non]billable hour) for the link, think about this information from William Glasser:

How We Learn

10% of what we READ

20% of what we HEAR

30% of what we SEE

50% of what we SEE and HEAR

70% of what is DISCUSSED with OTHERS

80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY

95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE

William Glasser

Every trial lawyer knows this--that's why we try to show exhibits to a jury and have key parts read to them.  That's why we try to make our examination of witnesses seem like a discussion, albeit one where not all parties are using their voice.

But all of this begs the question, why do we limit ourselves in the way we communicate with our clients.  Most of us use email (which replaced letters and memos).  Even assuming that our clients learn more than the statistics from Mr. Glasser, wouldn't we be more effective if we used visuals and in-person dialogue?  How many of us shy away from the latter?

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Not too long ago, I ran across a post on the the number of words in various writings generally regarded as among humankind's best.  The Pythagorean Theorem--24 words; The Lord's Prayer--66 words; The Ten Commandments--179;  The Gettysburg Address--186;  The United States Constitution--1300 words.  I am told that the U.S. Government's regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.  With that in mind, I was struck when I read this: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”  The statement, attributable to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, applies equally to writing, itself just a type of design.

Why is this important to client service?  Good writing communicates much in short order.  What do our clients lack?  TIme.  Don't waste it.  Each word you write or utter should prove you value their time more than your own.
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  I had a few moments of free time, so I started looking back at some blog posts I had saved but hadn't really had time to read and think about.  Guy Kawasaki of How To Change The World posted about an interview with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google.  Guy's post caught my attention because of it's title--"You don't learn very much when you yourself are talking."  Despite having a hard time following that axiom myself, it is one I really believe in, and there is not a meeting of Cub Scout Pack 69 where I don't say the very same thing to my scouts.  So I figured I would give the interview of whirl.  After all, Google has encountered a bit of success and maybe the people who helped them achieve that success might know a thing or two.  So I was off to the interview, found here on YouTube.

The interview begins by noting that its taking place on the campus of Stanford University, where Eric Schmidt teaches two days a week.  When asked why he teaches, Schmidt talks about the value of listening to the new generation of entrepreneurs and the questions they ask.  Schmidt offers that he learns from these questions and from the teaching experience.  

The CEO of one of the great companies of the world actually talking about the value of listening.  But not only talking about it, but showing he believes it.   Most lawyers refuse to believe they can learn much from non-lawyers.  Makes me wonder at times.

Its a 10 minute listen, and well worth the time. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

On more than a few occasions, a firm's website is one of its first communications to a new client.  The client wants to check a firm out before picking up the phone to make a call.  So I've reviewed a lot of websites to see what the firm says about itself.  I've concluded that the same consultant has written the websites for virtually every firm in America.  If I had a nickel for every time the phrases "pre-eminent", "full-service" and "leading" were used, Bill Gates would be the world's second richest person.  With limited exceptions (see Wachtell's website, for example), the websites don't offer real insights into the firms or their people.

The conclusion is inescapable.  Law firm websites have become like presidential candidates.  Slickly packaged to be sure, but packaged in a way to say nothing in order to avoid offending anyone, but so devoid of character and meaning as to inspire no one.  Completely vanilla. 

Seems to me that websites are a real missed opportunity. | 0 Comments | Permalink |

Interesting post in Rees Morrison's Law Department Management blog. Thoughts on Why Law Departments Retain Outside Counsel discusses several theories.  First,  brains vs brawn.  This theory postulates that inside counsel handle the routine stuff but turn to outside counsel for more challenging work.  Second, the overflow theory.  Here, outside counsel are retained whenever there is too much work for inside counsel to handle.  Third, the theory of core competency.  By this theory, inside counsel concentrate on those areas where they excel and outsource the rest.  The kissing cousin of this theory is the CYA theory--use outside counsel whenever a potential scapegoat is necessary.

