Be assured that the client, more likely than not, will hire the advocate. If the client already has a relationship with the Expert, at some point the client is going to jump ship and go to the Advocate.

Clients put a high value on the lawyer's dedication to their cause, no matter what the cause. The client expects the lawyer to have the same strong feelings about the injustice or the worry and unless the lawyer delivers this, the client will find someone else.

It doesn't take a genius to bring a client into a relationship that involves personal trust. Client realizes you are busy, they realize you are a professional, and they realize you must have staff to help you. What they want you to do is care.

A firm that acts as an advocate instead of the expert usually finds the following within their firm:

1. Clients often ask for advice, both on subjects directly related to their case or in peripheral areas that happen to be of concern.
2. The majority of the clients return to the firm for their legal needs. If the firm does not handle such a matter the client wants the firm to make the referral because of trust. The client will return to the firm for legal needs that are handled by the firm.
3. There is a strong mutual trust, on a professional and a personal level, between the firm and the client.
4. The firm collaborates with the client to determine his or her needs, becoming a partner with the client as an integral part of the solution. The client's ideas are asked for.
5. The client is educated as to not only understanding the case but how it will be handled, what the anticipated results will be, and thus the client becomes much more secure.
6. The firm frequently approaches the client with unsolicited ideas and suggestions.
7. Clients believe the firm delivers value in excess of the fee charged.
8. The firm receives positive feedback from the client.
9. The firm is not afraid to ask the client to rate the firm on client satisfaction.
10. Staff receive calls from clients who are friendly and not complaining.
11. The firm genuinely appreciates each client and values the trust the client has with the firm.

Each firm has to decide the importance of client service in the long range planning of the firm. If it is important that you have to rethink what it means TO BE OF SERVICE TO THE CLIENT.

For a firm to believe the client comes first, it has to put as its priority the client and has to get the message across to every member in the firm that their continued employment depends on satisfying the client.

You provide training and education for everyone in the firm on how to satisfy the client. You hire people who are genuinely "people friendly". You cannot teach someone to like other people. Unless an employee has people skills, all other skills are irrelevant.

And don't believe you can "hide" an employee who does not get along with people. At some point in time that employee will come in contact with a client (even a walk by) and the client will recognize that the staff person is not client focused.

IT TAKES TEN POSITIVE REMARKS TO MAKE UP FOR ONE NEGATIVE REMARK

If you take the position you want to market your firm cheaply then market your client satisfaction. You will never be disappointed in the results.

HOW TO BECOME CLIENT FOCUSED, CLIENT FRIENDLY, AND CLIENT HAPPY

THE LAWYER'S ROLE

Learning to be an "Advocate" not "The Expert" is a conscious decision the lawyer has to make and it flies in the face of everything learned up to the point the decision is made.

Lawyers have trained to be a professional, an expert in their field. Their psych requires that they feel they are the experts. Years of education, coupled with training, makes the lawyer want to sit in an office, dispensing advice, and feeling that the clients (his or her subjects) are in awe of what the lawyer knows. Let's face it, it feels good. 
Lawyers do not feel on the same level as their clients. After all, if the client knew as much as the lawyer they would be lawyers, right? Wrong! The average client consumer is much more educated today than ever before. Potential clients have access to instant information. How many clients have you ever had say "Well I saw on Law & Order....". The mystic of law is fast disappearing. The Internet gives ways for the client consumer to find out information. Sites are available to handle corporations, wills, trusts, etc. so why pay a lawyer three times the amount the Internet site offers.

There is only one reason the new age client consumer will hire you - trust and personal ties that no amount of media advertising, internet services, or independent thinking will provide.

This applies across the board to every consumer in America today - while we want the cheapest price we can find for the same product and we are also willing to pay more to get service. We deal with people we know - our friends, our neighbors, and those who are recommended to us.

When asked to deal with a "stranger" - someone we have never dealt with, we develop an uneasy feeling that we have no trust factor - thus we watch the work and if there is just one thing that doesn't go our way we change service providers - whether it is our plumber or our lawyer.

There is a great deal of fear from lawyers that they cannot be "people friendly" with people they don't know. The lawyer is very comfortable with his or her peers or people of his or her social standing. When they get into the arena of uncertain relationships they withdraw.

To become an advocate, the Lawyer has to decide to "step outside his or her boundaries" and develop a new way of dealing with the client consumer.

Simply put - instead of worrying about making a client for life think of it as making a friend for life.

