Legal Commentary

Storytelling ... and Client Service

By Patrick J. Lamb

It is amazing how one well-written sentence can communicate volumes and engage the reader to think beyond the sentence.  My friend Dan Hull writes my favorite blog, What About Clients?.  He had a post the other day with the simple title, Storytelling.  The entirety of the post was this quote from Anton Chekhov:

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

One sentence.  Huge imagery.  Huge.

I immediately posted a comment to the effect that Dan must be one hell of a trial lawyer.  But I continued to marvel at the sentence, and I started wondering about my dealings with clients and colleagues.  Do I tell them the moon is shining or do I show them the glint of light on broken glass?  Do my clients see in their mind's eye the reflection of moonlight on a shimmering lake or do they hear my voice declaring that they must believe the moon is shining.  Am I creating the image, the feeling, that I want or am I simply passing along information.  Imagine one client telling a friend, "my lawyer shows me the glint of light on broken class."  That lawyer is who I want to be.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).