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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney, and where we make the practice of law easy and fun. And today, we’re going to answer the question of, Do clients care about discussing the law? Do clients care about discussing the law?
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[00:01:17] Scott Benton: Whenever you’re talking to clients, you have a choice. As to the words and the vocabulary that you’re going to use with them. And since you picked law as your field of study, and as you now or will be working in the legal field as an attorney, and as you have an entire range of specialized vocabulary that you’ve simply acquired through your law school studies and your experience in law school, you might have a tendency to want to use that legal language or what sometimes people call legalese or legalese.
[00:01:46] Scott Benton: When talking to a client about their case and the legal objectives that they’ve hired you to help them achieve. And all this vocabulary was not easy to come by. And now that you understand it, it’s almost like mastering a foreign [00:02:00] language that you just can’t wait to use at every opportunity that you can.
[00:02:05] Scott Benton: And you’re going to want to read books and you’re going to want to watch movies in that language, because it’s almost like having an access to a hidden world or Going to the private clubhouse level at a baseball game that not a whole lot of people have access to. But the question isn’t whether or not you’ve mastered this specialized legal vocabulary or how extensive your ability is to use these more technical words to help navigate the legal system.
[00:02:33] Scott Benton: The question is whether or not your clients even care about discussing the law and whether or not they want to include legal jargon and legalese in the conversations that you’re having with them.
[00:02:44] Scott Benton: Now, of course, this is not going to apply to absolutely everyone, especially if your client happens to be an attorney. But in general, and for the most part, clients don’t want to talk about the law. They don’t care about the theory and they don’t care about the [00:03:00] history and the nuances of legal words and where they might come from.
[00:03:03] Scott Benton: Originally, they don’t want to hear legal jargon or about the background for the passage of a law. 50 years ago, you’re definitely not meeting with your client to impress them with your verbal skills as an attorney. And I know you know that the mere fact that you’re an attorney, that’s already impressive enough.
[00:03:21] Scott Benton: So that should not in Any way be a factor in your conversations with clients. Your objective is to talk to your client in a productive and effective manner. And in many cases, that means using more of a reductive strategy. Other words, and since legal jargon can sometimes tend to. gum up your conversations with clients, you want to omit or reduce the use of legal words. And you want to continue to use lay language and lay or common terminology.
[00:03:53] Scott Benton: And Although a little exaggerated for me to make the point, I know, but the analogy might be, if [00:04:00] you took your car in for some reason for, let’s say, engine repairs and you knew nothing or very little about engines, or really even how cars work, let’s say, and the mechanic wanted to explain all the names of the engine parts and why they’re there, and what car manufacturer developed what, And when and why governments eliminated certain types of fuels and then how that affected the design of engines.
[00:04:26] Scott Benton: It’s just exhausting hearing about it, but you probably want to get into your half broken car and speed off to the next mechanic that you could probably understand a little bit better. Who wasn’t really bothering you with all the knowledge that they had in their head about the history of car engines.
[00:04:41] Scott Benton: It just wouldn’t be a conversation you’d want to have. You just want to get your car fixed. Can’t they just talk to you in words that you understand so you can decide on what repairs you want the auto mechanic to take care of? So it’s largely the same thing here with the clients you’re working with.
[00:04:55] Scott Benton: They don’t want to know all the details about the law. They’re glad that you know [00:05:00] those details the way that our auto mechanic knows all about the history of the car engine, but your client simply wants to know what their options are for solving the legal issues that they’re dealing with. And they want you to talk to them in a way that they can understand every single word.
[00:05:18] Scott Benton: One of the ideas we talk about on this podcast is the idea of continuous selling and what that means. So as you can see in the auto mechanic example, when they told you about the engine from a more technical standpoint, you probably wanted to just run away.
[00:05:34] Scott Benton: That’s not selling. But when the mechanic started to talk to you with clarity, That might have actually empowered you and it made you want to get everything fixed on your engine because you could understand what they were saying. Practicing law is the same when it comes to the idea of continuous sales. When it comes to that part of practicing law. And in that regard, it helps to remember the three golden rules of [00:06:00] communication. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Once you have that clarity, the client will then know which direction they want to go with their case, and that’s when your to do list fills up to inform the legal services that you’re going to provide.
[00:06:13] Scott Benton: But it all starts with using clarity in your language choice. So I hope that’s been helpful information for you.
[00:06:20] Scott Benton: This is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode and listening to this podcast. Now if this is information that you’re finding helpful and you’d like to get an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website.
[00:06:33] Scott Benton: Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two. Courtroom. com. You can leave us your contact information. We’ll send you an alert whenever we post a new episode. And also don’t forget to share and subscribe. That will help you stay on top of our episodes as well. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
[00:06:53] Scott Benton: Thank you so much.
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