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'My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers' Author(s): DI MARI RICKER Source: ABA Journal, Vol. 82, No. 4 (APRIL 1996), pp. 78-81 Published by: American Bar Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27837616 . Accessed: 11/06/2014 07:10 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Bar Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ABA Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.78.123 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 07:10:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

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Page 1: My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

'My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers'Author(s): DI MARI RICKERSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 82, No. 4 (APRIL 1996), pp. 78-81Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27837616 .

Accessed: 11/06/2014 07:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Bar Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ABA Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.123 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 07:10:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

LAW PRACTICE

'My Lawyer Sent

Personal touches, extra efforts and thoughtfulness can

be unexpected roads to client satisfaction and loyalty BY DI MARI RICKER

Last winter, Felice Andrus, a New England horse trainer and im

porter, was looking through an ice-laced window when she saw a cu rious figure making his way up her snow-packed driveway. It

was someone she had never met, nor had ever expected to meet: her lawyer, who handles her businesses transactional work from the West Coast.

"That just bowled me over," says Andrus, whose attor

ney was in the area for a convention. "Here was this per son, who probably thinks it's cold when the air

conditioning in California is set too low, coming to visit me when it's 20 below. He looked like an icicle, which is exactly how I look when I have to go out to the barn in the dead of winter to feed the horses. I thought, now this is a lawyer who understands my business."

And that is a lawyer to whom Andrus, owner of Arete Lip pizans, says she will continue

sending business. "Lawyers are not known for going out of their way," says Andrus. "When I saw this figure in the snow, I thought, any lawyer

who would inconve nience himself physi cally just to meet a client is one who will go the extra mile for you in a business matter. That ges ture spoke volumes to me."

Those little extras, say attorneys who have re ceived feedback from clients, can be a pivotal factor in whether a client engages or stays with a firm. Some lawyers who have become attuned to such nuances

say, "Clients just love it when I..." Deliver large bills in person.

"If a bill is large, it makes it more

palatable to sit down, look some

body in the eye and tell them

Di Mari Ricker, a Los Angeles attorney and legal journalist, is a

former staff writer for the Los Ange les Times and the Boston Globe.

78 ABA JOURNAL / APRIL 1996 ILLUSTRATIONS BY SAM WARD

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Page 3: My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

Me Flowers'

^^^r why ^^^^^^^^^^^^fl we what we ^^^^^^^^^^^^H * says Jaimie Schwartz, ^^^^^^^^^^^H commercial real estate asso- ^^H^^^^^^^H c?ate with Bernstein, Shur, ^^f^^^^^^^H Sawyer & Nelson in Portland, ^^^^^^H Maine. "When you personally ^^^^^H deliver a large bill, you take the ^^^^^^ potential for anger out of the ex-

^^^^H change. If you send the bill by mail, the client doesn't have you to talk to when ^^^H he opens the envelope. He sits there and seethes; by the time he calls you, he's irate."

Schwartz recalls once delivering an

$8,000 bill, which was high for the particu lar client. "The client looked at the bill, V

dropped it on the table and said, 'Are you se- V rious?' I said, 'Not only am I serious, but that's

only the billing to date.' "

1 Schwartz proceeded to explain the bill in 1

detail, refresh the client's memory about the ex- 1 tent of the work involved, and invite questions.

1

Then, he says, "You sit there and let the dead si lence flow. Eventually the client will say, , do you want to get paid now?'

"

Plan work according to the client's schedule. Clients are especially appreciative when their legal problems can be dealt with in the

morning rather than at the end of their workday, says Tom L?anse, a commercial litigation partner with the Los Angeles office of Chicago's Katten Muchin & Zavis. For lawyers with nationwide

practices, that can pose a patchwork of time-zone

problems. "If a West Coast lawyer comes into his office at

9 a.m. and returns a call from a New York client, it's lunchtime there and the client is out," says L?anse. "By the time you get around to handling his problem, half of the client's day has already passed."

Instead, he makes it a point to tailor his sched ule to that of his clients, even though it can be

rough on a lawyer's biorhythms. "I check my voice mail every night before I go to sleep so I can deal with any East Coast problems at the beginning of

the client's business day," says L?anse. "If that means

staying up late to analyze an issue and getting up early so I can call the client at 9 a.m. his time [6 a.m. Leanse's time], so be it."

Deal with clients on a human level. Mary May, a banking and bankruptcy partner with Fleeson, Gooing, Coulson & Kitch in Wichita, Kan., remodeled her kitchen with a loan from a bank that was also a

client. When the remodeling project was complet ed, May gave a party at her home and invited her bank clients and the loan officers so they could see the finished product?and see her in a social, rather than a business, setting.

"We had shish kebabs, salads, rice, fresh bread. It was great fun and the clients really seemed to appreciate it. They also got to see a different aspect of me," she says.

'Tart of my philosophy is that you don't do hard-core marketing. You want clients to know who you are and enjoy you on another level," says May. "By broadening the rela

tionship, I think it solidifies it and helps clients think twice before going somewhere else."

John Frazee, vice president of the commercial real estate department of Bank IV, N.A. in Wichita, confirms this. "It was a nice gesture on Mary's part to

bring us into her home," he says. "She had just finished several legal projects for us, as well as her home remodeling project, so the social gathering brought us all a nice sense of completion," says Frazee. "Being included in a realm of our lawyer's life that you don't usually get to see helped personalize the rela

tionship and bring it to another level." That, he says, "sets your dealing

with that lawyer and her firm apart from your dealings with other firms. The others may be equally competent but you see them strictly as lawyers, with all the stereotypes and negative images that are part of the public per ception, rather than as a professional who is also a multidimensional human being."

