In a book written by two law management experts - The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Success* - they identify (for other lawyers) the things that annoy clients the most:

1. Not returning phone calls or replying to emails
2. Making clients wait in reception
3. Ignoring client-staff incivility
4. Dropping names to impress others
5. Not clarifying for the client
6. Not delivering on promises of performance
7. Not delivering on a promised outcome
8. Not communicating during long periods of inactivity
9. Failing to be prepared
10. Sending a very large bill without warning or preparation

The article that I got this info from, published by the American Bar Association, actually had a headline about ELEVEN things that annoy clients the most. Turns out there were only 10 things listed in the article. Perhaps Number Eleven should be “failing to proofread your work and sending out documents with errors.”

When I look at this list, I see lots of discussion topics. The two that jump out the most to me, however, are #6 and #7…because they both contain the word “promise.” Be wary of promises of results or outcomes by your attorney. If they promise to write a letter or make a phone call and don’t do it, that’s a problem, too. But they should NOT be promising that they will win in court or recover boat loads of money for you. Obviously, it is important that you have confidence in your legal representation, and lawyers need to say things to inspire confidence, but there is a line that they should not cross when it comes to promises or guarantees.

If someone tells you something that sounds to good to be true…

* I’m not endorsing this book, but it seemed like the right thing to do to provide a link to their site if I was going to quote their work, and they do have some good info to share with attorneys. Anything that will make the system work better can’t hurt.