2017 NSBA Annual Meeting 

 

        

Ethics Seminar with Roy Ginsburg Retain Your Clients: 

A Roadmap to Effective, Ethical Client Service    

Roy Ginsburg ‐ Nationally‐Renowned  Lawyer Coach and Attorney 

  

 

   

October 11, 2017 Embassy Suites La Vista 

   

NSBA Annual Meeting Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Ethics with Roy Ginsburg – Retain Your Clients

Roy Ginsburg’s blog posts for presentations

http://www.royginsburg.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/187/2014/11/cle_article_4.pdf

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/business-development/2017/01/23/revenue-v-profits-dont-forget-

bottom-line/

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/practice-management/2013/07/16/clients-satisfied-ask/

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/practice-management/2013/06/05/show-care-reception-area-

reading/

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/practice-management/2013/05/15/client-service-happy-clients-can-

set-lawyers-apart/

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/business-development/2012/06/11/lawyer-like-barber/

http://www.royginsburg.com/blog/practice-management/2012/05/17/lawyers-beware-low-billing-

rates/

https://www.royginsburg.com/blog/legal-marketing-ethics/2017/04/07/want-avoid-ethics-complaints-

follow-three-service-tenets-satisfied-clients/

Vol. 63, No. 3 | March 2006

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Focusing on Client Service

Lawyers tend to forget that law is a service industry. Clients have a myriad of choices for their legal representation. By focusing on client service, lawyers can better retain current clients, gain more referrals,

and minimize the risk of ethics complaints.

By Roy S. Ginsburg

If you ask attorneys whether their clients are satisfied, most would, of course, say yes. If you then ask them “What makes you so sure?” the responses would typically range from “They don’t complain” to “They’re nice to me” to “They pay their bills” to “They continue to do business with us.” But statistics indicate otherwise. Such client behavior hardly translates into satisfaction:

• In 2005, a national consulting firm polled Fortune 1000 clients to determine client satisfaction. Only 30 percent of clients said they would recommend their primary law firm.1

• The obvious disconnect between lawyer perception and client reality is supported by a recent Corporate Legal Times survey. When asked to respond to the statement, “The level of law firm service has improved over the past five years,” 75 percent of the lawyers responding said yes, but only 35 percent of the general counsels responding agreed.2

• Customer satisfaction surveys in all industries indicate that only about 4 percent of customers receiving poor service will actually complain.3 Don’t assume that the figure is any different for the legal industry.

Why don’t clients complain? In the legal industry, the percentage who complain may be even less than in other fields. Clients are often intimidated by their lawyers, and, as a result, they wouldn’t think of complaining. People don’t often express their discontent. Think about the times you have been out to a restaurant and received lousy food or service. How often have you complained to the manager? Most of the

time, you don’t bother — you just never return.

Can you conclude that the clients who are “nice” to you are, indeed, satisfied? When you practice in a state where everybody is purported to be “nice,” don’t be lulled into thinking that clients are as satisfied as you think.

Lawyers also assume that timely bill payment reflects client satisfaction. That’s hardly an accurate assessment. Most of us likely pay our cell phone bills on time, and yet we could probably write a book about ways that cell phone companies could improve their service.

Finally, many attorneys believe that clients who continue to do business with them must be satisfied. Why else would they keep coming back? Reasonable assumption? Yes, but wrong in many instances. Consider the cell phone company example again. Reasons we don’t switch range from laziness, to lack of time to research other companies, to assuming competitors are no different. While service may not be good, it isn’t awful. One of two things could make us switch: either an instance of horrendous service or learning that a competitor is offering a significantly better deal. The customer who is looking for an excuse to stop doing business eventually may find it. Your clients are no different. Many are waiting either for something noticeably better down the street or for you to make a colossal mistake.

Importance of Client Service

Two hundred attorneys from the largest 1000 law firms were recently asked, “If you could offer someone advice on how to be a successful lawyer five years from now, which areas would you recommend they improve?” Forty-three percent responded that focusing on client service was most critical to success. Client service was the area most frequently identified for improvement, and was mentioned more than twice as often as the next two most popular responses, specializing in one’s practice area and networking.4

Client service is the most critical component in maintaining client satisfaction for several compelling reasons: it sharpens your competitive edge, keeps your focus on controlling what you can control, and helps you avoid common ethics complaints.