I am hardly in a position to argue whether there is any truth to these theories.  But I have to say that they are strangers to my personal experience.  In my experience, good inside counsel want good teammates.  They can better leverage their skills, experience and understanding of the business by working with people who view them, and treat them, as a teammate.  And I always benefit from having inside counsel as a teammate precisely because they have to know more than I do about the business and typically the dispute.  Invariably, they're great brainstroming buddies.  They already have earned the confidence of inside management and potential witnesses.  I want that confidence to rub off on me--it makes my life so much easier.  And so on.

So now we've heard from a consultant and an outside counsel.  Inside counsel, what's the answer?

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I've written before about the importance of clear, crisp, distinctive writing when recording time, using entries to tell a persuasive story.  The entry is here.  Tom Collins has a terrific post making the point in a more compelling manner.  Tom writes the morepartnerincome.com blog.  As Tom reminds us:

There is one thing that you send to your client that is certain to be studied in detail--your bill.  Use it to show professionalism and customer care.  This will convey value and develop the kind of trust that earns you more business and referrals.

I know from my personal experience reviewing the bills of other lawyers that terse, shorthand entries are the ones most likely to be questioned.  Time entries should tell a story about what you were doing, why you were doing and what you found or what you generated.

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David Maister is well-known for his articulation of the concept of "the trusted advisor" and his book by the same title is an absolute must-read for anyone who wishes to develop the closest possible relationship with his or her client.  This book had a profound effect on my approach to my own clients, as it no doubt influenced so many others.

Because the topic is so close to my heart, I read Arnie Herz's post "lawyers as trusted advisors" with great interest.  Arnie writes the insightful legal sanity blog, and his post pulls together a number of important resources on the trusted advisor topic.  While not recent (written waaaaaay back in February), it is a contribution worth rereading.  One of the articles Arnie references contains a nice pyramid diagram of relationship development, starting with Level 1 "commodity work" and ending with Level 4 "trusted advisor."  I wonder how many of us know that we are stuck at Level 3, categorized as "consultative, well thought out advice."  How hard it must be to move up that one spot!  But the bottom line--that 46% of the surveyed executives had not forged this kind of close relationship with a legal advisor--makes it clear that a lot of lawyers have not crossed that critical threshold.  There not only is room for us to be better, but a demand for us to be better too.

What are the reasons so many fail to make that final jump to Level 4, trusted advisors? From the comments made in the article Arnie references, I am left wondering whether the pressure to bill hours is at least one of the culprits. The article talks about the frequency that invoicing issues get in the way of the relationship. Although not expressed, I get the impression that the executives who have that Level 4 relationship with their legal advisors spend more time (and most likely more time off the clock) with their lawyers. It is so very true that face time is great time, especially when it is invested time rather than billed time. I would love to hear what others think about the primary barriers to moving from Level 3 to Level 4.

Thanks to my friend Dan Hull whose post  brought Arnie's piece to my attention. 

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The title is a lie.  There is no such thing as an "American jury."  There are juries from Cook County, Illinois or Los Angeles, California.  From Dothan, Alabama to Union County, West Virginia.  From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.  From Seattle to New York.  And everywhere in between.  Okay, so we all know juries are different.  Big deal.

Its a damn big deal!  Those 12 people are very likely going to reflect the views of the community on issues like globalization.  In the globalization of business, there have been some clear winners and many clear losers among communities where cases are going to be tried.  When you hear talk about "judicial hellholes," you need to remember that most state court judges are elected, and the creation of a "hellhole" is likely to involve the community (juries/voters) as well as judges.  Let's just say that not many businesses of any kind would be anxious to try a case in a town where massive layoffs were announced because another manufacturing facility was moved to China.

This truth creates two significant challenges for trial lawyers.  One is to figure out how to inoculate a jury on this issue--that challenge can be discussed in a different forum.  The second challenge--relevant here--is how to discuss this issue with your client.  While they may be able to lower costs by moving production offshore (or by using illegal immigrant labor, to draw on another critical issue), they need to understand such moves will not help them win popularity contests.  They may want to settle, pay a premium to avoid the risk of a runaway jury.  Or they may want to find a lawyer who has found an answer to question number one.  The lawyer providing great service has to raise this issue and (and this isn't easy)  volunteer to find the right person to handle that issue if he or she is not up to it. (When they talk about putting the client's interests ahead of your firm's, this is an example.) 