An example would be a lawyer who practiced on the coast. His peers thought of him as the worst example of a lawyer ever seen to grace the halls of justice. Everyone agreed he knew his stuff but he didn't do it in the image a lawyer should have. He routinely failed to appear for appointments, he was a sloppy dresser, he rarely delivered on time what he promised, and yet he had a strong client following. What he did was always tell his clients he blew it, he would ask about their family, and ask how the job was going. When something happened on the case he picked up the phone and talked to his clients, and he always got the client the results THE CLIENT WANTED, not what may have been the better legal solution. He delivered client satisfaction.

While all other lawyers may have gasped in horror, the truth of the matter is that he delivered client service and got client satisfaction. His phone rang all day long with new clients wanting to have him help them. The trust factor was at an all time high. Suggestions made to help lawyers become Advocates:

1. Learn to deal with people on a humanistic level. If you are uncomfortable with this, take courses. Dale Carnegie's course "How to win friends and influence people" is one of the finest courses available. It is required to become top management in many of the Fortune 500 companies today as it has been for the last 75 years.
2. Take time to smell the roses with your client. A few extra minutes spent listening to your client without dispensing advice can become invaluable. Learn to take time to talk of things other than the law. Finding out that the client's daughter as been accepted to college gives you a basis for the next conversation. Many lawyers keep cards or computer notes on clients so when the next appointment comes about there is a way to ask the personal question first.
3. Learn to listen to what the client thinks the problem is - not what you think the problem is. This leads to faulty thinking. Rarely can a non-legal person tell you what the problem is at the on-set. They are eager to spew out frustrations, biased facts, and their perception of the injustice before they can get to the core of the problem. A good Advocate lets the client work through this. It takes a little more time up front, but in the long run providing the solution takes less time. LEARN TO LISTEN NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES.
4. Share your knowledge. Once you understand what the client wants, share your knowledge. Don't tell, educate. People with no legal knowledge feel a sense of pride that the lawyer wants to educate them and believes they are capable of understanding. This doesn't make you less valuable but rather puts you in the teacher/mentor role. Because you are willing to share your knowledge, the client actually does see the "expert" in you and realizes the reason you went to law school was because you do know more than the client does. More importantly, it brings about understanding.
5. Develop a genuine caring for the client. When you step outside yourself and have a genuine concern for another person, the relationship takes on the depth as well as the breadth of that relationship. People sense this in you. Lawyers will say, "I am not good at the touchy- feely stuff". No one asks you to be. Many, many people who are emotionally reserved still care about people. BUT IT HAS TO BE GENUINE.
6. Truly believe "there but for the grace of God go I". On a daily basis you will see instances where people put up with, live with, and deal with things beyond your comprehension. It is important that you realize, but for a small quirk of fate, somewhere in your background you could be the person on the street, the person in jail, or the person who is being divorced.
7. Share your client's successes. Every person dreams of being more than they are. When the lawyer recognizes this it makes the client tied to you more than you will ever know. Never see a real estate closing as a real estate closing - see it as an event in your client's life. After all the purchase of a home for the first-time buyer deserves more than a quick closing. One small comment about your joy in their accomplishment will bring that person back to you ten-times over.

GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS TO STAFF

Starting tomorrow , if you have to put up posters all over your office and simply say

SATISFYING OUR CLIENTS IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY!
All else is secondary

Then practice what you preach! Others in the firm watch what you do. If you refuse to take a call from a client because you know they aren't happy or will complain, or you are too busy, others will do likewise.

We take the position that all new employees are put through a client service course. We ask them to buy into making the client a number one priority in their work. This is not only talking to clients when they call but also delivering quality work product. Good client service by staff is also providing the lawyer with top-notch support so we can do a good job for the client. Every aspect of their workday involves providing good service to the client. 

Then establish guidelines. We (refers to lawyers and staff alike) can provide you with the ones that work for us:

1. We take all client calls the same day unless we are out of the office. We try to take the calls as they arrive and we do not put off clients. If we need "DND TIME" (Do not disturb) we notify our front desk and the client is told this and given assurances the call will be returned before the end of the business day.
   
   Note: I have had more lawyers say this is impossible but this, coupled with providing other client support, actually reduces the amount of the calls. If a client is in the loop they don't have to call the lawyer.
2. We do not permit any person in our firm, lawyers or staff, to make any derogatory remarks about any client to anyone within the firm.
   
