Don't Assume How Involved Your Clients Want To Be In Their Cases
Make sure you learn how involved clients want to be so you can serve them better.
Clients have varying levels of engagement in their own cases (even different levels of engagement in the same case at different times). Make sure you learn how involved clients want to be so you can serve them better.
A new client who recently engaged our firm was an individual. He did not have the legal sophistication of a general counsel, nor the resources of one of our company clients. But it was clear from the initial meeting that he planned to be plenty involved in his litigation. In fact, during the initial discussion with him, he made clear that his biggest problem with previous lawyers he hired was not that they didn’t work hard, or didn’t know their stuff, but that they would make filings or have substantive communications with his adversaries without running either by him.
That client is quite successful in his chosen field, but not that well educated. Another individual client we have—extremely well educated and what a lawyer would call sophisticated—wants the headlines from developments in his multiple cases, but that’s it. While we run filings by that client and advise on the status of communications with the adversary, the most common emails we get from the client are one word: ok (in lower case, no less). The client hired us, decided we could do the job, and is letting us do it.
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Neither client is handling the attorney-client relationship wrong—quite the contrary. Each client is handling the relationship in what works well for each of them. The challenge is for me and my colleagues to ensure we respond accordingly.
First and foremost, this means not assuming. Right at the beginning of engagement, simply ask the client how involved he or she or it wants to be. Sometimes they want to be all in. Sometimes their view is that they hired you to own the worries, so do your job and worry for them. Some want to review every filing. Others just want monthly updates. Ask. Especially with a new client who has hired lawyers before, asking what kinds of updates the client wants, or how the client wants information (by email, calls, meetings, whatever) will likely impress your client.
Second, don’t assume that the level of involvement a client wants is the same at all times. Some clients are very engaged at first and then, whether it’s battle fatigue or a changed level of trust, will ask for fewer updates. Some want to be sure that anything asserting facts is tailored a certain way, but when more of a pure legal document is filed, like a memorandum of law, they really couldn’t care less to review a draft. Don’t be annoying, but continue to ask the client to figure out what involvement level the client wants.
Third, be ready for clients to be confused and to guide them even in figuring out what they want. While you should, as I note, ask initially, and then ask over time, clients will also communicate what they want. If a client says that they want all filings, but then, at some point in the case, the client emails in response to a draft filing, with some annoyance, “What do you want me to do with this?” don’t scold the client by reminding her that she asked for drafts of all filings. Remember that, as a litigator, you’re speaking a language that appears foreign to even the most sophisticated or educated individuals. You’re dealing with rules and principles that appear far from intuitive. Even if the client at one time wanted lots of updates, after a while the client may feel like it’s just too much. Or vice versa. Help the client understand why you’re sharing a given filing, or giving them a particular update, and, again, be ready to modify whatever communication rules you have been following.
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Don’t assume all your clients want the same level of communication, or that even the same client wants the same communication all the time. In other words, don’t be the arrogant lawyer that so many clients assume we can be and simply, and humbly, ask what it is they want. You’ll build better attorney-client relationships. And by enhancing communication, you’ll learn more about the clients, and their cases, so you can serve them better and win for them.
John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.
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