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Client Service

Walmart v. Neiman Marcus Pricing for Legal Services

June 29, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at my Legal Blog Watch Beat, I posted about the Walmart v. Nieman Marcus pricing dichotomy, initially described by Mike Sherman of Law for Profit. Now many of you have heard about this model before: basically, you have a choice between selling lots of legal services (volume practice) at a narrow profit margin or [...]

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Do Something You Stink At…And Become A Better Lawyer

May 13, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Yesterday, I spent a beautiful Saturday outdoors, helping to build a house with Habitat for Humanity as part of an Energy Bar Association pro bono service project. I have to admit that I didn’t seek this project out: my decision to participate was a spur of the moment response to an email that came through [...]

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Real Life Marketing and Client Service Lessons, Courtesy of Jet Blue

February 21, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Even after practicing law for 18 years, underneath my general air of confidence and my excess precaution with much of what I do lies a deep fear that at any minute, I could screw up in a major, big time way.  But now, courtesy of Jet Blue, there’s a lesson from the school of real [...]

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What Do You Do If Your Clients Want to Lead A Revolution? Join Them, Of Course!

February 1, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at my Legal Blogwatch beat, I wrote about Cisco GC Mark Chandler’s speech taking big law firms to task for their “guild” mentality and lack of responsiveness to clients.  You ought to read the whole post, which excerpts the speech, but Chandler argues that companies like his are concerned about legal costs, want fixed [...]

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Can Solo and Small Firm Lawyers Anchor Social Movements? We Already Do.

January 19, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Professor Alan Childress of Legal Profession Blog emailed me a link to his post on an article by Brenda Bratton Blom entitled Cause Lawyering and Social Movements: Can Solo and Small Firm Practitioners Anchor Social Movements? My answer to the question posed by Blom’s title is that solo and small firm practitioners by our very [...]

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The Limits of Managing Client Relationships

December 9, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

More lawyers are focusing on managing client relations, adopting techniques from putting ourselves in our clients’ shoes to soliciting feedback through surveys to treating them with respect.  But sometimes, no matter what we do, clients get frustrated and angry – often not with their lawyers but with the inherent limitations of our justice system – [...]

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Twelve Rules of Great Client Service

November 5, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Dan Hull of What About Clients has rounded up twelve of his past blog posts into a comprehensive Twelve Rules of Client Service.  Read it if you want to stay a step ahead of your competitors. Though Dan’s post addresses client service, it’s actually a great model for great rules for serving your blog readers.  [...]

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Client Service and More on Niches

August 10, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

I realize that my posts have been sparse over the past month.   The slow postings are explained by a couple of factors: my day job as a practicing solo has been fairly busy lately, a project that I’m close to finishing that I believe will greatly benefit MyShingle readers and my divided loyalties now that [...]

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Flat Fees Are Fine, But Lawyers Can’t Have It Both Ways

July 31, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Like Chris Marston of Inside the Future of the Law Firm who raves about the benefits of fixed pricing, I’m also a fan of the flat fee or fixed price.  Chris focuses on how fixed pricing provides certainty to clients, but from my perspective, it makes my life much easier when I don’t have to [...]

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How to politely decline…and avoid a lawsuit

July 7, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Recently, Allison Shields posted here on the benefits that lawyers can gain from hospitality, which is what excellent client service is all about.  But this article Thou Shalt Not… by Steven Lubet  (American Lawyer, 7/2006) got me to thinking that hospitality and just plain courtesy have other benefits as well:  they can spare you from [...]

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