Through the wonders of six-degrees-of-separation (many thanks to Debbie Huttner and Michael Huttner), I connected with Jason and had a lively discussion on the topic of re-designing legal services around the client experience.

AH: How many lawyers have you worked with over the years?

JM: 2,000-3,000.

AH: What percentage of these lawyers were excellent?

JM: 5%

AH: What makes a lawyer that pretty rare kind of advisor that inspires client evangelism – someone who provides such meaningful service that clients voluntarily shout his or her praises?

JM: I think it’s a combination of factors:

1.   Team Feeling/Proactive Representation: You want to get the sense that your lawyer is part of your team and interested in your business. You want them to be there for you and thinking about you/your business when you need them to, and also thinking about you/your business even when you don’t need them for a particular matter. This sounds obvious but it rarely happens.

2.   Consistency: This means not swapping out people. For example, in the initial meeting, you meet with certain lawyers, you build rapport and a connection with them and then you end up with different lawyers working on your deal. 

3.   Creativity: If you can think creatively and strategically on how to manage the legal issue in an efficient and effective way, you will get into the Lawyer Rock Star Hall of Fame.

 AH: That gives us a good sense of the lawyer’s side of the coin. Are clients at all responsible for creating their own positive experiences with legal service consumption/delivery?

 JM: The irony is that people who hire lawyers have no idea if the lawyer is any good. I give entrepreneurs 5-6 questions to ask potential lawyers when interviewing them. But the truth is that any lawyer can get past those questions. The best is to ask present or former clients of that lawyer/law firm and to ask other lawyers who have worked with the lawyer on opposite sides of a deal or dispute. Lots of lawyers can get a great reference, show up and woo you in a board meeting but then they don’t really know how to get the work done. They don’t do quality work.

So, yes, I think the client has some responsibility for ensuring their own positive service delivery experience. I riff on this in my Lawyer Bill of Rights. If a client doesn’t follow it, the client has no right to complain.

Thanks, Jason, for lending your insights into client experience design and helping us build legal sanity.

He makes a great point. As lawyers, on the professional front alone, we consume huge helpings of bad news every day – from mainstream media coverage of the economic downturn to niche stories on the sorry state of the legal profession and the latest tallies on law firm firings and closures. It can be a real challenge to not get weighed down and stressed out on this steady diet of negativity.

So, I was very heartened to read a great Harvard Business post in which leadership consultant John Baldoni compels us to Find Ways to Make Good News. Baldoni opens by crediting CNN for its coverage of the life and death of Stephen Tyrone Johns, a Holocaust Museum security guard who was shot and killed in the line of duty by a white supremacist. He then asserts that business leaders owe themselves and their “people” a “break from the relentless progress of bad news.” To help them along, Baldoni suggests that they find and share one piece of good news every day. Or, taking it a step further, they can make some good news via their own positive actions.

You’ll find some complementary tips and tools in this New York Times story on Dealing with Recession-Related Stress. If you’re in the Washington, DC Metro Area on June 24-26, my friend and colleague Charlie Badenhop is leading a stress management workshop for coaches, consultants, leaders and other professionals. You can learn more about it here.

Lawyers aren’t known for being a creative lot. This is evidenced by the enduring nature of the billable hour over alternative fee structures, among other business practices. Some will undoubtedly say: “You can’t change our stripes. Creativity is best left to other professions.” But, I think this is a copout. There’s a wealth of creativity to be tapped in our ranks if we can just find the right inspiration and outlets.

On the inspiration side, you can take a look at a great series of Fast Company posts on the business of creativity, including one featuring the 10 Most Creative People in Sports and one on the Top 10 Most Creative People in Health Care. Imagine what a post on the Top 10 Most Creative People in the Law would include.

On the outlet side, maybe it’s about taking baby steps to tapping and expressing our creativity. Marketing is one area that’s creativity-friendly. Lawyers are already venturing into this creative realm via LinkedIn; Twitter and Facebook.

For more on the marketing front, there’s a great new book from legal marketing expert Paula Black titled: The Little Black Book: A Lawyer’s Guide to Creating a Marketing Habit in 21 Days. If you purchase the book in the next 48 hours, you’ll also receive The Smart Lawyer’s Toolkit, a compilation of advice from more than 30 sought-after experts in the legal arena (including yours truly). My advice comes by way of an interview I did with Gerry Riskin, author of The Successful Lawyer, about the challenges facing attorneys in today's economy. You can learn more about Paula’s book and complementary toolkit here.

