![\"customer-service2\"](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/customer-service2-150x150.jpg\" "\\"customer-service2\\"")
Client service is not a class taught in law schools, but don’t forget that client service is at the heart of what we do as lawyers. Our mandate as attorneys is to zealously (and ethically, of course) represent our clients. So whatever area of the law you are in or going into, don’t forget that you are less a litigator, for example, than a service provider. After all, no client, no case to litigate, or will to draft, or deal to do.<\/p>\n
Truth be told, it’s not easy to keep client service in mind.\u00a0 We think of ourselves as practitioners of the law–and we are–and we often want to do things in the way we see as “right” or interesting or novel. When I say “right” I’m talking about your professional opinion about the way things ought to be done, not an ethical or moral rectitude. But sometimes our clients don’t want or need things done the way you or I think they ought to be done. Sometimes clients want interesting or novel thinking, and sometimes they don’t. That’s when it can be difficult to remember that your job is to serve your client and not simply to practice law by your own lights.<\/p>\n
Consider a poignant example. I recently sat in a room with one of my company’s outside counsel who is handling a large litigation for us.\u00a0 She enjoyed telling me the story about defending one of her first big cases in which damages to her client could have been in the range of several tens of millions of dollars. The case settled for closer to ten million, and her client celebrated the result. She thought the client had gone insane: who celebrates losing ten million dollars, and not clearing their good name in court to boot?\u00a0 But her feelings demonstrate\u00a0the disconnect between a then-less-seasoned attorney and her client. She wanted to try the case and score a “win”; the client wanted to minimize risk and expense, and believed that settling the case for a fraction of the potential damages was the way to achieve that goal.\u00a0 She did not have a good understanding of her client’s view of the world, nor of her client’s goals at the time.\u00a0 If she had, she would\u00a0have celebrated the “win” with the client rather than doubting the client’s sanity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Talk to your clients. Understand their goals. Discuss various ways to achieve those goals. Realize that your client may desire a result or a way of getting to that result that is not what you would have chosen. Then go out and deliver what your client\u00a0asked for. You’ll find this to be\u00a0a successful\u00a0 business model (gasp!).\u00a0 Lawyers are notoriously bad business persons, but\u00a0at a minimum we should be good listeners. And if listening leads to action and good communication between you and your client, you’ll find that your legal practice\u00a0is ultimately more successful and more fulfilling. If you don’t listen to your clients, you may find that you don’t have much law to practice.<\/p>\n
This is not to suggest that you should avoid\u00a0communicating frankly with your clients when their expectations are out of whack. Quite the opposite. You are the professional, and the subject matter expert. But sometimes clients tell us their goals and we go right to the list of reasons why those goals can’t be achieved. Before you do that, take a moment to think outside of the box. Can you do something differently, or approach the problem in a different way, in order to deliver results for your client?\u00a0 Talk it over; think it over; be creative and thoughtful. And once you’ve looked at the problem from all sides, communicate with your client about realistic expectations.<\/p>\n
One final thought on client service: win the easy ones (as a certain Marquette University Law School Dean likes to say). If your client has a deadline, meet it. If your client wants the work product to be in a certain form, make it so. If your client wants to be updated on a specific schedule, then update them accordingly. You’d be surprised–or perhaps you wouldn’t–how many lawyers fail miserably at these very simple tasks. When you can’t deliver on these basic requests, when\u00a0clearly communicated to you by your client, why should anyone think that you can deliver good work on more complicated tasks?\u00a0 Win the easy ones and you’re 90% of the way towards\u00a0making your clients happy.\u00a0 Remember, lawyers provide service, we don’t just practice law. Act accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Client service is not a class taught in law schools, but don’t forget that client service is at the heart of what we do as lawyers. Our mandate as attorneys is to zealously (and ethically, of course) represent our clients. So whatever area of the law you are in or going into, don’t forget that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-ethics","category-legal-practice","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}