Legal Marketing & PR

How Do You Keep Clients Informed?

By Tom Kane

A few years ago, I met a lawyer who sat on the grievance committee (Committee on Professional Standards, Appellate Divsion, New York State Supreme Court). She informed me that 80% of the grievances filed against lawyers in the state were due to inattention to a client’s matter and for failure to communicate, generally. It seems that I read a similar number in an ABA article somewhere. Moreover, she said that some of the grievances result in malpractice claims, when no actual malpractice took place.

In my speeches, I often point out that a failure to communicate often (as in constantly, frequently, persistently, regularly, all the time…… okay, okay, I agree, enough already) is not only foolish from a professional standpoint (as in discipline by the bar, keeping professional insurance premiums reasonable, and so forth), BUT it is just dumb marketing.  One could even say it is marketing malpractice.

So, why don’t lawyers communicate more often with clients? Their busy, don’t have the answer from the other side, from the court, or haven’t had a chance to work on that memo, or whatever. It matters not what the excuse may be, the fact is that the lawyer should communicate such information to the client nonetheless. The more communication that occurs, even if it is not always what the client wants to hear, the better the client will feel. Knowledge truly is power, and clients do not like being kept in the dark.

At least one solution might be to provide clients with a regular status report. Ed Poll offers to share a status report form he came across that might do the trick. E-mail him at edpoll@lawbiz.com for a copy. As Ed says, unhappy clients often don’t complain, they just don’t use the lawyer again.

What are your means of keeping clients informed?

Full post as published by Legal Marketing Blog on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).