In its first incarnation, this blog focused quite a bit on the malaise plaguing the legal profession and people who inhabit it. As part of my investigation into the problem and search for solutions, I read and commented on the rocky road to lawyer happiness. In one of the more recent posts on the subject, I mentioned the important work attorney Daniel Lukasik is doing through his website, Lawyers with Depression.

Part of decoding happiness in any given population is getting an honest accounting of what might put that milestone out of reach. Daniel offers us that candid insight via his website and new companion blog. You can gain additional insight from lawyer Timothy A. Tosta’s article on Overcoming Stickiness, this post on lawyer burnout and this article offering help for attorneys in crisis.

Cantankerous as can be, Oscar also has a some very endearing qualities, like the love and care he gives his pet worm, Slimey (BTW, if you haven’t heard/seen Tony Bennett sing Slimey to the Moon, you really must). Even as a toddler, my daughter could tell that Oscar has a good heart. He offers up a great lesson on seeing the whole of any person (or, monster) that we engage with as lawyers.

Echoing this lesson is a compelling post describing how one big firm associate very constructively dealt with an ornery senior partner. In my experience, the ability to look at a person in his or her entirety has a lot to do with empathy. As writer Katherine Bell posits, empathy is a not-so-soft skill that entails “an act of imagination in which you try to look at the world from the perspective of another person, a human being whose history and point of view are as complex as your own.” This kind of gestalt, or holistic, approach to relating is something that most lawyers could benefit from.

One organization dedicated to helping lawyers embrace this approach is the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers (IAHL). This year, the IAHL is hosting its annual conference on June 11-14 in Chicago. The theme is: Voices of the “New” Lawyer: Finding and Expressing Your True Voice in Your Practice. The conference features a comprehensive, interdisciplinary training on collaborative family law practice. Near and dear to my heart, there’s also a dinner/tribute program honoring my friend, Steven Keeva, on the 10^th anniversary of his groundbreaking book, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in Legal Life. You can register for the conference here.   

I’m very drawn to the topic, and exploration, of inspiration. In these uncertain times, discovering what inspires us can be both grounding and uplifting.

Over at her blog, Build a Solo Practice @ SPU, Susan Cartier Liebel tells us about the lifelong inspiration she’s gained from her mom’s aversion to the words “I Can’t." We can also find inspiration in great design and natural beauty.

Some times, when we’re feeling particularly challenged professionally or personally, inspiration comes in the form of another human being; a friend, colleague or total stranger who gives us a sense of hope or much-needed perspective on the possibility life holds. My mother recently sent me a video story about golf enthusiast D.J. Gregory.

Born with cerebral palsy, the 30-year-old, against all odds, walked every hole of every 2008 PGA tournament. In all, he traveled through 44 tournaments, 180 rounds, 3256 holes and over 900 miles on foot. I was so inspired by his story and believe you will be, too.  Watch the video. It's well worth the 12 minutes. 

This about the 2008 minivan that my kids practically live in. The subject of multiple recalls, it’s currently without A/C due to a defective hose. Chrysler knows about the problem and admits responsibility under its warranty. But, according to my dealership, the company just can’t keep up with the vast demand for replacement hoses. So, it’s been a waiting game. And, by some twist of coincidence, it’s been unseasonably hot on and off here in NY. The sizzling metal and glass box breeds major kid (and parent) crankiness, even with all the windows down. The summer months stretch out ahead.

Although the dealer claims that we’re next on the list when a hose shipment comes in, Chrysler has done some serious damage to a once solid customer relationship.

I can’t help but wonder how Chrysler would respond if it were a fly on the virtual wall that I post this on. Maybe it could take some guidance from Spike at Brains on Fire and embrace the upset it’s generated by producing a faulty A/C system and, then, not fixing the problem promptly. Or, maybe it’s a matter of fessing up to its own vulnerabilities as a company or asking whether it’s easy to deal with as a service provider (article courtesy of my business associate, Adrian Miller).

I’m sure there’s some room for making amends or, at least, stemming the tide of defecting customers. Come on Chrysler, take a look at yourself and ask, “where’s the love?”

I recently spent some time talking to law firm consultant Gerry Riskin. A co-founder and principal of Edge International, Gerry is a widely recognized expert on managing professional service firms. He shares his views at his terrific blog, Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices, and via Twitter. I asked Gerry for his thougts on client experience management.

