The Client Service You Should Receive

Twelve Core Elements to Great Client Service

It is easy for any law firm to claim they offer great service. It is much, much more difficult to provide exceptional client service. The difference between client and law firm perspectives as to what constitutes great client service is legendary.

Does your outside law firm appreciate your perspective? Do they understand your client service expectations?

It is as simple as the difference between meeting expectations and exceeding expectations. When you ask yourself, “Does my law firm offer great service?” the answer should be a resounding “YES!” particularly if you are paying for superb client service.

But what constitutes great client service? What should you expect from your law firm?

Let’s examine the twelve core elements of great client service. How you judge your law firm’s service depends upon your answers to these 140+ questions:

1.       Great Client Service

Good service requires little effort. Great client service requires hard work and going beyond the call of duty. Think critically. Do your law firms offer great client service? You can intuit whether your firm’s service has been poor, below average, acceptable, good, excellent or best-in-class. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Do your firms keep you out of trouble or do they get you out of trouble?

• Do they add value outside of their normal legal services? Can you trust their business advice, or at least their ability to understand the business side of your legal issues?

• Are your firms proactive? Do they help you consistently prepare and regularly prepare for risks?

• Do they say “no” too easily or too often? Do they look for ways to say “yes” when it is clearly a challenge?

• Are they opportunistic on your behalf?

• Do your firms guide you when you want to be guided?

• In all likelihood, your primary contact treats you well. Does their assistant’s client service reflect well upon them? Does the assistant and the firm’s other lawyers offer equal or better service?

• Does your firm keep proving themselves or are they coasting?

• When you submit an RFP to law firms, do they attempt to solve every part of your problem? Their response to your RFP is not full and complete unless they address every element, particularly for work they do not normally perform. If you put them in a position to control the external legal relationship, your firm should control every aspect that you can.

• Do they act as if they are merely a vendor, or are they your professional advocates?

• Does your firm treat you as if you were their only client?

• Are your external lawyers easy to work with?
  

2.       Timeliness

Timely delivery of service is much misunderstood. It does not just mean rapid response time on e-mail; phone calls and instant messages though rapid responses are important. It is not solely related to delivery of services prior to stated deadlines, although those are critical components of timely service.

Timely service includes rapid inquiry response and timely delivery, but ask yourself:

• Did your lawyer meet their promised turnaround time? Did they fail to meet the deadline? Or did they beat the deadline?

• Does your law firm make requests on a timely basis?

• Does your lawyer provide lightning quick turnaround when you need it?

• Do they agree to your delivery expectations when you present them with legal requests?

• More to the point, does your lawyer understand your deadlines? Do they comprehend the nature of your internal workflow? Have they taken steps to integrate their service delivery with the speed and rhythm of your department?

• Does your firm ask you to provide information or access to your systems with aggressive deadlines to aid their own workflow?

• Does your firm waste your time? Are your interactions efficient, or are there meaningless tangents? Are they pursuing perfection at the expense of acceptable when perfection is neither required nor desired?

3.       Accessibility

The core question: Is your law firm there when they need you? Yes, they attend the meetings, deliver upon their promises and you get value. But are your principal contacts truly accessible? Their responses to your urgency should engender your loyalty. Do they promote ongoing regular dialogue?

• Are they reachable 24/7? If your time is extremely limited due to business demands, is your attorney available at all hours? The chair of a large law firm once slept with his phone set to “vibrate” to satisfy the demands of a major overseas client who tended to make calls between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. Can you reach your attorney at all times?

• Outside of requests, do your attorneys take moments to reach out to you when they can?

• Does your attorney answer their own phone when you call?

• Does your attorney always take your call? Or do you get the sense that your attorney is ignoring you, or deferring responses?

• Are the other firm attorneys responsive? Do they return every call, e-mail, or instant message?

• Are they reliable? Will they schedule meetings around your calendar, or do you find yourself scheduling meetings around their calendar?

• Does your attorney take initiative about their accessibility, meaning are they continually reassuring you through constant communication?

• Has your attorney been consistent about accessibility over time, or has their accessibility deteriorated once the relationship was established?

4.       Quality

Quality is the cornerstone of any relationship, the very minimum that you should expect. Results matter, but quality covers a wide range of concepts. Ask yourself these questions about your law firms:

• Is your law firm’s work accurate?

• Does your lawyer meet the core scope of your legal issues on every matter?

