These tips are oriented to practice management and personal life, and behind each tip is a sad story that might have been prevented. Hopefully you will learn from the mistakes of others.
1. Get your fee agreements in writing. Many of the unhappy relationships between attorneys and clients are the direct result of failure to have a written fee agreement clearly spelling out what the attorney or firm or client will or will not do and what the matter will cost the client.
2. Be a compulsive list maker. List making is an essential tool for planning. Preparing a list forces you to think about which tasks must be performed first, next, or those that should not be done at all. Crossing "done" items off the list gives you a sense of progress and a feeling of accomplishment. Review and prioritize your "to do" list very night before you go home. Your subconscious may work on the next day's tasks even while you sleep. When you come in the next morning you will be able to immediately commence work, saving 15 to 20 minutes of getting organized in the morning. When you review your "to do" list, decide to follow one of three courses:
- Do the task.
- Delegate the task to another person.
- Decide not to do the task. People may be unhappy if you decide not to perform the task, but they will be more unhappy if they have to wait interminably for a task that never does get done.
3. Learn to say "no." You cannot achieve either personal or career happiness until you learn to say "no." You can't be all things to all people. Unkept promises lead to stress, frustration, anxiety and guilt, all of which affect your happiness, your health and your ability to earn money.
4. Learn what to neglect. If you can't do it all, don't try. Make time for yourself, your family, your clients, your community and your beliefs. This will eliminate much of the "guilt" of being torn apart by conflicting demands on your time.
5.Understand the importance of your first meeting with the client. The first meeting often sets the stage for subsequent satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Make a road map of the client's matter.
6. Learn how to listen to people. Clients, family, friends and staff want you to listen to them when they speak. They want to tell their story and they want you to listen. If they feel you are listening they will trust you, they will respect you, and ultimately they will accept and follow your professional advice. If they feel you are not listening they will believe you don't care about them, and that you only care about making money or using them.
Listen carefully at your first meeting when they try to give you the facts. My father taught me, "Jay, either you can learn or you can talk, but you can't do both at the same time. God gave us two ears and one mouth. God wanted us to listen two-thirds of the time and talk one-third of the time. If God had intended the reverse, we would have two mouths and one ear."
End every interview by asking, "Is there anything else you want to ask me or to tell me?"
If necessary, take a class on how to listen to people.
7. Get rid of incompetent staff. Only hire the best. Good people inspire client confidence and enable you to practice or leave the office without fear that, without micro management, your staff will not do their job properly. Incompetent employees cannot be trusted. You have to work twice as hard supervising them, correcting their mistakes, and living in fear of what they will do wrong if you're not available to supervise. They stress you and make it impossible to enjoy your life when you are out of the office.
8. Learn how to interview and hire the right people. First, define the job in writing and find the qualified people (at least 10). Narrow the field to three when you interview. Hire the one who fits in best in your firm. Don't hire unqualified people just because you like them. Always check references. Be wary when an applicant tells you he or she will get a bad reference and, therefore, you shouldn't believe what you are told. Also, be wary when references won't respond. Good people who are right for the job improve the happiness and profitability of your practice.
9. Avoid non-meritorious malpractice complaints and non-meritorious ethics complaints. Defending allegations of unethical conduct and/or malpractice is a gut wrenching experience, a waste of time, and can undermine your self-confidence as an attorney and as a person. Consult with other lawyers for an independent opinion before getting involved in a dispute with your client.
A large percentage of complaints against lawyers are totally without merit as ethics or malpractice concerns, but they are the result of attorneys mistreating their clients. The ethics complaints are often the only way a client has to "strike back" at an attorney or firm. Many tips for avoiding these complaints follow.
10. Bombard your clients with paper. A large percentage of client complaints allege abandonment of the client or the matter, especially when the client has paid a large amount of money. When clients get no news, they often erroneously believe you are neglecting or abandoning them.
Happy clients are the result of lots of client contact through excellent communication. Use snail mail, e-mail, and faxes to provide your clients with copies of every document and communication for which they are expected to pay.
11. Return telephone calls the same day and document every unsuccessful attempt to reach the client. Set aside 11:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to return calls. We live in a world of same-day cleaners, one-hour photos, CNN coverage of news as it happens and instantaneous worldwide communication on the Internet. Clients have high expectations that their lawyer will call them back immediately. If you can't return the call the same day, let the receptionist or your secretary return the call. Offer the client the option of leaving a voice mail. Learn how to have an operator interrupt when the client's line is busy. Send a fax or e-mail if you can't make contact by telephone.