AH: How important is the client experience?

GR: It’s extremely critical and I base that on what people have reported to me about firms they’ve worked with. For instance, the general counsel of a huge financial institution hiring literally hundreds of law firms described his favorite firm this way: “When I get there, the receptionist greets me by name and offers a decent refreshment. There’s good, current reading material in the waiting area. The person who I’m there to see comes out promptly. But, even before that, other people come along and say hello to me while I'm sitting there.”

AH: So, his experience didn’t turn on the quality, quantity or price of the legal advice he received.

GR: Right. And let's be honest, if he was in Buenos Aires and needed immediate brain surgery and the one and only brain surgeon in Buenos Aires was a jerk, he would use that jerk brain surgeon because he had no choice. But, when it's anything that more than one person can provide of equal quality, it comes down to the experience. I think – and I will include myself here - all of us would like to think of ourselves as having expertise, as being special and particularly knowledgeable. We don't like to think we're easily replicable. But, the truth is in most respects we're not unique.

AH: So, given that most firms and lawyers are indistinguishable in terms of their expertise, client experience becomes a key differentiator?

GR: Yes. And I don’t base my theory on that one example. It’s a common theme. In fact, on a recent plane trip, I sat next to next to a billionaire who's on the board of many pharmaceutical companies. I asked him to tell me about the law firms he likes and doesn’t like. Anyway, the punch line is, here is a powerful, powerful, powerful man whose biggest complaint about a law firm is his reception area experience and what he perceives to be the arrogance of partners walking through without bidding him good day. And, I bet those partners who walked by without acknowledging him were completely unaware of what they were doing (or not doing).

AH: So do you have a couple of nuggets of advice on what it takes to create the optimal client experience?

GR: Well, at the highest level of abstraction, you need to have complete empathy. Ask, “If I were the consumer of this service, what would I want?” The challenge is that we get blind spots based on familiarity. So you need fresh eyes and the best source of fresh eyes is your clients. Ask them: “Of all the law firms you've ever been to, of all the lawyers you've ever worked with, what do you like best and what should be done differently?” That allows your clients to be very candid without attacking you or your firm. You can also transpose your own experiences. Lawyers use other services, lawyers get annoyed by bad service here or delighted by good service there. Take a moment and analyze what makes your experience good or bad. Then ask the next question: “Do we do any of that in our environment?” Last, but of course not least, is training. Knowing is not doing. But, people have a very hard time getting that. They think once they know about something, they’re doing it. It's like listening. My wife says I should listen to her better so I think, oh, okay, I know the concept of listening so I'll listen to her better. But, it's not until I practice it, maybe get trained in it, maybe understand the structure of listening that I really listen better. 

AH: Gerry, you’ve offered great insight into the client experience. Thanks so much for helping us cultivate legal sanity.

Meditation has been a regular part of my life for over 20 years. It’s helped me weather many a flurry personally and professionally. It’s also given me a mental focus and flexibility that makes me a better advocate for my clients. I’ve written a couple of articles on meditation basics. You’ll find other helpful insights in this Michigan Bar Journal article (pdf) and this piece from The New York Law Journal (featuring …… me).

If you’re in the NYC area this Sunday, May 17, 2009, I’m giving a meditation workshop with my good friend, Eileen Feinman at Yoga Life in Port Washington, NY. The venue is close to the LIRR train station and all major highways and there’s plenty of parking. Port Washington is a beautiful waterside town with lots of great restaurants and shopping. For more information, you can contact me or call Yoga Life at 516.767.9642.

Along with thinkers like:

Dan Pink 

Hugh MacLeod 

Kathy Sierra 

Chris Brogan

Tim Sanders 

Pam Slim 

Goleman has inspired me to look at the legal profession through a broader social-cultural lens.

As a culture, we’re becoming more and more right-brained in orientation. We now place a premium on authenticity, emotion, creativity, meaning and honesty in our personal and professional interactions.

In a recent post for Harvard Business, Goleman writes that consumers are calling for a new kind of openness - a radical transparency that “converts the chains that link every product and its multiple impacts — carbon footprints, chemicals of concern, treatment of workers and the like — into a force that counts in sales.”

To keep up with this demand, Goleman notes, businesses should engage their consumer community (in the law, this would be a firm’s clients, lawyers and non-legal staff) and make it easy for community members to offer feedback and comments. If they drop the ball on this front, big brother is ready to step up in the form of open mike watchdog sites like GetSatisfaction.com.

