I DONT GIVE A SHIT!
I can across a post on a very well respected legal marketing blog.
www.legalmarketingblog.com
The title of the blog was “How Convenient is it for Clients and Prospects to Reach You?”. The blog makes the common sense point that in pretty much any profession, the easier you are for your clients to access you the more goodwill you build resulting in greater client retention and referrals. Makes good sense right? Of course right!
What I found humorous was the attempt to lay out these principals to the legal profession. The proposition that attorneys will read this and change the way they do business was very intriguing to me and contradictory to what every legal bone in my body tells me after 20 years. In fact, there is about as much chance of that as there is any validity to my untested theory that I can go backwards in time by putting my auto up on cylinder blocks and going in reverse at full speed…
It is a time tested and well accepted position that 98 percent of attorneys don’t give a shit about who can get ahold of them and for the most part actually go to great lengths to keep people from getting a hold of them unless of course the person is calling about their unpaid bill or the call will generate a substantial billable rate. If the call will not generate a fee you have as much chance of talking to the attorney as Johnny Cochrane rising from the dead. Client goodwill is something only mused about in terms of what you could have done after the client has told you to F*** off and/or files a grievance with the State Bar. Not that you will learn anything when you send the next client’s call to voicemail.
The golden rule from what I have seen is that a client is just a means to an end with no form substance or history unless a payment is late or a trial is about to start…. Other than that all phone calls are unnecessary time wasting annoyances. Client service is for sales people. We attorneys are not sales people, we are highly educated and skilled professionals who are above client service small talk. You come to us for results, dog us when we dont get them and forget about us after we come through. Doesn’t this justify the fact that I don’t give a shit about you the client? Right? Of course right!
I know solo and small firm attorney’s who have taken so many cases beyond their ability to provide client service that the only way you will get ahold of them is to impersonate a judge or an investigator from the State Bar of Texas. In my 20 years, there have been 4 times where I looked at a practice and predicted that an attorney would be sanctioned by the State Bar in some form within a few years. I was right each time. It was not rocket science In each case, the attorney absolutely did not give a shit about any of his clients other than getting a check. They avoided client calls, didn’t return calls, full voicemail’s etc etc. The if was easy. It was only a question of when…..
Lawyers at large firms often dont give a shit about their client any more than small or solo firms but they are able to do better damage control because they have people they pay to give a shit and to tell them when their not giving a shit is about to cost them money such as more work from the client or the referral of a new client.
Small firm and solo attorneys lose out the worst because they they don’t give a shit to the same extent as big firm attorneys but they generally do not have any “I dont give a shit” damage control procedures in place. They therefore dont find out that the “I dont give a shit” philospohpy has cost them until they are fired. They also get hit with the double “I dont give a shit” whammy when they are fired and the client bad mouths them. Obviously referrals are not forthcoming from pissed off clients….
Large firms generally have enough “I don’t give shit” buffers in place that the client may never realize that his/her attorney does not give a shit.
In my experience, do you know what the solo and small firm response to this problem is? You guessed it….
“I dont give a shit”
Are there excellent kick-ass client service oriented attorneys out there at small firms and large? Of course there are. I know many. There are however also a ton of attorneys out there. In my experience the “I dont give shits” far outnumber the “kick ass” and they are not reading legal marketing blogs… Why? You guessed it!
THEY DONT GIVE A SHIT!
Personally as a female attorney, I find your analogy regarding attorneys being like strippers a little light. Attorneys are much more like “hookers” than they are strippers. Most attorneys, just like hookers, charge for their time, personalize the service(s), and provide their time and services to anyone and everyone that is willing and able to pay. A few “lucky attorneys” are at large law firms that boast of a list of “exclusive clientele”, just like Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam, boasted of her brothel’s exclusive clientele. Both brothels and law firms take a big cut of the money that is generated by their “employees” time performing services for the clientele. Many attorneys often launch out on their own only to find themselves looking like Divine Brown when she was caught in a tryst with actor Hugh Grant. People use the nice term “call girls” for hookers who work at brothels and the vile term “whore” for those hookers out on their own. Whatever the term one uses for attorneys, the truth of the matter is that attorney like hookers often have to “fuck” the client to get paid. Of course, the hooker analogy does not apply to every attorney. Some attorneys are more like the “happy housewife” in that they faithfully perform services for one and only “client”. These “happy housewife” attorneys (like our mutual friend Tom E.) are part of the corporate family and work in-house where they are readily accessible for the daily clean ups, dirty laundry, and other needs of the corporate family. An attorney, like a smart woman, must realize that that you either “buy it” or “rent it”. Those that “buy it” have committed and are owed a sense of loyalty and maybe a little “love”. Those that merely “rent it” have no desire to commit and will quickly move on as the situation demands. So, your statement that most attorneys “don’t give a shit” forgets the simple premise that nothing in this world is free and that everything comes with a price. Simply put, most attorneys have to be like hookers and can’t afford to “give a fuck”.
After having lunch with you last week, I had to read this blog. I can’t agree with you more and I’ll take your position one step further. While most attorneys don’t give a shit about their clients (pay me or your ass is fired), even fewer actually give a shit about opposing counsel. I’m not talking about the inability to see eye to eye on legal issues. I’m talking about the complete lack of respect most attorneys show their colleagues. In particular, I have a case that has been pending for over two years. An Agreed Order was signed by all the Defendants. Plaintiff is in agreement with the proopsed Order. However, the Plaintiff’s counsel has refused to file the order because he is being lazy, doesn’t give a shit and is milking his client for more fees.