Allegations of unreturned telephone calls are high on the list of client complaints. Documenting your attempts to return calls may soothe the upset client or convince the bar authorities not to ruin your life with an investigation.
12. Take good care of your health. You cannot delegate your health care to an assistant or paralegal. Only you can do it. You can't practice high quality law or do a good job helping your clients (or your family) if you are seriously ill or worse yet dead. Get an annual physical. Health problems often creep up gradually and can be treated easily if caught while minor. Incurable prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, etc. are often the result of a failure to have regular physical check-ups. You feel really good only when you know you are healthy.
Make and keep medical appointments with the same seriousness as client appointments and trial dates.
Understand that the state of your mind can and does affect your body and vice versa. Unhappiness, stress and depression can and do lead to very real physical ailments. Back problems, sleeping problems and various pains are often the result of the state of your mind. My dental hygienist recently told me that she can tell when her patient is under stress by the increased amount of plaque and tartar between cleanings. She can also tell when a patient has made an improvement in their life by the lesser amounts of plaque and tartar between cleanings.
Exercise regularly. It only takes 20 to 30 minutes three times a week to meet the minimum level of exercise. To lose your money is to lose nothing. To lose your health is to lose everything.
13. Don't bend or break the rules. Representing a client with zeal is not a command or permission to "win at any cost". Clients will come and clients will go, but you hope to practice law 30 or 40 years or more. Practicing unethically or illegally to win a case rarely will get you any lasting client gratitude, and you then have to live in fear of being caught and losing your license. Those clients for whom you have broken the rules will often blackmail you to avoid paying their fees or to get a refund of fees paid. Be willing to go to hell for a client. Do not be willing to go to jail for a client.
14. Be professional. Treat other lawyers with dignity and respect. Aggressive representation (in excess) can lead to your stroke and/or your heart attack death. If you die of a heart attack working on a client matter, it's unlikely the client will even come to your funeral. The client will probably simply be concerned about their file. Excessive aggression often leads to estrangement from friends and family when the lawyer can't "turn it off". Be courteous to opposing counsel if it does not prejudice your client's case. Aggressive action for the sake of aggression often works as a disadvantage for your client because you may lose sight of the legal aspects of the case. "Scorched earth" representation usually adds very little except an exorbitant bill for services which may eventually cause the client to be dissatisfied with the lawyer.
Remember, what goes around comes around.
15. Work on relationships with your family. Clients will come and clients will go, but family can be for life. Take a few moments to ask your spouse to go for a walk around the block. Tell your spouse that you still love him or her and you are happy to be with them. Make time for your children. If you don't make time for them when they are children living at home, they might not make time for you when they are adults and out of the house. Remember it will be you who taught them by example that family is more important than money or vice-versa. Schedule family events as seriously as court dates or client meetings.
Make time for your parents if you still have them. Your children will probably care about you in your senior years in much the same way as you care about your parents.
Try to eat one meal a day as a family meal. Seeing each other face to face, talking to each other and sharing a common meal can do wonders in cementing family relationships.
Put a picture of your family members on your desk facing you. The photograph will remind you not to ignore them.
16. Work on relationships with the people in your office. Keep in mind that often you earn the income you earn because of their efforts, not the other way around. Imagine how little you would earn if you had no assistance. At the end of the week take a few moments to tell your secretary or assistant how much you enjoy working with them and you enjoy being part of the same team. You'll be amazed how much happier and more profitable your practice will be.
17. Get help when you are in over your head on a case. If you don't know what to do, you'll tend to procrastinate and then panic. Get help from a lawyer or firm that knows what to do. Be willing to give up most or even all of the fee. You will feel relieved when the responsibility is off your back. Treat the case as a learning experience to prepare you for the next case. You won't fear the client's calls. It's better to earn a smaller fee or even no fee than to worry about mistreating a client and subjecting yourself and your firm to a malpractice problem.
