Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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Even if it’s been a few years since you’ve paged through a copy of Robert Southey’s children’s tale of Goldilocks & the Three Bears you probably recall the little girl Goldilocks who stumbles through the forest into the home of three bears. Goldilocks proceeds to try the 3 bowls of porridge, the 3 chairs, and the 3 beds, eventually settling on the one that was JUST RIGHT!

Two of my current active cases and the opposing lawyers in those cases has got me thinking about what’s “Just Right” when balancing the speed/thoroughness continuum in providing legal services. On the one hand there’s the case where we’ve been waiting 5 months to get a couple of lien releases so my client can proceed with a mortgage refinance. Five months ago the opposing lawyer said she’d agree to a compromise payment in return for the lien releases…5 months later NOTHING (Granted, the lawyer can surely change her mind but she’s consistently said that she’ll take the payoff in exchange for the release of liens & yet we wait). At the other extreme is a case that should be a ho-hum negotiated dissolution of marriage. Meaning, there’s general agreement about child custody arrangements and property settlement but settlement documents still must be prepared and perfected which typically take a couple months between 2-3 drafts, letters back-and-forth, plus a client meeting or two.  Yet in this case the lawyer shoots off harried & sloppy letters with grammatical errors and issues left unaddressed. And even more annoyingly he includes these false deadlines at end of his letters with threats like “if you don’t respond by Friday then we’re going after you’re client’s retirement accounts.” So there’s too fast/sloppy and there’s the glacially slow (or never).

How ’bout JUST RIGHT?

Thoroughness & Attention to Detail Should be Your Calling Card (Trumps Speed). As a non-criminal attorney 2 keys for me as a lawyer are making sure every word is correct and every issue is covered. Simple, but not always easy when you’re dealing with thousands of words. Completing work in a timely fashion isn’t something to be ignored but personally with the exception of real estate transactions, deadlines are mostly self-imposed or surely court deadlines when hearings/trials approach are critical but our court system doesn’t move too fast now does it. And if you’re hourly billing more thoroughness equals more money too!

It’s the Communication, Stupid! I attended a great seminar yesterday put on by the ISBA entitled Presenting with Excellence put on by Steve Hughes of Hit Your Stride. Steve gave some great hints about learning styles, physical learning environments, PowerPoint, and verbal/non-verbal delivery. Of course the 1 word seminar title:  COMMUNICATION. It was kind of funny speaking to the guy sitting next to me as we hearkened on about how sooooo many issues from marriage to politics to darn near all that we do professionally as lawyers in some way relates back to simple communication. And while each lawyer and client has their own personal expectations that vary greatly across the public spectrum that can’t all be known, the Goldilocks Lawyer focuses on consistent GREAT COMMUNICATION.

Your Credibility & Reputation Depend on It. Because what would you think about the 2 lawyers mentioned above if you’re the opposing lawyer/client or if you’re their client? Personally I abhor the lawyer who is sloppy and falsely threatening…he’s creating more work due to sloppiness and angering everyone involved. Being a slow & thorough lawyer isn’t a bad thing, that’s just a communication problem. Just tell everyone what’s going on & why. I was on a flight a couple years ago that was delayed for a long time and eventually we were put on a whole other plane due to a mechanical problem. Yet the passengers were constantly communicated to, various snacks were constantly provided, and the airline was honest and really do you want to get out quickly on a damaged aircraft? Conversely, just last week my commuter train actually failed to stop at my stop (although it was scheduled to stop)…blew right by it. It stopped at the next stop, zero communication…good luck getting home to you folks. Who took the credibility/reputation hit?

Are you a Goldilocks lawyer for your clients? That’s really what we’re talking about…lawyering ain’t math, there are many right answers and different people like different “flavors.” But I’d suggest great thoroughness and great communication will help make you Just Right!

What’s it going to be, positive or a negative?