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I have previously posted on The Geography Of Great Client Service, so I was pleased to see two terrific posts (here and here) by Matt Homann, author of the invaluable [non]billable hour, on the same topic.   Matt and the authority he cites are right on the money--get out of your office and into your client's office if you want to have the extraordinary level of communications you should aspire to for each client.

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Its hard to be in a service business and not focus considerable attention on the art of listening.  It is, after all, the gateway to your client's soul, and when you are able to communicate at that level, you've gone a long way toward becoming your client's trusted advisor.  See earlier posts here and here.  But there is a big difference between knowing that you should listen and knowing how to do so effectively.  How do you train someone to make great art?

Those interested in improving this critical skill must read Arnie Herz's blog, legal sanity.  Arnie has a great post--"client relations 101: active listening and the art of conversation"--that discusses listening in general, and the concept of active listening in particular.  Among Arnie's suggestions:

 1) Listen 50% more
2) Ask twice as many questions
3) Hold eye contact 50% more
4) Make slight contact, or hold contact slightly longer
5) Show sincere sympathy or enthusiasm for something they say
6) Ask them if there is anything you could help out with

Bravo Arnie.  Great post.  Many thanks to Gerry Riskin for highlighting Arnie's post in his amazing blog, Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices.

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Ed Poll answers with a resounding "NO!"  Ed writes the terrific LawBiz Blog.  His post that "Voice mail is killing you" is a must read.  This topic never bores me.  See my prior posts here and here.  Like many things, voicemail is a tool, neither inherent good or bad.  Used wisely, it is helpful.  Used foolishly, it is anything but.  Read Ed's post again.

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This story illustrates, humorously, why you should proofread your invoices very carefully.

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If hospitals can learn, maybe there's hope for lawyers.

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There is nothing so important as ensuring through every available means that you and your client are on the same page, that what you do is what is expected.  Doesn't this say it all?

Cartoons courtesy of Brand Autopsy (which is worth looking at just to see the brand).

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Eschewing the time-honored maxim of "location, location, location," The Wired GC continues his analysis of the importance (or lack thereof) of office location in a world where most client interaction occurs in the client's office, or at least somewhere other than the lawyer's office.  The post, bearing the sublime title "What Face Means For Place," addresses the question "why do most firms in large cities persist in putting all their people in pricey high-rise space under long-term leases?"  None of the common answers survive The Wired GC's pithy commentary.  The post goes on to suggest some alternatives that no doubt will be the subject of much conversation. 

Here's a statement in the post that every managing partner should memorize:

I'm sure I don't understand all the intricacies of space selection and design of the modern law firm. But when I see firms jockeying for a new "signature" building, and later submitting their interior design to magazines for their annual awards, I know one thing: I've never retained a firm on the basis of its offices. And I have to think that the overhead costs inherent in the current space model are a big driver of higher rates and higher billable hour quotas. And I have decided against retaining more than one firm because of these factors.

Perhaps the driving factors on space should be minimizing cost, maximizing operating efficiency and teamwork and creating a desire to leave the office and go visit clients.

I want to relate one true observation.  The most effective office design I every saw was an open room, where the CEO and Chief Acquisition Officer had the desks in the center of the room, facing each other.  Other desks encircled this power center, with the most junior people being the ones closest to the windows but farthest away from the CEO.  There wasn't much time spent on personal calls or mindlessly surfing the internet.  There was, by contrast, a lot of time spent bouncing ideas off colleagues.  And when meetings needed to be in private, the many conference rooms were utilized.