• Are your lawyer’s legal skills exceptional?

• Is your lawyer always prepared?

• Does your lawyer include you early on in strategy discussions? Or do they present you with a limited scope of options further along the way?

• Do they field the best legal team possible? Are you impressed with all of their lawyers?

• Separately, will they switch out lawyers when you ask? Are they receptive to those requests?

• Do you ask your lawyer how their firm is using artificial intelligence?

• If your lawyer has “productized” their service, or if they are using artificial intelligence to augment their services, is the quality still superb?

• Does your lawyer proactively share relevant content with you?

• Does your lawyer anticipate? Are they “there” before you get there?

• Does your lawyer regularly conduct planning sessions in order to avoid legal pitfalls ahead?

• Does your lawyer provide training in various areas of the law, particularly areas that are likely to affect your business?

• Does your lawyer offer and use all the firm resources at their disposal?

5.       Seek Understanding

“In order to be understood, first seek to understand,” which is the fifth habit cited by Dr. Steven Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” At its essence, does your attorney understand you and your business? Does your attorney clearly take time to learn your business?

• At the outset, did they have an “expectations” discussion with you and document the results?

• Do they have a plan? Does it speak to legal strategy, staffing, fee structure?

• How do they handle deviations from the plan?

• Do they address your problems up front?

• Do they understand your goals and objectives?

• Are they effective listeners?

• Do they demonstrate that they understand?

• Do they ask about your business and industry?

• Do they understand your industry? Can they speak the jargon? Do they know the key business elements as well as the common legal issues?

• How well do they know your business? Do they know your products, your competitors, the market forces, the near-term forecasts?

• Does outside counsel inflame disputes and aggressively litigate, or do they handle engagements with professionalism?

• Do they take moments to talk with you about business decisions when and where they can?

• How does your law firm act when you are unhappy? Do they shy away, or do they embrace and solve your unhappiness by attempting to understand your position? Do they learn more about you and about themselves to improve their understanding?

6.       Relationship Building

Your lawyers intimately know your business and the elements of other relationships you have, both internally and externally. If you sat back, and asked these questions in order to gauge your relationship with your lawyer…how would your law firms measure up in building the relationship with you?

• Are they interested in you and your business beyond the legal issues?

• Do they proactively partner with you?

• Do they treat every client interaction as an opportunity, either for you or for others who are important to you? Are they opportunistic on your behalf?

• Do they partner with you in as many ways as they can, e.g., do they bring you clients, partners, combination candidates, relationships, other professionals?

• Have they educated you? Have they made you smarter? Have they partnered with you to create content or thought leadership?

• Do they involve their firm in your corporate social responsibility efforts, e.g., civic involvement, diversity, pro bono, charitable investments, sustainability, and the like?

• Are they empathetic? Can they put themselves in your shoes?

• Do they network within your company? Do they know both the lawyers and the administrative chiefs?

• Does your law firm use your personnel effectively?

• Have they taken the time to get to know your successors? Personnel changes at clients demand a new relationship building effort. Have they taken the time to get to know the younger attorneys in your organization?

• Do they belong to professional organizations to which you belong, and are they well versed in your industry?

• Have they gone on a secondment at your company, even briefly?

• Do they touch all pieces of your business?

• Do they seek out emotional situations?

• Do they do the dirty work when asked?

• Do they cause unpleasant or harmful surprises?

• Are they willing to (selectively) offend or contradict you? Can they deliver bad news appropriately?

• Are they friends?

• How do they treat your assistants, legal operations team, and paralegals?

• Are they in your corner? Are they committed to your success?

• Do they make successful efforts to make you look good?

• Are they focused on you and your company, or do they seem distracted?

• Are they paragons of discretion?

• Do they insist on feedback?

7.        Do They Help Build Your Internal and External Brands?

An often-overlooked element of the law firm / client relationship is the ability and proclivity of your law firm to help you improve your internal and external brands. What has your lawyer done to build or promote your personal brand?

• Do they sharpen your skill set through CLE, webinars, business training or other events?

• Do they assist you by participating in recognition programs geared towards inhouse counsel?

• Conversely, do you aid their recognition efforts having to do with Chambers, Best Lawyers, Legal 500, etc.?

• Have they offered you media or crisis media training?

• Have you been able to participate in compelling thought leadership opportunities, either spoken or written?

