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Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I am 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 fun and interesting.
And today we’re going to reflect on what people remember most about working with you.
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Now, this is usually long after the case you worked on is over, but in looking back over the way people felt about working with you, that can have important information inside of it for you to understand how you’re showing up for your current client.
Now, if your past clients, and whether they won or lost the case, have a long lasting, generalized, overall good feeling about having worked with you, then, great! You probably don’t need to do a lot to improve your abilities to build positive working relationships with your clients. And you should probably just carry on with whatever it is you’re doing, because it’s working, and frankly, a lot of the time, the criteria that we’re looking at measuring our success [00:02:00] with is whether or not it’s working.
It either works or it doesn’t work. And if they have an overall positive feeling about having worked with you a couple of years ago, then clearly it’s working and there’s nothing you need to do. However, if you were somehow able to see how your clients felt about the work that you did together a couple years ago, whether they won or lost the case, and they only remember a fairly negative experience working with you then you might have an opportunity to figure out what wasn’t working with that client and see if there are any improvements that you can make.
Now, one of the biggest adjustments you’re going to want to look at is how you show up in a space. A space can include your office, or it can be a conference room, or a courtroom, or it can be even virtual space like a Zoom call or just simply talking on the phone. That’s virtual space. But whatever place that you’re in when you’re working on your cases or working with your clients And it’s not just limited to physical buildings or office rooms.
This can include virtual [00:03:00] spaces as well So we often say that you want to brighten the space that you’re in This is a subject that actually comes up from time to time on this podcast but of course it’s always worth repeating because repetition is how we learn best. So you’re going to hear a lot about topics such as filling up your to do list or about billing for your time.
But you’re also going to hear about brightening up spaces because of just how important it is to do. And it’s important on an ongoing basis. So when you have a former client who remembers you in a positive light from a couple of years ago, after their case is completely been closed and no one’s ever mentioned it again the chances are that you’re good at brightening up spaces, and when you walk into a room or when you join a Zoom call, the people who are already there probably feel your presence because you’ve simply just added a burst of refreshing positive energy, whether they know you or not.
You showed up brightening that space, and anyone who was there felt it. On the other hand, if you’ve left X clients [00:04:00] feeling more negatively about their interactions with you, whether the case was successful or not, then it could very well be a case where you’re not showing up by brightening those spaces.
Now, maybe you’ve changed your approach since then, and you don’t make the same mistakes anymore that you were making a couple of years ago, and you’ve gotten good at brightening up spaces. But, if not, then this would be a pretty good opportunity to take another look at how you’re showing up.
Are you brightening up spaces, or are you showing up with a far more Negative attitude, a negative presence, and this is really going to color the experience for your clients or maybe even with your own legal team, if that’s how you’re behaving just with your own legal team. It’s something that you can catch now with your current clients because if brightening up spaces is more of a weakness for you, then that can easily be corrected with a little bit of effort and a little bit of attention.
You just need to know that’s a thing. Now, one of the best things to do in order to brighten up spaces, if you’re going into a [00:05:00] space that you’re probably not going to brighten up is simply to stop and take a moment before entering that new space. And you want to do a quick self inventory. You want to ask yourself what your mood is.
You want to know what your posture is. You want to know what you’re feeling and what kind of energy you’re bringing in with you. Is it positive energy that others are going to be welcome to receive? Or is it negative energy that’s going to simply just repel your clients? Are you in a dark place that’s going to cause people to have a hard time breathing because of your own inability to brighten up a space and it just drains whatever energy was in that room in the first place?
So once you do a quick self evaluation, you can then reset yourself. Make any adjustments that you have to your appearance and then move into the new space with radiance and confidence if you choose to bring that with you. And once you’re able to master that stage entrance, let’s call it, then your client interactions and anyone else that you talk to are going to [00:06:00] feel effortless.
People are going to feel good about working with you and ironically, years later after the case is closed, whether you were successful or not, your ex client will remember you in good life and all you did was make the decision to brighten up all the spaces you entered and that made all the difference.
[00:06:20] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s been helpful. My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Now if this podcast is material that you like and you want to get notified whenever we post a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom2courtroom.
[00:06:35] Scott Benton: com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com. You can leave us your contact information. We’ll send you an email anytime we post a new episode. You can also stay on top of all of our new episodes by sharing, liking, and subscribing wherever you find this podcast. And until the next episode, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time
[00:06:56] Scott Benton: thank you so much
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