But to get back to the topic at hand, The Wired GC's point that the price of the law firm's office (location, location, location) becomes a substantial factor in high hourly rates is a truth that cannot be escaped.  I ask this of discerning inside counsel:  Do you ever hold a firm's toney location and expensive offices against them?

And to underscore the point I made yesterday, the right place for meeting your client is your client's office.  Her convenience, not yours.  Your nickel, not his.  Your investment in the relationship.  Your chance to learn more about her business and the demands on her time.  Your chance to figure out more ways to help.  Its all about the client, not your trendy offices with the expensive artwork.

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Great post by The Wired GC on the importance of face time with  your clients.  He sums up an article from the New York Times about the role of telecommuting during the recent transit strike.  The article took the approach of talking about the importance of face-to-face meetings, which prompted The Wired GC to make this important observation:

In the law firm environment, it is common for some partners and very common for some associates to have never personally met a long-term client. I feel that if a lawyer ever wants to move up the trust food chain with a client, you have to supplement good service and high value with a personal relationship. With a personal relationship, you are less likely to be thrown into this year's beauty contest with other commodity-type service providers.

And it may go without saying-visit your client on their home turf. I have heard some lawyers complain that they are "too busy to travel" or "can't bill for client relations time". My answers: (a) you will have plenty of time to travel when your clients drift away and (b) you can't bill for any time when you don't have a client in the first place.

To this I can only add two things.  First, this observation is consistent with my own personal experience: the more time I spend with my clients, the better and the more work I seem to get.  Second, the observation is consistent with feedback we get from clients when we do client satisfaction surveys--clients want face time with their lawyers.

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Dan Hull has an interesting addition to his rules of good client service. The post is entitled "Over-Communicate": Bombard, Copy and Confirm." The gist of Dan's message is not at as far-reaching as the statement of the rule.  Noting that the rule has "obvious exceptions," Dan articulates what I think is the core of the rule: know what your client wants and provide it to him or her.

There is a danger of "bombarding" clients with communications.  Frequently, clients are paying you to be exercise judgment about what they need to hear or read and what they don't need to hear or read.  The more important the issue, the more your client needs to know.  My formulation of this "rule": No surprises.  And they best way to avoid surprises is to have an on-going dialogue with your clients where you ask if he or she wants to be involved with an issue, kept apprised to simply advised at its conclusion. 

Bear in mind that sometimes the rules change.  For example, if your client, the General Counsel, is involved in a major acquisition, she may not want to be advised at the same level of detail simply because she doesn't have the time to read everything she otherwise would.  Talk about it from time to time.  Its the best way.

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Good writing is good writing.  Or is it.  Dan Hull had a terrific post on how we write for our clients.   I posted a comment, suggesting good writing knew no venue, and it shouldn't matter whether the writing was a pleading or a letter.  Or, as I just posted, an invoice.  Communications are effective when they are clear, concise and direct.

Dan has just responded to my comment with another very thoughtful post.  In this post, he notes that the norm in many courts is to use enough legalese to fill a truck.  After considering the value of piecemeal change, he issues this challenge to himself and the rest of us: 

"Doesn't changing legal writing to just clear and simple writing come down to to leadership? Maybe I should start setting a better example. Why not buck the traditions 100%--whether it's writing to courts, to clients or to other lawyers--and never use those expressions again? Ever."

That sound you hear coming from my office is loud clapping.  A standing ovation for Dan.  Hooray!  I will be with you every step of the way.

Actually, a confession.  I practice in a lot of different states. I can't remember all the terms some courts get their kicks from.  I don't know what a demurrer is, but I do know what a motion to dismiss is.  So I use words I know.  A simple mind yields simple writing.  I'm lucky in that respect.

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Dan Hull recently had a nice post about writing for clients in his What About Clients blawg.  As I sit here reviewing several bills (I am national counsel and review local counsel invoices), I see entries like "analytical review of of plaintiff's threshold information".  What does that mean?  Should we contrast this review from a "non-analytical review"?  What is threshold information?  With entries like this, how can I advise our client that these bills are meaningful and reasonable?  It drives me crazy.  And if it drives me crazy, I'm sure it would be driving the client crazy.

