Managing Client Expectations

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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 also like to make the practice of law fun. Now today, we’re going to look at managing client expectations.

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Scott Benton: Today, in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle when it comes to performing legal services, that’s the second of three stages of the success cycle, which is where the rubber really meets the road, we’re going to talk about managing client expectations.

In the legal field, clear communication and proper alignment with legal goals that your client wants to achieve are essential. So, whenever there are differences between what clients expect and what can realistically be achieved, it can often lead to frustration or delays and even costly setbacks.

So it’s important to manage your client’s expectations in order to ensure that their goals are aligned with your strategy. In fact, when your clients have a clear understanding of what to expect and their [00:02:00] goals are realistic and achievable, the path forward becomes much clearer.

But sometimes, a client might come in with an unrealistic or overly ambitious expectation that really doesn’t align with the legal realities of their case. So if that doesn’t get properly addressed right up front, your client may become frustrated or even upset down the line when the final results don’t meet their expectations.

That means you want to get in front of that misalignment or that misunderstanding as early as possible, which is going to further build trust and a positive working relationship as you navigate the case together. But sometimes paying a great deal of attention to where the case is going becomes an important part of your work overall.

And making sure that you and your client both know the end goal clearly becomes a critical part of goal management. So we’re going to want to look at a few things that you can do to manage those expectations. Which brings us to the question of, how exactly do we do that? First, as with everything that you do, clear [00:03:00] communication right from the start is probably the most important skill you can possibly develop for managing your clients.

Now this needs to start when you meet with them during the initial consultation, where you can be very, very clear about what can and cannot be accomplished on their case. And you can talk about all the potential outcomes and timelines and the steps that will need to be taken to reach that particular goal. After the initial consultation, you’re going to want to put all of this into writing that includes the goals that you’ve agreed upon. So, if there’s a conflict or a discrepancy that comes along, you have written documentation that you can go back to and look at for what had been discussed.

And you want to make sure you’ve set realistic goals. Now, this might take some time after your initial consultation so that you can dig into the research and you can evaluate previous cases, you can maybe talk to your legal team, but once you’ve determined the realistic outcome, especially if that outcome has changed from when you first spoke to the client, again, you want to communicate this to your client [00:04:00] in writing now that the legal goal is much more clarified and solidified and you know what can be done.

But along the way, you want to provide regular updates. Now, some of this is going to get communicated in their billing statements, where they have billing entries that indicate the legal services that were performed, but you also want to send them clearly written, jargon free status updates that spell out exactly where you are in the process of their case and where you’re going to be going next.

So this is most likely the point where you start to put together your to do list for this case and you begin to perform the legal services to get your client step by step closer to their goal until you’re successful.

And I know how good you are as an attorney, so I know you’re going to be successful. Remember, you’re striving for clarity and transparency. So if there are any obstacles that come up in the case, then you definitely want to include those as well, especially if the case takes an unexpected turn.

If new evidence is introduced by the opposing counsel, for instance, then you really want to clarify [00:05:00] how it potentially affects the outcome.

As adjustments to a case are generally common, you want to make sure that you’re managing and communicating those with your client. The legal goals that you set during an initial consultation could change along the way, but, You really want to be up front about that when those goals need to be adjusted.

And once you and the client agree upon a new direction, you want to make sure that you’re sitting down and putting that in writing as well, and that you’re updating their status update that you send to your client with that new information. And because there’s a high degree of regular changes that tend to go on in the legal arena just in general, you want to not only remain flexible and ready to pivot yourself if necessary, but you also want to make sure that your client knows this new strategy as well.

The more flexible they are when unexpected changes come along, then the easier it’s going to be to get your clients on board with any goal changes that might need to be made. As an example, if a client believes a settlement negotiation may take a week or two, but you know it’s going to take [00:06:00] several months, then this really needs to be communicated, and it might need to be communicated at every opportunity that you have until your client understands that a more realistic time frame is going to be a few months instead of a couple weeks, so that they remain patient and cooperative with this process.

This more than preserves and maintains the positive working relationship that you’ve worked so hard to build. And it’s going to keep your case moving forward with strong momentum all the way until the final ruling. So at the end of the day, by establishing clear and consistent communication, setting realistic goals that you’re both aligned on, and providing regular written status updates to your clients, you can build trust, you can prevent misunderstandings, and you can maintain momentum in your cases.

And this is the best way that you’ll be able to manage your clients expectations. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thanks so much for checking out this episode.

Now, if you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go over to our website, which is classroom2courtroom. com. [00:07:00] That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch with us. You can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs that we have available for law school students.

You can come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.