The other day, I passed by the Shake Shack in NYC’s Madison Square Park. The crowd was thick. But, as always, people seemed more than willing to wait it out for a delectable burger or frozen treat. As I watched the scene, I caught myself thinking, “Another amazing experience brought to you by Danny Meyer.”

A restaurateur of major note, Meyer has multiple long-lived, successful eateries in a city filled with very discerning palates. In a recent talk he gave at NYU Stern, he attributed his success, in part, to “enlightened hospitality” – a focus on how the delivery of a product or service makes its recipient feel. He said you have to make customers feel that you’re on their side.

Interestingly, he also noted that, when it comes to creating a hospitable business culture, you first have to extend hospitality to the people who work for you. Only after setting this foundation can you extend it to others - like your customers, suppliers and investors.

This idea of hospitality makes a lot of sense to me and I think it's very relevant to the law. I’ve always believed that a positive law firm culture roots in a positive employee (legal and non-legal) experience. So, law firms looking to build - or rebuild - their business environment would do well to take Meyer’s lead into the hospitality business.

For more on creating a positive consumer experience (lawyers, after all, are prime consumers of law firm culture), you can take a look at these posts and articles:

Triage Customer Service

How to Nurture Relationships with Your Gem Clients

Coddle and Keep Customers 

A Lesson from the Dentist

I named my blog Legal Sanity because I wanted to be a voice for sanity in an increasingly insane legal world. Although this post is off topic for the legal world, I am writing today as a voice for sanity in our world at large. I just received an automated voice mail from the Superintendent of Schools of where I live updating us on the measures the school is about to take should the Swine Flu strike here in Port Washington, New York. This message, and the emails and letters that followed, spurred me to write this post.

The swine flu panic is insane. Yes, it is a new disease that can kill people but there needs to be PERSPECTIVE because the over the top reactive responses from those in leadership positions will certainly cause more damage than the Swine Flu.  So now all after school activities in the State of Texas are cancelled for the remainder of the school year. How tragic! Tens of thousands of teenage kids without a healthy after school activity will be milling about with too much time on their hands. Will they not still commingle with their friends? Does the Swine Flu only hang out at the school track? How many of these kids will be passing the time drinking and getting into trouble? What will their parents do in managing the situation? Are we going to follow in the footsteps of the Mexican government and shut down the economy for a week? How many lives will be destroyed from the additional unemployment?  

30,000-40,000 people die each year in the USA alone from the flu. I don’t mean to sound callous, but this is life. There are a host of diseases and dangers that kill tens of thousands of people a day throughout the world. 

PANDEMIC. Such a scary word. What a media darling it is because it fuels fear and fear sells. The 1968 Hong Kong flu was the last pandemic. It killed one million people, a tragic number. But let’s get some perspective. Every year, on average, 1.2 million people die from traffic accidents, 2 million from AIDS, 8 million from cancer, 18 million from heart disease, 40 million from malaria. All these numbers are fast rising. The list of global killers far more powerful than the 1968 Hong Kong Flu goes on and on. If you want to cheer up your day, take some time reading through the World Health Organization website. I promise you, by the time you are done, you won’t be so worried about the Swine Flu.   

Bottom line is that life is dangerous and the possibility of death looms for us all in any moment. So should we box ourselves in germ free padded bomb shelters? Of course not. Why? Because the chance of dying today or tomorrow or the next day is fairly remote. For most of us, there is a 99.9% percent chance you’ll still be breathing and worrying a week, month and year from now. Of course we need to be vigilant and take reasonable measures to prevent getting sick. However, we need to relax, live our lives and not panic our kids. 

With all that is going on the world, it’s not nearly as challenging or dangerous as it was on March 4, 1933, in the height of the Great Depression and World War II. In his inaugural speech, FDR showed brilliant leadership in calming down a nation and a world by helping people move past their fear and paralysis when he so eloquently stated "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." 

This advice is perfect for today. It’s critical that we not let our fear generate actions that cause us more harm than good.

Do you have a Michigan Wolverines trash can or plastic helmet (you know, the blue wolverine that sits on your head)? I did …. until they met an ill fate at the hands of someone who just doesn’t understand what it means to sing Hail to the Victors until your heart pounds and tears well up.