Invoices are a communication device.  They market you and your firm to the client.  Prepare time entries as if you really give a damn what the client thinks about you and what you are doing.  Even if you don't care, pretend.

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My December American Lawyer arrived today.  As I always do, I turned to Aric Press' column.  Aric is the Editor-in-Chief of American Lawyer.  If there is anyone more attuned to the state of the profession, I would be surprised.  Aric's column is about the results the survey of the Am Law 200.  One of the questions asked this year was about the number of firms that lamented their loss of associates.  Aric writes:

The days when associates would hang around confident that they would snare a partnership are long gone -- and are not coming back.  Now may who linger stay only until their student loans are under control, and then they map a quick exit.  Firms complain bitterly that these young lawyers are leaving before the firms can fully recoup their investments in them.  They have no one to blame but themselves.  The profitability model is built on churn, and even the cream resent getting battered into butter.

Great prose (a hallmark of Aric's column) but very insightful as well (another hallmark).  Large firms losing associates need to look in a mirror.  Otherwise, its like the rancher opening the barn door and then complaining that the horses are running out the door. 

But my mission here is not to tell large firms how to run themselves--its to talk about client service.  There is no mistaking the significant role associates play on most matters.  Clients need to ask themselves whether they want to create teams where integral players are looking for the exit.  At what cost to the client is the associate's departure?

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I've written about listening before. But it is of fundamental importance that every good post on the topic needs to be highlighted.  Tom Kane over The Legal Marketing Blog has just such a post.  Some great thoughts on how to handle face to face client meetings:

- Tell your staff person to hold all calls (if there are exceptions, let client know up front),
- Let client know they have your full, uninterrupted attention (except as noted),
- Look at the client while they talk,
- Take notes, and frequently summarize your understanding of what client said, and
- At the conclusion of meeting, ask client if there is anything they want to say or ask - then pause for a period of time to give them a chance to respond.

I especially liked this advice, about something said by Jay Foonberg:  "As his father told him, with two ears and one mouth, you should listen twice as much as you speak. Good advice."

My question for law firms is this:  When a skill is so demonstrably important to your business, why do you fail to provide training on how to do it better?

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I love finding examples of jargon-ese.  You know what I mean.  Its where a firm decides that it needs to use all of the big words some consultant suggested would be an excellent way for the firm to distinguish itself.  Check out this post from Guerrilla Consulting.   I need to write this carefully, because it is not Guerrilla Consulting that missteps here, but rather it is the place that reports the example that I wanted to pass along.  Anyway, as reported in Guerrilla Consulting, here it is:

"Our expertise in On Demand Business can help you cope with an ultradynamic marketplace by developing an innovation-driven strategy which increases agility as it blunts commoditization. We can even help you better execute your strategy in play."

This violates the first two rules of client communications.  (What are those rules?  1.  Simple.  2. Honest.)

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"We've got a really good chance of winning the lawsuit," the lawyer tells his in-house lawyer-client.  Asked by the CEO to put a number on what that means, the inside lawyer reports an 8 in 10 chance of winning.  Great, except that the outside lawyer meant a 4 in 10 chance of winning.  Significant?  You bet, especially when making decisions to settle and at what price.

How unrealistic is this scenario?  Several years ago, I attended a seminar about using decision-trees to improve valuation of cases.  Marc Victor asked the audience to write down in numerical form what various "lawyerisms" meant.  "Good chance" produced a range of from 40 to 80 percent.  Other non-numerical assessment terms produced similar ranges.

What's the moral of this anecdote?  You owe it to your client to communicate precisely what you mean in a manner that allows your client to understand precisely what you are saying.  It does neither of you any good to have such gaps in understanding.  Speaking precisely avoids the trap of using "wiggle-words" to give yourself an "out" later if things don't work out as you suggest.  But remember that if you say you have a 70 percent chance of winning, that still means you expect to lose 3 of every 10 times.  Indeed, as a proponent that visual communication is a superior form of communication for most people, try using a wheel that illustrate by color contrast what 70 percent means.  But however you accomplish it, don't let your client be thinking 80 percent when you mean 40.

