January 10, 2006
Why Don't Outside Lawyers Understand Our Business?
In a previous post I reported on a portion of Andy Peters’ article recently published in the Daily Report. He was reviewing the highlights of a session that placed two prominent law firm attorneys as panelists before 100 in-house corporate counsels. In addition to the questions covered in my previous post, one of the questions directed to Jeffrey Haidet, Chairman of Long & Aldridge, and William Brewster, the managing partner of Kilpatrick Stockton, was:
“Why don’t outside lawyers understand the business models and corporate culture of their clients?”
I was quite impressed by a point made by Teri P. McClure, vice president and manager of the legal department at United Parcel Service Inc.
According to Peters, McClure told the audience that she recently fired a firm that had worked for UPS for 40 years. Even after 40 years, they had not taken the time to understand the nature of UPS. Their attorneys keep calling the company’s brown delivery vehicles “trucks”. “They’re not called trucks,” she said. “They’re called package cars. If you call them trucks, you don’t understand the nature of our business.”
Brewster acknowledged that outside counsel often suffer from a knowledge gap. Both Brewster and Haidet agreed that one way for outside counsel to better understand a company’s business model is to allow lots of time for in-person, on-site meetings—even ones that are painful. “Some of our best relationships are because I had some of the worst meetings of my life, when I didn’t feel so good when I got back on that plane,” Haidet said.
The dialogue between the panel and the audience of corporate counsels highlights the difference between what clients perceive as “good service” and what attorneys continue to believe is their obligation regarding quality service. It is not about how competent you are. You are supposed to be competent. It is about your “bedside manner”. You are in the service business. You happen to be in the lawyering service business.
If you want to retain and grow your relationship, you have to invest in understanding the Client’s purpose, its goals, its culture, the issues it faces, and even its “words”. If the client calls its employees “associates”, you need to call them associates. If the client calls its trucks “package cars”, they are package cars!
Excellence must be earned through the eyes of your client.
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Filed under Blog by Tom Collins