Nosiness vs. Sincere Interest: The Difference When It Comes to Questioning Clients and Prospective Clients

Many law firm partners read yesterday's (January 7) Wall Street Journal article regarding the continued deterioration of the legal market, which has included a good many partners as casualties. See Law Firm Partners Face Layoffs (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323689604578221891691032424.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) or see a free summary of the same in the ABA Journal (@ABAJournal)Partner Layoffs Haven’t Ended in BigLaw, Surveys Indicate http://dlvr.it/2lv5CB.

For most reading the article, this wasn't news.

As noted in these articles, it's not enough to be a good lawyer anymore. A partner also has to be a good business person. Said one lawyer interviewed for the WSJ article who his new job at a law firm last year, "You're only as secure as the amount of money you bring in." This is the new normal for law firm partners ....

As a result of this new reality, these partners (myself included) are compelled to spend substantial time, effort, and resource both cultivating new business, as well as expanding work with existing clients. This cultivation and expansion is done through a variety of ways, including seeking referrals, attending industry meetings and meeting new folks (which includes follow up), and simply asking existing clients whether they have additional legal work, which needs to be done.

These conversations between counsel and client (or prospective client) can sometimes yield some negative responses, such as: "We would never pay those rates," or "We've got all the lawyers we need," or (even worse) "We had a bad experience with one of your lawyers several years back."

Those responses can be tough to hear. The natural inclination when hearing this pushback is to end the conversation and take it to mean a big, fat no. However, for the service-oriented attorney - the one who truly wants to help and win the trust of his client (or prospective client) - you can't just leave it at that.

As taught to me by my friend and coach, Walker McKay (@walkermckay), you have to respond to the negative ultimately with the request to ask some questions to really get down to whether "no" means "no." If allowed to ask those questions, you need to find out what the problem or roadblock is and whether it can be negotiated. If it can, then there's a chance a relationship can be formed (or expanded). And if it can't, then that's fine too. The lawyer can focus his or her efforts elsewhere.

What Walker said yesterday in a conversation about this questioning was particularly astute and should be heeded: "The difference [in these situations] between just being nosy and being sincerely interested is intent."

As a service professional, our sincere interest should be in helping and earning trust; accordingly, the tone and tenor of the questioning should evince that interest. Trust may be earned when the client/prospective client can tell that notwithstanding the initial hesitancy to even continue the conversation, you have a genuine interest in helping solve their problems. Because, ultimately, all the client wants is their problems to be solved.