Even though this week marks the 25^th anniversary of my college graduation, time and space haven't changed how I feel about the institution (and its football team). I’m not the tattoo kind. But, if I were, my one and only one would read, Go Blue!. Yes, I’m forever part of the University of Michigan tribe. And, judging by our conversations over the years and at this milestone moment, my college friends are, too.

I’ve been posting on this kind of tribal affiliation lately and thinking about how it applies to the law, in general, and to law firm culture, in particular. Especially in these unsettled -  and unsettling - times, law firms need to foster the connecting points between lawyer and non-lawyer employees at every level. But, as this thoughtful piece points out, it’s not a matter of manufacturing connections and building a tribe. The real question is: “Do [we] have a community and how can [we] harness it?”

If you’re a law firm leader and you’re not sure if you have a tribal community (or communities) to harness, you’ll find some good guidance in this slideshow based on Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes. Godin sheds some more light on the matter in a recent Wired interview and in this blog post on tribe management.

It’s inspired by a pretty well-known quote from author/motivational speaker Zig Ziglar that first came to my awareness while I was watching a great interview with marketing expert Seth Godin. More recently, it popped into my head as I read Be THAT Lawyer, Carolyn Elefant’s thoughts on creating a niche law practice, and a post from SPU’s Susan Cartier Libel titled: The Big Question: “Should You Create A Niche Practice?” (and Part II). Carolyn and Susan add a lot to a virtual conversation that’s been going on for quite some time.

I’ve participated in the dialogue on niche lawyering through posts like these:

How are you doing? 

The thinking behind lawyer brand identity

Self-expression and business relationships 

Here’s what some other lawyers have to say about niche practice and marketing:

Overcoming The Niche Bitch (Chuck Newton)

Niche thyself: Key to legal blog success (Kevin O’Keefe)

Don’t Dilute Your Niche In a Down Economy (Tom Kane)

Do You Have a Niche and What Are You Doing About It? (Tom Kane, again)

Don’t Be Tempted to Abandon Your Niche (Sara Holtz)

Developing a Niche Practice (Rudy Rivera for the ABA’s GP|Solo)

Got an Itch to Create a Niche? (N. Andrew Rotenstreich for the ABA’s Young Lawyer Division)

And here’s some sage input from a couple of non-lawyers:

How to Dominate Your Niche (Brian Clark)

Make the world smaller (Seth Godin)

I think that many new and seasoned lawyers want to be meaningful specifics instead of wandering generalities. Niche practices can certainly help you meet that goal. If you’re wandering in indecision, you might consider taking this quiz asking Does Your Work Matter to You?

Like thousands (millions?) of others, I gain a lot of insight on this front from marketing expert Seth Godin. Some time back, in a post titled 1000 true fans, he pointed to Kevin Kelly’s popular article by the same name.

According to Kelly:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living. A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. [ ] True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate. [ ] Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, [you] can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It's a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

While Kelly works his theory with creatives in mind, I think it applies to lawyers, especially solos. It strikes me as a second cousin of the customer evangelism theory (pdf) I’ve visited (and revisited) here - the idea (and reality) of offering such great service that your clients shout your praises until the rafters ring (or permanently ink your name on their bodies).

The challenge, and opportunity, is to figure out how to nurture and support our True Fan base. I’ll try to shed some light on this in future posts.

Authentic. Transparent. Human.

These three words come up again and again in conversations about creating and sustaining business relationships in the current marketplace. For lawyers, this really isn’t about a new way of relating to our clients, prospects and colleagues. It’s about getting back to our roots as service providers and connecting with the people behind the legal matters we take on. The practice of law has always been about helping people solve problems, overcome challenges and meet goals. But, somewhere along the way, the legal profession (with the help of law schools) lost sight of its human nature.

Over the years, I’ve posted on the importance of bringing ourselves back to our work so we can authentically relate to our clients and others:

• Finding ourselves in our work  
• Self-awareness in the practice of law
• What lawyers can learn about the power of authenticity
• Making the connection
• Mutuality in business relationships

In his new book, Fuel the Spark: 5 Guiding Values for Success in Law & Life, Colorado attorney Kevin Houchin shares practical wisdom on cultivating an authentic life in the law. Legal Sanity Co-producer Lori Herz asked Kevin for his thoughts on (re)designing the lawyer-client relationship for a better client experience.