18. Be honest and truthful in discussing fees and anticipated results. No one benefits when a client cannot afford to finish a legal matter. The client is left with a large expenditure of money and an unfinished legal matter and the lawyer is typically left with a large uncollectible receivable. If you allow your client to have unrealistic expectations, the client will never be happy, no matter how magnificent the job you did was. When a client has unrealistic expectations or simply cannot afford your legal representation, you will be happier and it will be more profitable if you simply do not accept the case. Your time will be better spent representing clients with reasonable expectations who can afford your services. Don't be tempted by the prospect of an immediate cash fee up front when you suspect the end result will probably eventually be disastrous for both you and the client.
19. Get rid of the non-cooperative or overly demanding clients. Once a year review every matter in your office. You could probably lose 10% of your clients and at the same time get rid of 90% of your aggravation while only losing 2% of your fees. Call the client in and refund all fees paid. Give the client the telephone number of the local Lawyer Referral Service. Get rid of the client early in the relationship, before the client would be prejudiced by changing lawyers. The chemistry between a lawyer and a client is not always a good one. Often the best thing for both is for the client to seek a new lawyer who is more closely attuned to him or her. If you are willing to take on "high maintenance", demanding clients because they are willing to pay more, or because you need the income, remember not to get angry with yourself or at them when they make unreasonable demands.
20. Learn how to deal with difficult lawyers, clients and judges. Remember that overly aggressive lawyers are simply committing suicide. Fire the worst clients. Only respond to a judge's words, not the tone of voice.
21. Learn to use ADR. People often come to a lawyer with a lot of "emotional baggage" which often influences and affects their technical legal problem. These problems will last as long as the legal problem lasts. These problems may determine how clients deal with you. Otherwise nice people become difficult so long as they are burdened with a legal problem and the uncertainty of the outcome. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) offers a more rapid often a more affordable conclusion of a problem. 85% of all mediations end successfully in less than two days. Having happy, grateful clients increases the probability of timely payment for your services and client referrals.
22. Try working at home one day a week. You'll be surprised how much more you can accomplish by working at home on your own schedule. Use this method on a day when you wish to accomplish personal business such as making time for your family or yourself in addition to client matters. People often don't believe they can accomplish more at home working outside of regular office hours, until they actually try it.
23. Determining what you really want to do. Are you doing what you really want to do? Try the Jay Foonberg cardboard box method approach to professional happiness. Get a cardboard box. The boxes that contained the copy paper will do. Every time you read a daily newspaper or a magazine or a trade or legal or technical magazine or newsletter, keep a big red marker or pencil in your hand. Circle the articles that you actually read. Don't circle the ones you just glance at or skim. Throw the newspaper or publication into the Jay Foonberg cardboard box after reading and circling the article. After two or three months, dump the articles out of the box (or boxes) and look at the articles you circled. The circled articles will be the subjects you really care about and are interested in.
These circled articles may point you in the right professional direction, focusing on increased profits and professional happiness.
24. If you are unhappy with your practice, reassess your goals and be ready to change corners. Be flexible. Be ready to move on to another type of law practice if there is no need for what you can do, in your location. You may have to either change practice areas or location. Assess why you became a lawyer, why you are practicing what you are practicing, and where you are practicing. If you are not earning a decent living or are not happy with your career, consider making some changes. When a vendor can't sell wares on one corner, the vendor moves on to another corner and may even change products. The practice of law and the need for lawyers in any given area of law or geographic location may change radically and rapidly.
25. Understand and accept that law can be a uniquely stressful profession. Lawyers have a higher incidence of depression than any other profession. Law is different even without "special problems." Law can be stressful for any or all of the following reasons:
- Adversarial Atmosphere. Law is often viewed by lawyers and clients as a zero based win-lose event with every "victory" deemed to have a corresponding "loss." A lawyer often feels they are "hurting" the other side when they help their client. Lawyers may feel they are not only in conflict with adversaries, but may view other associates and partners as adversarial. Lawyers are often called upon to assist people they do not like or to advocate causes they truly do not agree with.
- Never-Ending Work. There is always "one more thing" that could be done. One more deposition, one more interview, one more case to be read, one more law review article, etc. Law is infinite. A single case can consume you.
- Client Relations. Clients in conflict are often not normal people. They are often difficult to work with. They often have rewritten history in their own minds. They honestly believe they have done absolutely nothing wrong and the other side is clearly at fault. Resolution of a problem by compromise becomes unacceptable because they feel they should win. They resent having to pay a lawyer to represent them because, in their minds, they have done nothing wrong.