Achieving the Competitive Edge

Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines both have great reputations for customer service. But can you name a law firm with a great reputation

for client service? Didn’t think so. Law firms certainly have reputations, but they are usually built on such things as their expertise or aggressiveness — not how well they serve their clients.

Lawyers tend to overestimate the importance of their expertise and competence as their competitive edge. This is especially true in the corporate world. The reality is that the majority of law firms representing corporate America do very good work. If my own experience as an in-house corporate attorney is any guide, those who hire outside counsel rarely, if ever, worry about the competency of the attorneys they retain, and their confidence is usually well-placed. However, the type of service outside counsel will provide is a recurrent concern. Will they be responsive? Keep me informed? Keep the matter moving along? Bill the company reasonably? Treat me like I wanted to be treated? As one who routinely hired outside counsel, I rarely had complete confidence in these matters. If I did have complete confidence in a firm, they would continue to receive my business.

For any lawyer seeking to develop new business, a critical challenge is to distinguish oneself from the competition. What better way to do that than by emphasizing how you serve your clients? Lawyers who are technical experts are a dime a dozen; lawyers who provide extraordinary client service are few and far between.

Controlling What You Can

While the workings of the law may remain a mystery to clients, they can judge lawyers based on three things: results, outputs and service.

“Results” means simply “Did we win?” or “Did the deal close?” But how much control do lawyers have over these matters? Very little. While advocacy skills can certainly make a difference in litigation, most cases are won or lost based on the facts and the law — factors over which lawyers have little control. Even the best corporate lawyer may not be able to close a transaction if a party’s unreasonable demand blows up a deal.

“Outputs” are the work produced by lawyers. Examples include briefs or contracts. Few clients carefully review a lawyer’s briefs. And even if they do, it’s highly unlikely that they know the difference between a good brief and bad one. As for contracts, even fewer clients wax ecstatic over the wording of an indemnification clause. The fact of the matter is most clients, even sophisticated in-house counsel, either don’t have the time or the expertise to intelligently evaluate your work product.

“Service” is another matter. Lawyers have abundant control over whether they return a phone call within a reasonable amount of time, and clients can readily evaluate whether the lawyer was responsive. Lawyering involves many things that are beyond an attorney’s control, as well the exercise of skills that clients cannot evaluate. Why not take full advantage of the one thing you can control and clients fully understand?

Avoiding Ethics Complaints

In Minnesota, a significant percentage of ethics complaints relate to service issues.5 Within the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct, four rules govern most of the service-related aspects of the lawyer-client relationship. The first is Rule 1.2 — Scope of Representation. Here the common complaint is “Why didn’t you do what I asked you to do? The second rule is Rule 1.3 — Diligence. Here, clients complain “Why is this taking so long?” The third rule is Rule 1.4 — Communication. Clients want to know “What is going on?” Finally, there’s Rule 1.5 — Fees. The complaint here is “Why did this cost so much?”

Establishing an excellent working relationship with clients goes a long way toward avoiding these types of complaints. In this respect, lawyers are no different from other service providers. The reason their clients stay with them, despite the possibility that someone else could do a better job and for less money, is because of the relationship. If you like them, trust them, and believe that they care about you and will do their best for you, you are unlikely to look for an alternative. These are the precise reasons why clients keep coming back to their lawyer.

Managing Clients’ Expectations

What’s the secret to establishing great relationships with clients? Manage, and at times, exceed their expectations. Whenever involved in a matter, clients have certain expectations regarding the situation. Successful lawyers ascertain those expectations, communicate and negotiate which expectations are realistic and which are not. Then they proceed to satisfy, or better yet, exceed those expectations. They also check in with the clients throughout the course of the representation to make sure their expectations are being satisfied. Client expectations are fluid and the lawyer must carefully perceive the movements. Most clients won’t complain when something disappoints them, but they won’t easily forget either.

Clients’ expectations can be broken down into four key areas, each of

which the lawyer must manage in order to keep the client satisfied:

• Quality • Timeliness • Price and Billing • Personal Interaction

Ultimately, the lawyer will be judged in all of these areas. By the time the matter is concluded, the client will walk away with a “feeling” that the entire experience was either satisfactory or not, based on how well their expectations were handled.