Give an unusual or personal ized gift. Any client can go out and

spend extra money on box seats to a

sports event, but not many will indulge themselves with fresh, imported flowers in the dead of winter, says Honolulu lawyer Bill S. Hunt of Alston, Hunt, Floyd & Ing. His firm sends native Hawaiian blooms to mainland clients over the Christmas holiday season.

ABA JOURNAL / APRIL 1996 79

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Page 4: My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

Those in frigid climes are particularly appreciative, he says, and the flowers are a distinctive touch of having

Hawaiian legal representation. Herb Rule, a commercial litigation partner with

the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., says clients love it when he makes use of his firm's locale and geo graphical resources to express appreciation.

Sometimes that takes the form of homespun recre ational activities. At a party, Rule met a bank presi dent and his son, both of whom enjoyed duck hunting.

When he learned that the client's usual hunting spot had gone dry that season, Rule invited the father and son to accompany him on a duck-hunting trip to a spot

where the water and game were plentiful. "They had a wonderful experience, and it meant a lot more to them than a dinner invitation or seats to a basketball game."

Help clients with nonlegal work. While many firms stick to the four corners of the engagement letter, Rule's firm lets clients know it is happy to share its nonlegal expertise as well, at no extra charge. Often, he says, that involves helping clients with trav el arrangements?not just for depositions or court ap pearances, but for family vacations.

"If we have friends in places where clients are

going, we put them in touch with one another." Re

cently a client sold his business and was plan ning a family trip to Europe to unwind and celebrate. Rule's firm provided introductions in Ireland, London and Paris, where the client

a:-;'^#f|^

and his family were welcomed into private homes for tea. "It personalized the trip for them," says Rule. And, no doubt, subliminally made the law firm a part of the trip.

Participate in the client's business or in dustry. Steve Noack, an agricultural business partner with Solberg, Stewart, Miller & Johnson in Fargo, N.D., says clients love to see that he makes himself knowledgeable on substantive, not just legal, develop ments in the client's industry.

Says Noack: "I read trade journals?Successful Farmer and REC Cooperative magazines?and attend as many agricultural conferences as I can about durum [wheat]. I keep up to date on the imports, tariffs,

what's going on in foreign trade policy?the whole mar ket for durum. Clients love it when you go beyond just being a lawyer, when you can understand what they are facing day in and day out in their line of work."

Ask clients' opinions of the firm's services. When Alston, Hunt in Honolulu sent out surveys ask ing what clients liked and disliked about the way the firm had handled their cases, one of the responses was: "I love this. No one ever asked me this before." Based on that encouraging note, partner Hunt knew that the firm was really on to something.

1 '?'''

80 ABA JOURNAL / APRIL 1996

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Page 5: My Lawyer Sent Me Flowers

Act as an educational resource for clients. Trudy Hanson Fouser, an employment law partner with Elam & Burke in Boise, Idaho, says clients love the quarterly "breakfast briefings" her firm offers on

employment-related topics such as sexual harassment. At the beginning of the year the firm sends clients

an invitation that lists the dates of all the upcoming briefings and then sends updates throughout the year. "After the breakfasts, clients call us with their ques tions"?and their legal business.

Call the client without being called first. "Clients just love it if you call them when they haven't called you," says William Graysen, a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles. Often, he says, their initial r? action is: 'You're calling me?"

Sometimes Graysen calls with an update on the client's case or simply to brainstorm the issues. "Clients are impressed when you come up with some innovative defense during the course of the conversa tion or ask them their opinion about the options in a case."

Write the client, even if there is no imme diate reason. "In 26 years of practice, I've never had a client say, 'Don't write me so much,'

" says James Will

cox, a litigation partner with the San Francisco firm of Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, who includes a cover letter with every document he sends to clients?even bills. "When a client opens his file, the top document

Eh A

should be a communication from his law firm. Clients are tired of seeing files with nothing in them but bills."

Make the law firm a comfortable environ ment for clients. Detroit-based Dykema Gossett has found that its female clients appreciate the firm's out reach program for women. "We want women execu tives to feel our firm is a very comfortable place for them," says Bettye Elkins, a health care partner in the firm's Ann Arbor, Mich., office.

Toward that end, the firm has conducted women's programs on negotiating skills, downsizing, joint ven tures and advertising, some of which have featured CEO-type women, she says, with whom clients enjoy being able to network.

Marilyn Lindenauer, CEO of Midwest Eye Banks and Transplant Center in Ann Arbor, is one of Elkins' clients and a seminar attendee. "I love Dykema's sem inars," she says. "They project a very nice message that appeals to people like me in the most subtle way:

We're comfortable dealing with women; you'd be com fortable dealing with us.'

"

So she does. Lindenauer also deals with two other, more traditional, law firms but finds Dykema Gossett "very special in its understanding of women clients. It's not something I could get from just any law firm, no matter how competent the attorneys are."

Shortly after the firm held a program on negotiat ing skills for women clients, Lindenauer sent a tongue in-cheek e-mail message to Elkins that read,

" 'Closing

the Gender Gap: How to Be a Good Boy'?How about that for your next seminar topic?"

"There aren't many law firms you could send an e mail like that to and know that they'd laugh," says

j Lindenauer. "That's part of what makes

y me so comfortable dealing with I the firm."

I And it is part of what piy^^/?/V makes her keep coming

^^^^es^' back' "

???H -

ABA JOURNAL / APRIL 1996 81

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