LH: You set out five guiding values in your book: Accept; Show Up; Pay Attention; Many irons In The Fire; and Stewardship. They’re all relevant to cultivating a meaningful life in, and outside of, the law. But, I’d like to focus on the first one – Accept. In the chapter on this guidepost, you write something that I find particularly compelling:

“There are many things about the legal profession you must simply accept because you cannot change them. But there are also many things you can change because you control your outlook, your goals, and your choices. To maintain balance in your practice and your life, you must first identify what you are willing to accept and what you are willing to accept the responsibility for changing.”

How do you think this pertains to the way lawyers can connect with clients and others in everyday practice?

KH: The possibilities here are as endless as the combinations of lawyers, clients and matters.The first level of this value aims to help us think about the types of cases we take on and what that means to society. For instance, I don't accept criminal or divorce cases. Accordingly, since I don't accept personal responsibility for changing those situations for those clients, I have accepted to let those situations exist as they are - hoping other attorneys will accept the responsibility to take the necessary steps to help society.  

At the next level, we can choose how we will interact with our clients, but it's important that we don't judge either our clients or ourselves too harshly. Each client is different, some are very business-like and don't want a lot of small talk, especially if they think the "clock is running.” Others simply want someone to listen to their full story and empathize, even if we could jump in with the answer after only a few minutes. I talk a little bit about this in the section discussing my theory that to receive respect from our clients and peers, we must first surrender our instinct to judge.

LH: Yes, in that section you encourage us to identify what we must surrender in order to receive the changes we want in our law practice. As an example of this surrender-to-receive dynamic, you write:

“When you surrender judgment, you automatically open up to the possibility that the other person is worthy of respect. In turn, that makes it easier for the other person to open up to the possibility that you are worthy of respect.”

I really like this couplet. I call this “mutuality” in business relationships – a genuine kind of give and take. Is this what you’re getting at?

KH: "Mutuality." I like that word. I hadn't thought of it exactly that way, but it works. To some extent, we have to put ourselves emotionally in the trenches with our client's immediate challenge. When they know that we are with them emotionally, as well as physically and intellectually, something changes. The trust deepens. As I discussed before, I don't take on criminal cases because I don't know if I could let myself be that open to the client in those situations. That's just me. The important thing is to know yourself well enough that you do your best to only take on cases where you are able to form this kind of emotional bond with your client. It helps you be a better lawyer, and on a practical note, it will shorten the time it takes to get paid for your work because the client knows you're not just helping them for the money.

LH: To surrender our judgment in the lawyer-client relationship, we need to really listen to our clients and not talk over and around them with a deaf ear. This syncs with another of your guiding values – Pay Attention. You write:

“We sometimes deal with clients during very difficult times in their lives, so paying attention to how they are saying something may allow you to alleviate some discomfort, heal some harm, remove some shame, and get to the bottom of the problem.”

Can you share a personal experience with this?

KH: The simplest thing happens fairly often in my office because I'm a true solo and do not have a receptionist. The phone will ring in the middle of a meeting and my client might look at me with some surprise that I don't move to answer it. This gives me a chance to let them know that I'm paying attention to them in the moment. Take it a step farther and you're squarely in the active-listening techniques. In those active listening situations, you find the chance to make the emotional connection.  Showing that you have personally made the same mistake the client made in a situation, letting them know they aren't stupid, or that others have done the same thing pretty often removes their shame and fear and helps you start solving the problem. The next step of paying attention is watching for ways to help your clients when they're not in the room - referrals or becoming a fan of their product on Facebook are good examples. Following them on Twitter is another. Basically, becoming their friend instead of just their attorney will go a long way toward helping you be a better lawyer. It will also bring you more business and help you reach your own personal goals for success.

LH: Kevin, thanks for sharing your thoughts on client service and helping us cultivate legal sanity. We wish you all the best with your new book.

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity– Albert Einstein

Spring. Passover. Easter. It’s the time of year when we’re reminded that we’re resilient by nature and can move through challenges to a place of renewal and possibility.

Just as we survey and fix up our personal space during a spring cleaning, we can take an honest look at our business practices and see what’s worn out, broken or just no longer useful. For many law firms and lawyers, this process will reveal some areas of client service that have fallen into disrepair.

As you assess the problem and weigh possible fixes, you can gain some inspiration and practical advice from these sources:

Five Things - Do them and Clients will Love You

Speak Your Customer’s Language

Is Your Brand Vulnerable?

Word of the day: Relevant

On being a chief evangelist

Who’s in Charge of Your Company Culture?