Quality

Quality consists of two components. The first is process, which covers how easy it is to do business with the lawyer. Process-type items that may be important to clients include: How convenient is parking? Is there something to read in the reception area? Are bills easy to understand? Does the lawyer who needs to review client documents make an extra effort to assist the client in gathering them up? In short, are the lawyer’s processes as user-friendly as possible?

The second component of quality is the outcome. One of the most challenging aspects of being a lawyer is communicating to clients what you think the result will be. Most lawyers overestimate the importance of the outcome as a factor in determining client satisfaction. While clients are obviously concerned about outcomes, client satisfaction is determined far more by how well the attorney manages the client’s expectation of the outcome, rather than the outcome itself.

Attorneys tend to fall into one of two camps: cheerleaders or Chicken Littles. The cheerleaders tell a client what they want to hear. In many instances, they end up with a very disappointed client when the bad result comes in. Chicken Littles tell their clients every conceivable reason why the matter may not turn out to the client’s satisfaction. Attorneys do this because they believe that the client, if adequately forewarned, won’t blame them for a bad result. The problem with this approach is that no one wants to hire a lawyer to tell them all of the ways the matter can go wrong. Clients want lawyers with a can-do attitude. The best lawyers combine the roles of cheerleaders and Chicken Littles. They consistently convey a positive and supportive outlook, temper it with realistic expectations, and know how to deliver unfavorable news. It is an art and a science that few do well.

Timeliness

Anyone who calls someone and leaves a telephone message, including a lawyer’s client, has an expectation of when the call will be returned. Do you know what your client’s expectation is? Have you thought to ask? If you don’t ask, how can you successfully manage their expectation? People’s expectations regarding others’ response to email are similar. No matter how busy we are, under most circumstances, with the technology available today, there is no excuse for failing to get back to a client on the same day a call or email is received. When necessary, a voicemail or email in the evening, acknowledging receipt of the message and letting the client know when they can expect a response, will suffice. It’s a common courtesy that all clients deserve.

Price and Billing

A recent survey by Corporate Legal Times indicated, unsurprisingly, that billing issues are the number one source of friction with corporate clients. But a startling statistic from that same survey indicated that 35 percent of the general counsels believed that law firms padded their bills.6 In others words, over a third thought that major corporate law firms were literally stealing from them. That’s a pretty sad commentary about our profession.

There is obviously a serious communication gap between lawyers and clients regarding fees. Many lawyers feel uncomfortable discussing fees and either simply state their hourly rate or that they work on a contingency fee basis. Rarely do lawyers explain to clients the value of the service being provided. Clients will have far fewer complaints about high fees if they have a better understanding of what their lawyer is trying to accomplish and why certain tasks are necessary. An up-to-date budget, provided to the client on a regular basis, can promote better understanding. Few things upset clients more with respect to fees than a monthly bill that has unanticipated fees on it. That can be avoided with proper communication. If something takes longer than anticipated, the client should be informed at the time the work is being done, not when the bill is sent out weeks later. Here again, managing the expectation is key.

Personal Interaction

Finally, there are the interpersonal skills of the lawyer. Treating the client as they want to be treated — courteously, respectfully, reliably, and with due appreciation for their business — is so important it can’t be overstated. The client may find a mistake here unforgivable and take their business elsewhere. The client who overlooks inconvenient parking, forgives a loss in litigation that was foreseen and forewarned, brushes off late return of a phone call, and takes a higher-than-

anticipated bill in stride is unlikely to respond well to a personal slight. The attorney who is rude, doesn’t listen, or isn’t reliable will lose many clients. Why? Because clients take those things personally.

Conclusion

In sum, successful lawyers integrate excellent client service as a component of their practices, gaining a competitive edge and significantly reducing the possibility of an ethics complaint. Those who may think, “I don’t have time for all this stuff; I only have time to practice law,” should consider the truth, that all of this “stuff” is part of the practice of law.

Notes 1 BTI Consulting Group, Strategic Review and Outlook for the Legal Services Industry 2006.