• Do you join your firms in social media functions?

8.       Pricing

Pricing is among the most important – and most contentious – elements of the law firm / client relationship. How do your law firms handle pricing?

• Are you able to manage your rate tiers through judicious staffing?

• Have they implemented clear discounting guidelines, or discussed them with you?

• Have they articulated a cohesive pricing strategy for your account?

• Do they link pricing to your strategic goals and objectives?

• Does your law firm understand fair value, and have they adapted to market trends?

• Have they solidified pricing workflows?

• Have they unified their rate structures for your benefit?

• Has your law firm established pricing governance groups?

• Does your law firm have a pricing knowledge repository and experience database? Do they refer to it when serving your account?

• Does your law firm closely monitor their progress in order to foster a transparent pricing ecosystem?

• How has your law firm addressed rate increases and fee stagnation?

• Does your law firm avoid discounts they feel are unnecessary?

• Has your law firm planned early for 2025 needs?

• Does your law firm leverage data for pricing innovation and efficiencies?

• Do you trust your law firm for appropriate cost controls?

• When all is said and done, does your law firm provide exceptional value for your legal dollar?

9.       Fee (and other) Communications

It’s true, pricing is critical. Similarly critical are their communications, not just those surrounding legal fees, but all of their communications relative to your account.

• How closely has your firm communicated with you?

• Did they conduct a client feedback survey during the good times?

• Did they conduct a post-mortem when they performed poorly or lost work?

• Does your lawyer contact you regularly with unprompted communications?

• Has your law firm provided very early assessments of potential litigation?

• Does your law firm offer budgets at the inception of matters?

• Does your law conduct a full team introduction at the commencement of key matters?

• Does your law firm solicit feedback on the budget, in terms of both dollars and timing?

• Does your law firm advise you of budget changes in near real-time?

• Do your relationship partners have full authority to commit the firm to rates and fees?

• Does your firm proactively explain any unusual invoices to you before sending it out?

• Does your firm seek and obtain meaningful post-matter feedback?

• Does your law firm maintain effective communications with third parties?

• Are their communications succinct?

10.   Innovation

We live in an age when law firms and legal departments are on the cusp of innovation. We are all seeking ways to become more efficient, with higher quality and lower fees. What has your law firm done to innovate?

• Is your law firm innovative? Do they source new approaches?

• Does your lawyer come up with good ideas without prompting?

• Does your lawyer offer creative solutions to both your business and legal challenges?

• Do they give you options with pros and cons?

• Does your attorney seek nontraditional solutions when you or they are stymied?

  How is your law firm using artificial intelligence?

• Does your law firm use business acumen to add value to your business?

11.   Solve Problems

Nominally speaking, you hire a law firm to address a variety of legal issues. But every legal issue has a business foundation. There are a range and host of business issues and problems that have legal angles. Bottom line: How strong is your law firm at helping you solve your problems?

• Does your law firm offer creative solutions to your business and legal problems?

• How well does your attorney deal with unexpected change?

• Does your attorney constantly say “no” or do they seek a “yes” answer?

• Is your lawyer adept at your business issues, or is he an ivory tower?

• Does your lawyer educate you on the law, or do they offer business solutions rooted in your legal concerns?

• Does your lawyer offer advice on the business side of your legal issues? Are they effective business advisors as well?

• Does your law firm adequately weigh risks by weighing the downside of each option?

• Does your lawyer internalize your problems? Do they worry on your behalf?

• Can your lawyer present business advice within her legal analysis?

• Does she turn problems into opportunities, or at least attempt to do so?

• Is your law firm practical? Are they pragmatic?

• Does your law firm unnecessarily educate you on the law, or do they solve your business problems?

• Does your law firm learn from the situation when you are unhappy?

• Is your law firm committed to your legal and business objectives?

• Does your law firm anticipate and highlight potentially relevant issues beyond specific tasks and matters?

• Does your law firm use business acumen to add value to your business?

• Does your law firm demonstrate an understanding of your business requirements?

• Does your law firm provide practical legal solutions to meet those business requirements?

12.   Final Thought

Here’s one final bit of advice, from a very senior chief legal officer:

“Your lawyer should know about your competition. They should know who they are, and what they do that impresses you as a client. That’s how they learn. That’s how they set the bar. And they should also know that their competition is calling you on a regular basis. This is why a lawyer should make every client feel like you were their only client.”