Raising the practice standards - On clients evaluating attorneys

Considerable research has been conducted concerning the criteria used by business and retail clients when evaluating attorneys. Since clients buy legal services from attorneys, not firms, an understanding of clients' evaluation criteria can contribute to shaping a practice development program. In a paper entitled "Business Executive Evaluations of Various Aspects of Outside Legal Services," presented to a 1983 American Marketing Association Symposium on Services Marketing, Jackson, Brown and Keith developed a comprehensive analysis of business client behavior.

The results of their study indicated that clients evaluate attorneys on several different criteria. It is interesting to note that several different factors which reflect interpersonal relationships with clients were especially important. Personal interest in the client's legal matters, keeping the client Informed of progress, verbal skills and personal interest in the client's business were very important.


This is consistent with later studies using other methodology, including a survey done for a law firm's internal use which queried their clients and former clients. Other research using different methodology found that the most important criteria when evaluating service firms was reliability followed by quality of work, overall value and expertise.

VALUE

The client assigns value. As if with blinders to block out hourly rates, value billing and other attorney costs, it is the client who assigns intangible values which have nothing to do with dollar figures. Clients use selective facts to rationalize their conclusions and often may have difficulty articulating the reasoning behind their valuation and subsequent choice of attorneys. No matter how the question is asked, the results are similar. The point is no matter how sophisticated the client, results and communications are vital to the attorney-client relationship.

GETTING ANOTHER ATTORNEY'S FORMER CLIENT

Few businesses, unless new, hire an attorney for the first time. Clients usually hire attorneys because they have rid themselves of their former attorneys. A research report presented at an American Marketing Association Services Marketing Conference indicated that 34 percent of business changed legal counsel in one year. Empirical data would certainly indicate at least the same rate year after year.

Listed in this research were four reasons for a client's termination of a relationship with an attorney:
 

1. Expected work quality resulted in higher fees.
2. Reaction time did not meet expectations.
3. Needs required specialty work not available.
4. Conflict of interest prevented effective counsel.

Marketing guru Theodore Levitt pointed out that the client does not know what he or she is supposed to get until they do not. When the client does not receive an expected but intangible result, then the client makes real the intangible and realizes its absence.

Early in the attorney-client relationship, the attorney must expend considerable effort to learn the client's expectations in the matter. If nothing else, it provides the attorney with the opportunity to assess how realistic client expectations are. Unrealized expectations are explicitly a significant source of adversity between client and attorney.

The attorney should also become proactive in this process by keeping the client informed regarding pending matters, by sending copies of paperwork, memorandums, correspondence, and progress reports. Since many matters require extended periods of time before final resolution, clients need to know the process is continually ongoing and that attorney effort and concern are continuous as well.