2 Corporate Legal Times, July 2005, p. 37.

3 Petra Marquart, The Power of Service: Keeping Customers for Life. Ouray, CO: Ponderosa Press, 1998, p. 8.

4 Survey reported by Robert Half Legal, January 11, 2006 press release.

5 The Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board codes each complaint it receives into one of over 50 categories covering a wide variety of subject areas. Complaints coded in service-related areas (e.g., Communication, Diligence, Fees) comprise over 25 percent of the total complaints received by the Board from October 2004 - October 2005. Since many complaints include multiple allegations, but are only coded for only one allegation, the Board estimates the total percentage of complaints with a service-related issue to be almost half.

6 Corporate Legal Times, August 2005, p. 14.

ROY S. GINSBURG is an attorney coach and CLE provider, consulting in areas of business development and professional growth. He has experience at both large and small law firms, in corporate legal departments, and as a solo practitioner. www.royginsburg.com

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January 23rd, 2017

I recently worked with a successful small law firm owner with a niche practice. His book of business supported

him and one associate. So far so good. But, the firm also employed another associate whose focus was in a

completely different practice area. That area was completely unrelated to and lacking synergies with the firm’s

niche.

I asked the owner about this additional practice area. Here’s how our conversation went.

Me: “Why bother with the other practice area at all?”

Owner: “Well, it provides added revenue.”

Me: “But, are you making money?”

Owner: “I doubt it.”

“I doubt it,” indeed.” A simple look at the P & L indicated that the second associate’s salary approximated the

revenue from this lawyer. Throw in the overhead apportioned to the associate, and the practice area that the

owner “doubted” was making money was, in fact, losing money.

This lawyer fell into the trap that all-sized firms frequently do. They mistakenly believe the holy grail finance

metric to be revenue.

But if you ask anyone working in corporate America what the key finance metric is, you will hear one thing

only: profitability. After all, what’s the point of revenue unless you actually make money for your efforts?

How did the legal profession get there? Here’s my educated guess.

Revenue is easy to measure. But, measuring profitability can get a bit too complicated for most lawyers. For

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instance, properly allocating expenses is an art and a science that few lawyers want to tackle. Lawyers love to

keep score, however, so they turned to revenue as the easiest means to do that. This leaves little to debate

when adding up the numbers from invoices paid. The debates increase greatly when it comes to measuring

profitability, though. How do you apportion overhead expenses, such as office rent or the salary of a

secretary?

The only reason to keep an unprofitable practice area in existence is when doing such work more or less acts

as a loss leader for far more profitable work at the firm. For example:

The unprofitable work sustains the relationship from a firm client who brings in lots of other very

profitable work.

The work is a significant source of referrals.

Remember to measure whether the added profits for services derived from the unprofitable practice exceeds

the losses sustained by the unprofitable practice.

And for those of you who think that it is somehow OK to do work that simply breaks even, let’s revisit the client

I discussed above. We will generously assume the other practice doesn’t make or lose money. Even so, it is

still a terrible idea to continue on.

Consider the amount of the owner’s time and support staff’s time managing that practice. With that practice

area eliminated, the owner could regain time for either billing or working on business development for the

profitable niche practice area. Either strategy will increase the firm’s bottom line, thereby increasing its

profitability.

Categories: Business DevelopmentI hired Roy to help me put together a marketing plan. He did a great job advising me onhow to prioritize my efforts. The results have been fantastic. When I started working withRoy almost two years ago, my book of business was virtually nothing. No…" Read therest– Partner, mid-sized Milwaukee, WI law firmRead more from our clients

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Blog Index

Succession Planning Scenarios for Solos & Small Law Firm OwnersHow to Retain Clients When a Lawyer Retires: Plan for the Skill GapThe ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ Marketing PlanPreparing Your Practice for Sale? Don’t Do Stupid S**t.10 Questions to Answer When Creating Your Law Firm Strategic Marketing PlanWant to Avoid Ethics Complaints? Follow These Three Service Tenets for SatisfiedClientsSuccession Planning: Don’t Delay Identifying New LeadersAppraising a Law Firm for a Buy-In: CPA’s Need Not ApplyRevenue v. Profits: Don’t Forget the Bottom LineEmail Networking Invitations: What Should You Say?A Rule of Thumb for Valuing a Law Practice Is Not to Use the Rule of ThumbShould Your Career Expire When Your Lease Does?Lawyers Must Make Room for the FutureSuccessful Networkers Follow UpPut Networking into Perspective

See our complete Blog Index.

