“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” is a quote frequently attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Quite true, but it is more complicated than that when we are dealing with things, such as legal services, that the consumer often does not understand.
I like being retired. I really do. But someone called a pandemic and everyone showed up.
My plans to travel the world have been on hold for a while. So, now and then I get bored. When that happens, I think about whether I should go back to work. Thankfully, the thought usually passes quickly.
There was this one time that an accountant called me to let me know that our mutual client had called him for advice about firing one of his employees. The accountant suggested that the client give me a call, seeing that what the client needed was legal advice.
My first reaction was to wonder what type of an idiot client calls his accountant when he needs advice about employment law.
Over 20 years ago, the flavour of the month in the legal press was that medium sized firms were doomed. The big firms were coming after our clients and we were going to lose them all. We had to merge with bigger firms or die. And yet, medium sized firms continue to flourish.
How we interact with clients sometimes differs from how we interact with other people. For example, I used to have a partner who played golf with clients. His name was Drew, and he was an excellent golfer. We always had to remind Drew that when he golfed with clients, he had to play Client Golf, a game in which he missed a few shots that he might otherwise have made.
Let me tell you about a real person, whose real name is not Emily.
Emily is a superstar. She does it all and has been doing it all for an awfully long time.
I have written before about how lawyers are usually fairly good at dealing with their clients in a truthful manner in the course of providing legal services, but not quite as accomplished when it comes to their marketing. Let’s look at this in the context of the most basic element of law firm marketing – how law firms identify their lawyers to the public.
I became a partner of a law firm and attended my first partners meeting many years ago. Since my firm was a medium sized firm, partners meetings were important since the participants actually made decisions (as opposed to what happens in large firms where an executive committee makes most decisions.) Each partner had an equal vote.
Partners need to understand what their associates are saying to them, but Associates do not always have the gumption to express themselves clearly and partners don’t always listen so well. Here, as yet another extension of my desire to give back to the profession, are some translations from Associate Talk (“AT”) to Plain English (“PE”):
There was once a medium-sized law firm in Ontario which had two bright, young, industrious associates. Both of these associates were being considered for partnership, back in the day when all young lawyers wanted to become partners. One of the two associates, who I will call Richard, was a shoe-in. The other associate, who I will call Cynthia, was not.