I’m constantly amazed at the treatment I see whether first or second-hand in my day-to-day law practice. And it’s often brushed off as so-called “gamesmanship” or different sorts of intimidation tactics…I’d mostly just call it “being a jerk” or plain rudeness. At a surface level I’m not surprised because sadly there’s much rudeness outside the legal profession too. And I’m not going to spin off into some rant regarding our great cultural moral decay because that’s not my purpose here. Nope, the question we deal with in this space is, how do you build a great entrepreneurial legal services business.

The focus of this post is purely a lawyer’s self-interest:  The critical impact between your relationships as lawyer with opposing counsel, opposing client, and the other players in the legal world AND the flat-out success of your business whether defined by client outcomes good old “dollars in your pocket.” I’ve had several eye-opening examples just this week and over the last month where good relationships meant success for my clients. And there have been a few jaw-dropping displays by opposing lawyers in terms of their treatment of me that just has me thinking, do you realize what you’re costing your practice due to your behavior.

First, just recently having a good relationship with the clerk in a courtroom likely saved my client a big headache. Here the opposing pro se client was a good hour late for the scheduled court date so by the time she got into the courtroom our case had been called, and an order favorable to my client’s interests was set to be entered, and essentially the court clerk had the orders in her hand set to be entered when the pro se litigant asked to have the case re-called and to speak with the judge. The clerk asked me if I wanted the case re-called, I said NO, it wasn’t, and the order favorable to my client was entered. I’m as big of a critic as anyone regarding the general functioning of some of the circuit court clerks’ offices but most of the specific individuals in single courtrooms are pretty reasonable people and more importantly, it’s in your (and your client’s) self-interest to have a good relationship with those people.

Second, having a good relationship with opposing counsel can often save you in a pinch. I recently had a death in my family that required me to be out of town for about 1 week (see this post regarding handling vacations as a small firm attorney). This was unexpected so I had a few court matters set that I simply couldn’t make. But simply by have respectful and really a friendly repertoire with the opposing two lawyers in these cases made my conflict just a non-issue. In one case the other lawyer gave me some dates and I was able to step-up before a judge on an earlier date and set the matter like we wanted to on the date I had to now miss. In the other matter, the lawyer was nice enough to cover the case for me. This ain’t rocket science but I surely could have envisioned having to pay some lawyer to cover these matters for me and that hurts my practice. Of course this is a most simplistic benefit of having good relationships with other lawyers on a grander scale…think referrals and court coverage and having people to discuss legal questions with and the list goes on and on and…

Conversely, having a poor relationship with opposing lawyers hurts your clients and your practice. If you want to hurt your client’s case by shutting down communication with the other side, motive your opponent to win at trial, create utter disrespect and ill will on the part of your opponent and simply eliminate all the potential positives that other lawyers can provide (see above…referrals/favors/expertise) treat your opponent like crap. I finished up a case last fall where my opponent absolutely despised my client and sadly his feelings flowed onto me. I got a few vile and profanity-filled phone calls from this guy that leave me to this day having about the lowest opinion of this guy of any lawyer I’ve dealt with in 8 years. As an aside, what made this guy’s behavior most ludicrous and laughable is that the case we had together was a court-appointed matter where I had zero control in my client selection. What does this type of person gain by shredding his lawyer relations?

Lastly, sometimes having the trust and respect of an opposing client pays big dividends. The obvious point that is often forgotten is that opposing clients are potential future clients or referral sources…likely not in that particular case due to conflict problems but who sees your work more closely than the opposing client? But, particularly in transactional matters sometimes your relationship with an opposing client can help your own client’s matter right now. Recently we had a dicey real estate transaction with no real estate agents on either side so it was just was lawyers and clients. So I had to be involved in some things I normally wouldn’t be like a pre-closing walk-thru. But having that little extra relationship with the opposing client may have saved the deal. We ended up needing to make some totally unwritten side agreements to get this deal closed. That good relationship (and the clients’ good relationship) might have been the difference between my Sellers seeing $250,000 versus having to re-list the property for sale and who knows what.