Email: roy@royginsburg.com Phone: (612) 812-4500 Toll-Free: (888) 212-8138 Fax:(612) 224-9364

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July 16th, 2013

Most lawyers are quite sure that their clients are satisfied. If you ask them why they are so sure, the most

likely response is, "I just know they are." Well, how do they know?

Continue reading this post at www.lawyernomics.avvo.com

Categories: Practice Management

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June 5th, 2013

Leo's post last month complaining about opposing counsel's failure to provide coffee and snacks reminded me

of my biggest pet peeve when visiting a law office – a lack of decent reading material. Most law firms forget

that their reception area is a component of its client service. What kinds of materials does your law firm

provide for clients cooling their heels in your reception or waiting area? Most firms underestimate the

importance of reading material, and therefore fall short.

Continue reading this post at www.lawyerist.com

Categories: Practice Management

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May 15th, 2013

It's not always easy to convince lawyers that they should care more about client service. Too many genuinely

believe their legal expertise is paramount—the only thing that truly matters when establishing their law

practice's reputation. But lawyers should not underestimate the impact of how they treat their clients: It's the

only part of the lawyer-client experience that we can control, and the only thing that can be accurately

evaluated and appreciated by any client.

Continue reading this post on www.attorneyatwork.com

Categories: Practice Management

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June 11th, 2012

When it gets right down to it, what lawyers do is all about clients. Those wonderful, awful, charming, annoying,

challenging and gratifying people who actually pay you to do your work. So we are declaring it "This Business

of Clients" week here at Attorney at Work. You will receive some new and some of our best encore posts this

week, designed to give you and your desk-side manner a quick refocus. Good for you. Good for them. First

up? Roy Ginsburg and the guy who cuts his hair.

Continue reading this post on attorneyatwork.com

Categories: Business Development, Practice Management

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May 17th, 2012

Lawyers bill too little for two reasons. First, they believe that a lower fee will yield more clients. Alternatively,

especially when they represent individuals and small business owners, lawyers feel sorry for their clients and

end up billing what they think the client can pay — not what the lawyer is worth.

Continue reading this post at www.lawyerist.com

Categories: Practice Management

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April 7th, 2017

Unhappy clients often choose to file ethics complaints against their poor-performing lawyers. What leads to

their unhappiness? It may come as a surprise, but most ethics complaints are not about incompetence.

Instead, most complaints revolve around basic customer service expectations. They involve issues that, even

without specific ethics rules in place, would make any reasonable person agree the lawyer should be

disciplined.

I submit to you that if you follow these three simple behaviors, you will avoid most potential ethics complaints:

Listen to what the client wants.

Don’t delay doing what the client wants.

Communicate with the client about your progress along the way.

LISTEN

When you agree to represent a client, it seems fairly obvious that you ought to know what the client is hiring

you to do. For whatever reason, regulators felt the need to put these obvious obligations in writing.

ABA Model Rule 1.2, concerning “Scope of Representation,” states that “a lawyer shall abide by a client’s

decisions concerning the objectives of representation.”

If you don’t listen to your client’s objectives, chances are good the client will not be happy with the end result.

Further, you will not be happy when that client later files an ethics complaint.

DON’T DELAY

The buzzword here is diligence.

Rule 1.3, titled “Diligence,” provides that a “lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence.”

You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand this statement. Just get it done. After all, that’s what you’ve been

hired to do

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You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand this statement. Just get it done. After all, that’s what you’ve been

hired to do.

PROVIDE UPDATES

If you’re a movie buff, you’ll likely recall the famous remark by the prison guard to inmate Paul Newman in

“Cool Hand Luke”: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Under Rule 1.4, titled “Communications,” lawyers have a duty not to fail in the area of communication. More

specifically, lawyers must “keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter.”

You should not feel it a burden to keep your clients up to speed about the progress of their legal matters.

They’ve hired you to do your job; let them know that you’re doing it.

Following these three basic rules should keep you out of trouble. Moreover, your chances of having satisfied

clients improve exponentially. And satisfied clients lead to more work from those clients, more referrals, and a

stronger practice. Who doesn’t want that?

Categories: Legal Marketing Ethics

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