legal sanity

In a recent post, Tom Kane of thelegalmarketingblog.com offered some insight into what our clients want from us, their legal service providers. His overview reminded me of a related question that lawyers often raise during my programs on optimizing the attorney-client relationship. Although worded in a variety of ways, the question remains the same in hub and heart and goes something like this: What do I need to know about my clients to best serve them? While there’s no one “right answer” to this question, this post from morepartnerincome and this one from lawjobs.com suggest that lawyers must become intimately acquainted with the nature and nuances of their clients’ day-to-day business operations. As a baseline deliverable, clients expect services and solutions that reflect their corporate culture and aspirations. This kind of intimacy takes us beyond monitoring industry trends. Among other things, it requires us to regularly connect with our clients in person, walk their halls and factory floors and speak their business language instead of legal-talk. I think this ongoing dialogue about gauging and meeting our clients’ real needs and interests is a vital one for lawyers to engage. A congruent conversation about monitoring client satisfaction is blazing through the law blog world right now. Here are some bits of it, loosely joined by me: Allison Shields at Legal Ease comments in three different posts here, here and here. James Hassett also gives his opinion in three-part harmony at his blog, Law Firm Business Development (tip by JD Hull of What About Clients?). And Patrick Lamb adds his thoughts at In Search of Perfect Client Service.