Walker Clark Worldview

Yesterday’s post discussed an interesting but disappointing year-end list. Today I want to invite your attention to a more instructive one.

Allan Dinkoff, who is a senior litigation counsel at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, has posted, in the Corporate Counsel section of Law.com, a valuable and entertaining list of  the top ten things that law firm clients want.

Here is his list, but be sure to read his post for his commentary:

1. They want a lawyer who is commercial and who understands their business.
2. They want a lawyer who thinks about them and their problems … all the time, not just when they get called.
3. They want a lawyer who can talk to them in a straightforward way, without jargon and without talking down to them.
4. They want a lawyer who is empathetic.
5. They want a lawyer who has a point of view, but also is interactive.
6. They want a lawyer who likes clients.
7. They want a lawyer who thinks about issues and the relationship from their point of view, not the attorneys’.
8. They want a lawyer who is always hungry for their business, not accepting it as a given.
9. They want a lawyer who charges a fair price.
10. They want a lawyer who wins.

Do you and you partners deliver each of these ten things? Do you do it consistently? How would your clients rate you on each of Allan Dinkoff’s ten points?

Do you even know for sure?

The absence of a complaint is not the same thing as client satisfaction.

Walker Clark, LLC, provides a low-cost service, the Client Service Monitor, that will give your firm up-to-date, reliable information about how well you are meeting the needs and service expectations of your clients. It is critical that every partner in your firm understand how your clients perceive your firm’s performance. This understanding must be based on reliable data — not impressions, “experience,” or hopeful thinking.

It is worthwhile to note that the title of Allan Dinkoff’s post is “Avoid Getting Dumped by Your Client.” The Client Service Monitor can be the core of your firm’s “anti-dumping policy.”

Norman Clark

Tags: client relations, client service, clients, marketing, quality, satisfaction

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 14:49 and is filed under client service, marketing, partners, risk management, strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.