Client Relations

Most clients come to us at the darkest hour of their lives. Some have reached the end of long marriages that they struggled unsuccessfully to keep intact, others have put up with degrading harassment on the job until they can take it no more while others face years in prison.  Even those clients who retain …

Lots of lawyers make a big deal about sending Thanksgiving cards to stand out from the rush of holiday cards. Trouble is, even TurkeyDay greetings have become oversaturated. Starting next week, I’ll receive at least five or six autumn-themed cards with leaves or Pilgrims, wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving with at best, a personal signature…

This week’s first PowerHour was Update Your Profile  – so you may be wondering why testimonials weren’t covered in that post. But while it’s true that there’s some overlap, testimonials are important in many other contexts other than online profiles – and for some profiles – such as LinkedIn, testimonials (at least from former clients)…

Most of today’s clients have grown accustomed to a frictionless customer experience long before they ever step foot over our office threshold or log in to an online client portal. Most likely, within hours of their first encounter with a lawyer, today’s client has tapped the screen on their phone to summon a car from…

In response to my earlier posts asking whether today’s clients are more demanding, one commenter observed that increasingly, clients expect lawyers to schedule appointments on evenings and weekends to avoid missing work. The commenter sought feedback on how other lawyers handle these types of requests since the commenter — quite reasonably — would rather not…

Veteran Chester County, Pennsylvania solo, Sam Stretton bemoans the deterioration of the attorney-client relationship in the modern world, blaming the change on  clients’ unreasonable expectation of perfection  combined with their lack of appreciation for attorneys’ need for privacy and the cost of legal services.  Yet as I read Stretton’s piece, I wondered whether all of the…

If you’ve seen my promotion for Rocket Retainers & Power Pacts: Engage Clients Faster, Get Paid Quickly and Innovate Without Risk, you’re probably wondering how a retainer agreement can earn you money. Conveniently, this recent news story — about an Illinois attorney who’s out a $469,000 referral fee because the retainer agreement with the client…