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TURN YOUR BLACKBERRY OFF!  My informal survey of 4 clients suggests that lawyers who don't turn their blackberrys off (phones too) may soon be without clients.  Do we need to talk about this in terms of basic manners.  It is rude to be in a meeting with someone and not giving them your attention.  It is worse when that person is paying you.

We joke about people becoming "crackberry" addicts, but it is a sad truth.  One lawyer I know refuses to use a blackberry, but instead got a Verizon wireless card for his computer and signed up for national broadband service.  He swears by it.  I tried it.  So far (after two weeks of traveling), I haven't found anyplace it doesn't work.  So I don't get my email real time, but I get it soon enough.

That's my view.

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Let me begin with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare for my post title.

Very interest post on c/net about how often the average worker is interrupted by phone calls, emails, IMs or other distractions.  Since it takes about 8 uninterrupted minutes for the average person to get their brain in a creative state, the significance of the interruptions is pretty apparent.  And Geoffrey Gussis at Inhouse Blog has a nice way of referring his inhouse readers to a blog that discusses the research: "Head over to take a look if you have time to spare after checking your email, voicemail (at home, at work and on your cellphone), glancing at your BlackBerry, answering IMs and reviewing the faxes that were sent to your email and also delivered on paper in your office."

Here's the lesson for outside counsel:  Do you consciously choose the least intrusive method of communicating with your clients given the significance of what you are communicating?  Phone calls are the most distracting and should be used only when you really need to interrupt your client.  Of course, the converse is never true-your client should call you whenever (client conversations are a gift).  Emails can be ignored until a client is ready to look at them.  Just remember, your interruptions had better be worth the cost.  And for clients, there is no cost to the interruption, which is always welcome.

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Although not written for lawyers or about the legal profession, Tom Peters' blog had a great entry today about productive use of meeting time.  As lawyers, we spend our time in many meetings, some with clients and some about clients, that is, meetings for which a client is paying us.  Meetings can seem endless and many don't product results.  The entry, posted by Cathy Mosca, contains this noteworthy statement:

" It seems to me that the currency of work is conversation-in person, telephonic, electronic-and we're all trying to manage this conversation. Meetings are an attempt at a structured form of live conversation. If so, how they're set up and conducted can make all the difference. And given the resources tied up in meetings, they should produce results. How are meetings in YOUR business conducted? "

Interesting question?  Another one is what obligation we have to use our time more efficiently.  Agendas and preparation should be the norm, but rarely seem to be.

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I was having lunch with a close friend the other day.  He's now the Managing Partner of a pretty large, well-established, regional law firm.  He was telling me a story about how he went to dinner with the CEO and General Counsel of a client he had just won a case for, and the CEO remarked that the firm had represented the company for all seven years the CEO had been in that position, and in that time, no one from the firm leadership had ever called him or gone to dinner with him. My friend rightly indicated that things were changing.

That story led to a discussion about client service surveys, which my former firm was doing n the 1990s and which Butler Rubin (my current firm) has been doing since I joined in 2000. These meetings are a unique chance to find out how things are going, to talk about real or potential problems, to find out what others are doing to impress your client, and to learn about the client's developing needs.  The right environment needs to exist for these interviews to be useful and popular-we convinced everyone that criticism is not to be feared.  It is an opportunity to do something better.  Not responding to criticism-or not seeking it out-were both significant problems however.

My friend's firm is planning to do client satisfaction surveys.  Now that they have taken their heads out of the sand, I think they will be impressed with the value of the surveys.  I know my friend's leadership will make them a more formidable firm. But I am left to wonder why so many firms, particularly large firms, don't really dig into their relationships with clients to find out how to deepen them.  I am always left with the vision of the poor ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

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