- Other Lawyers. It is unfortunate that many lawyers, particularly those obligated to churn out billable hours, will overwork a case. They will be as difficult as possible. They will refuse to cooperate on exchanges of information or advancing the matter to conclusion. They create unnecessary and nonmeritorious expense in forcing lawyers to spend time and money to overcome stall and delay tactics. This need by young lawyers to create unnecessary work may be the result of large unpaid student loans.
- Disillusionment. Many lawyers once felt they would help change the world, only to find out that their firm or their income won't allow the time needed to do so.
- Judges. Increasingly, judges become judges without ever having had the responsibility, of getting and keeping clients or managing a practice. Many judges simply do not understand the day to day problems of practicing law, having allowed others to manage their time and activity before taking the bench. Judges often create unnecessary problems for lawyers and clients. The same judge who would never wait 20 minutes for a table in a restaurant, thinks nothing of forcing lawyers and their clients to stand around for hours at the monetary expense of the client and the lawyer. The situation is worsened by the inability of the lawyers to be frank and open with a judge for fear of retaliation by the judge which could affect the outcome of the client's case.
- Speciality Practice. Speciality practice often takes the fun out of practicing law. A speciality lawyer may quickly become bored or uninspired when the cases become more and more routine with little or no variety.
26. If you find you don't have the patience to deal with clients, consider hiring a professional listener. Lawyers who deal with family law and with elder law often feel frustrated by clients who continually call but can't afford to pay for the time the calls take. Great success has been reported by family and elder care lawyers who use a professional listener. An older grandmotherly type woman is often ideally suited for the job. Their age gives them great living experience and having raised and cared for children and their own elderly parents gives them insight into the non-legal problems commonly inherent in family law and elder law. The professional listener prepares a summary report on the conversation for review by an attorney to determine if legal advice or action is necessary. The listener, however, is not allowed to give legal advice.
27. Technology. Don't let technology wear you down or intimidate you. If it works, it's obsolete (a Foonbergism). As soon as you invest time and money learning to use technology in your practice, something newer and better always comes along. Time spent in learning technology is often seen as an interference on otherwise billable or recreational time. Don't feel guilty because you are not a beta tester for new technology. Go with what you know unless client needs require change.
28. Start your exit plan. Know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Don't hang on until you are incompetent. Your retirement can be a rebirth or a death sentence. It's up to you.
29. Contribute to our profession and our society with a limited amount of pro bono work. We only have a life estate in our profession. We are obligated to improve the remainder for those who follow us. You will feel good about yourself. You will feel that you are making a difference. On the other hand, you must limit your pro bono time to about 5% of your time in general. If you are not careful, your desire to help those who cannot pay could interfere with your ability to help those who can afford to pay.
30. Be proud of being a lawyer. Remember who we are and what we are. Our legal profession has created and maintained the greatest system of freedom and opportunity in the history of the world. Lawyers drafted the laws leading to the statue of Parliament in Westminster. Lawyers drafted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which guarantee to every Canadian the religious, social, economical and political freedoms enjoyed by the people of Canada. Lawyers protect the poor and the elderly. Without lawyers to protect freedoms, the freedoms would quickly disappear.
Jay Foonberg personally practices business law, business litigation, estate and probate litigation and legal ethics. The firm of Bailey & Marzano has a business and aviation litigation practice.
Jay currently serves in the ABA House of Delegates; he is on the Advisory Council for the ABA Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct and he was a founder of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. His book, How To Start and Build a Law Practice (4th edition), is the book that is most frequently stolen from law libraries in the United States and it has earned $1 million for the ABA, and has been their best seller every year since 1977. Mr. Foonberg is the author of three other important books, all available from the ABA: How to Get and Keep Good Clients (2nd edition); Finding the Right Lawyer; and The ABA Guide to Lawyer Trust Accounts. A much sought after speaker, Jay has led seminars and taught client relations, malpractice prevention, ethics and client development in every one of the 50 states and as far afield as Europe, South America and Asia in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Jay earned his J.D. from UCLA Law School and has received the prestigious Harrison Tweed Award, CLE's highest honor. He lives in Beverly Hills and is currently Of Counsel to Bailey & Marzano, a litigation firm in Santa Monica, California.
©1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Jay G. Foonberg Reprinted with the permission of the author Jay Foonberg