Roam Before You Pave

I’m a big fan of lawyer mentoring and have given and received this guidance throughout my career. Although lawyers typically look to other lawyers to mentor them, I’ve learned a lot about business and service from people outside the legal profession.

With a nod to the value of cross-discipline mentoring, I’m starting a new feature today called the legal sanity mentor. Each month, experts and influencers across a range of fields will share their views on and around the topic of designing and delivering client-centric services.

As I’ve posted before, we’re living in an era of consumer control. Clients are no longer content to be passive recipients of legal services. They are active and educated co-creators who want us to understand and respond to them as human beings in need. The lawyers who will thrive in this new marketplace are those who place a premium on a positive client experience.

Lori Herz is legal sanity’s longtime co-producer and content director. She recently talked to Dan Formosa, an award-winning design expert and one of the founding members of Smart Design, about his firm’s approach to user-centricity.

LH: Where in your product design process does the consumer experience become relevant?

DF: It’s always relevant. We started Smart Design on the idea that design should be more about people than things. It’s important to consider the social science and psychology behind the design.

LH: How do you make the jump from that idea to reality?

DF: In our industry, people often focus on how the average person would use a product, often homogenizing people into “personas." It’s like designing things for imaginary friends. It’s very idealized. Instead, at Smart Design, we consider a wide range of people. Lately we’ve been taking the design process through a reality check that we call “6 Real People.”

LH: How do you engage the six?

DF: Actually, it’s not always six. It’s at least that many, but can be more. The point is to engage real people in a real dialogue about the products we’re working on. We photograph and videotape them talking about and using the products. We pay attention to their perceptions and reactions and really get to know them. When we talk about the products as a design team, we refer to these reality checkers and say things like, “Susan could do that, but George couldn’t.”

LH: So, since the beginning, you’ve built your design business around the user experience. I think that you broke some ground on an approach that’s now gaining momentum in the marketplace.

DF: Yes. The brand itself is no longer the lure for consumers. People make buying decisions based on other people’s experiences with a product or service (think Amazon or CNET reviews). In the design world, this creates amazing opportunities for innovating and making improvements on existing products. These same opportunities exist in other fields, like the law.

Many thanks to Dan for sharing these insights as a legal sanity mentor.

I’m happy to announce that I’m launching a new feature here called the legal sanity mentor.

Each month, experts and influencers across a range of fields will share their views on and around the topic of designing client-centered legal services.

This is a topic – and a mission - that’s taken on a lot of personal and professional significance for me as I’ve grown my solo practice. It’s also gained a great deal of attention outside the law due to the advent of a consumer culture valuing meaning, positive experience and emotional connection.

I’m publishing the first post in this series next week. It’s an interview with Smart Design founder Dan Formosa (full disclosure: Smart design is my client). With products like OXO Good Grips kitchen tools and Ford’s new SmartGauge instrument panel to its credit, Smart Design has pioneered the art and science of understanding and designing for the consumer experience.

If you want to preview Dan’s insights and work, he’ll be today’s guest on Debbie Millman’s VoiceAmerica radio show, Design Matters. You can listen to the live stream at 3PM EST. For time shifters, it will also be available at iTunes.

I look forward to presenting the legal sanity mentor to you and, as always, welcome your feedback and suggestions about it.

Here are two facts:

• There’s a client service deficit in the law.
• Lawyers tend to regard emotions – their own and other people’s – as irrelevant to their work.

At first glance, these two facts seem unrelated. But they’re actually closely (even intimately) connected.

Some time back, I posted on the interplay of emotions and client service in this new era of customer control. I linked to a ClickZ article citing a (then) new book by Dan Hill called Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds. Launching from the premise that humans are primarily emotional decision-makers, the book discusses how emotions factor into our business opportunities in the marketplace and workplace.

Picking up on this point from a slightly different angle, in a recent post, designer and marketing mentor Peleg Top says, Go ahead, get emotional. Top notes that, in marketing (and, I’d add, in providing) our services, “an effective way to generate action is to tell a compelling story, one that hits your customer’s emotions.” Suggesting that most service providers miss this mark, he observes:

If you look at the majority of service companies [ ], the common story is all about who they are and what they do best.  If I’m the customer, why would I believe them? What would compel me to trust that they really know what MY problem is? What my needs are? No feelings are generated and I will pass over them without a second thought.

In this new economy, feelings are a main form of currency. It may require a leap into the unknown for many lawyers, but to build strong and lasting business relationships, we need to give our clients the emotional connection they’re craving.