   Note: If a staff person is heard to hang up from talking to a client and turn around and say: "He is a jerk", that staff person is brought into a private area and verbally warned. The second time they are warned in writing. The third time they are dismissed. Allowing one person's view of a client to influence all others is not fair to the client.
3. No one in our firm is allowed to be rude to a client. If a conflict exists, the person immediately removes him or herself from the conflict and involves a higher-level person.
4. Any client entering our firm puts us "on stage". Any person in the firm coming in contact with any visitor to the firm, client or otherwise is required to project a professional image coupled with friendly interest in the client. This includes stopping to say hello, asking if they have been helped, or general chitchat about the weather. We specifically prohibit personal chitchat, phone calls, or discussion of matters of any nature in front of clients or visitors to the firm.
5. Clients receive calls once a month from our staff or lawyers or a combination of both just to check on the client and make sure they are happy. We have found that 50% of our clients call in anyhow so this leaves only 50% to call. Each staff person has a "call list". Certainly this applies to active cases. Long-term clients not actively needing legal services have a whole different agenda but contact is maintained in some form or fashion.
6. Any new client brought into the firm receives within 24 hours a standard welcome letter that outlines our policies on phone calls, their rights, and the name of a staff person to talk to if the lawyer is not available.
7. At the conclusion of any case, the lawyer personally and verbally thanks the client and asks for referrals. A final letter is always sent thanking them for allowing us to serve them.
8. All clients are on a database and will receive once a year from the firm some form of communication; i.e.: legal alert letters, Christmas cards, etc.
9. Our clients receive copies of all paperwork generated or received in their files. Clients do not understand "intangible legal work" so the more paperwork we give them the more they see we generate.
10. If something happens on our client's case, the staff has the authority to draft letters under the lawyer's name updating the client, which the lawyer signs. The client sees this as involvement by the lawyer. One lawyer we know takes the memo the staff person writes telling of the client's call, the staff person's solution, and then writes a personal note to the client right on the memo stating concurrence and what will happen.
11. We assign one person in our firm as a Client Advocate and we advise the client of this fact. The client is instructed to call this person if they have any complaints with the service they are receiving from the lawyer or the staff person. If a complaint is made, the Client Advocate has authority to do what is necessary to make it right, notifies the lawyer, as well as the partners. The number one priority of the lawyer handling the case, even if it is a partner, is to make it right immediately.
    
    Note: Once we got the message across to our firm that we believed in our clients and they came first, the Client Advocate gets few complaints but gets lots of calls with praise for things being done for them.
12. Never let your guard down! Send out surveys at the beginning of the case, the middle of the case, and at the end of the cases (always wait 2 months so the client is being objective).
13. Respond to concerns of the clients about your services. If the client is unhappy, you have just lost a valued client and valuable referrals. You also now have negative marketing out there.
14. Teach your staff to be your extension not theirs. In other words, if they call the client the first words should be "Mr. *** asked me to call you". You get the points, not the staff. If something happens on the file, the staff should be saying "Mr. *** wanted me to let you know". If the staff take action on the file and tell the client they should say "Mr. *** had me send out the title policy".
15. Project to the client that you are there to help. The best firms I think answer the phone "How can we help you?"
16. Staff have the freedom to simply tell the lawyer "You must call Mr. ** today as he needs to talk with you" and the lawyers believe it. If staff senses urgency in a return call you can bet your bottom dollar you have a dissatisfied client. The lawyers don't question it, they don't make comments to staff they don't have time, and they demonstrate to the staff their concerns are taken seriously.

BUT I WILL NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE?

This simply is not true. By being client focused, client involved, and client servicing, your clients actually need less of your time. By making everyone in the firm focused on the client, there becomes a trust that develops and the client doesn't need constant reassurance.

ASK YOURSELF WHY A CLIENT CALLS YOU ALL THE TIME?

If you are honest with yourself, you will find that the client more likely than not doesn't understand what you are doing (Education), doesn't feel you are interested in the case (Personal interest), and/or is afraid you aren't aware how important the case is (Lack of Trust).

WHAT ABOUT THE CLIENT WHO HAS NO BOUNDARIES

Set boundaries. Certainly there are clients who have needs you can't meet. If this is true, then tell them. Sometimes you have to pick up the phone and tell the client that you need to set some boundaries on when you can speak with the client. Tell the client that it is important you be able to work on the case and if you are spending time talking to the client you are not working on the case.

Clients know you have other clients. Why lie? If you are involved in someone else's case, take the time to call the client and explain the demands on your time and set a time frame you can get to the client again.

Our letter outlining our telephone policies has been the single biggest factor in controlling clients. When the client calls and the lawyer is not available, other options are offered; i.e.: talk to staff, time frames to return calls based on lawyer's schedule, specific telephone or face to face meetings scheduled. It is best to offer options right then and there and later change, then to give no options.

REWARDS

Our firm does management retreats and one of the things we do at the retreat is a course called "What do you want on your tombstone". During this course we ask our participants to try to visualize 200 years down the road when all who know you are gone and someone you don't know walks by your grave and your tombstone reflects the true sense of what you are. We also ask you to visualize a personal tombstone and a professional tombstone.

Which would you want on your professional tombstone?

1. He was a good lawyer 
2. He was a great lawyer 
3. He was a lawyer and a friend