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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: 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 it’s where we make the practice of law fun. And today we’re going to take a look at why clients disengage.
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[00:01:12] Scott Benton: Now remember, when it comes to your caseload, when you’re looking at your individual cases, You’re going to be in one of three mindsets yourself. You’re either going to be winning, or you’re going to be losing, or you’re going to be disengaged. Remember that of those three mindsets, being disengaged is probably the one place that you really don’t want to find yourself in at all. So if you’re disengaged on a case for really any reason, you’ve got to figure out a way to become re engaged, which you can often do by talking to your client and talking about the case objectives.
[00:01:45] Scott Benton: Now a lot of the time, the case target, that you’re trying to hit. In other words, the legal goal, it’s either become so obscured or convoluted, or maybe it’s just changing all the time, which makes it difficult to get anything [00:02:00] down on your to do list or really perform any legal services for that case. So the case might remain stagnant or just even disappear without your attempts as the attorney to revive it.
[00:02:11] Scott Benton: So you really want to get back in there. You want to get back into the ring and you want to move from a disengaged mindset yourself to either a winning or a losing mindset. Hopefully it’s the winning mindset, but really, even if it’s the losing mindset, at least you’re engaged now in the case and wherever you are at the moment is at least you’re moving the case forward.
[00:02:33] Scott Benton: Whether you’re winning or losing, you want to be moving the case forward. But what happens when it’s the client that disengages? What does that tell you as the attorney and how can you get the case back on track? Now a lot of times there might be an assumption That clients disengage simply because they don’t have the money and so they stop contacting you and they stop paying their bills for the legal services that are already rendered.
[00:02:59] Scott Benton: But as we’ve [00:03:00] seen over and over again, it’s generally not a money issue. So you as the attorney really want to understand when the problems are with the client disengagement as opposed to you as the attorney disengaging because if you understand that it’s client disengagement now you can make any necessary corrections or pivots and get the case moving again.
[00:03:22] Scott Benton: The number one reason clients disengage is because from their perspective they’re really only seeing the legal bills coming in which they pay but they’re not really seeing anything happening on their case. They do see the billing entries, but it could be that the client just doesn’t understand what the billing entries mean, or maybe the billing entries are written with legal language or jargon that’s just difficult to understand for someone that doesn’t have a legal background.
[00:03:51] Scott Benton: They may also not hear from the attorney or not receive a status update where they can see what progress has already been made. [00:04:00] Overall, there’s really a communication breakdown, and the client feels like they’re getting nothing for their money. Naturally, it’s no surprise that they’re going to disengage.
[00:04:09] Scott Benton: And no one really wants to feel like they’re not getting anything for their money. Now the truth is that typically a lot is actually being done on a case, whether it’s through the attorney or a paralegal or a law clerk. But the bigger problem is that it’s not getting communicated to the client.
[00:04:25] Scott Benton: So they have little or just no visibility for what’s happening. And then it goes without saying that clients don’t really know how the legal system works typically. I mean, Sometimes they do. And this is probably because of movies and television, clients might just assume that Completing a case just doesn’t take much time at all when in reality it can take quite a long time in some cases depending on, several variables.
[00:04:51] Scott Benton: If the second month comes and goes and the client hasn’t heard anything from the attorney, even though legal services are getting completed and work is done on the case, the [00:05:00] client might get a little confused unless they understand that a case doesn’t get solved in 15 minutes like it does in a courtroom television show like Judge Judy.
[00:05:09] Scott Benton: In their mind, a month is a really long time for a case, let alone two months or even three months. And as I’m sure a case can sometimes drag on for a year or two.
[00:05:19] Scott Benton: So when a client is disengaging from their case and when you better understand why that is and how they see the case through their point of view, then that becomes an opportunity to get on the phone with them or you can even meet them in person if that’s just the better idea. But you want to communicate with them in order to reinvigorate the case and go through everything and where it’s going at the present moment. You want to reset the expectations that the client has and you want to make sure they know where the case is in the overall timeline and just where it’s headed.
[00:05:53] Scott Benton: And more importantly, you want to know what their legal objectives are. Sometimes clients come in with a legal issue [00:06:00] That they’re not really able to navigate, or maybe they don’t know what their options really are, so they lay out their problem with you during the first meeting, and they’re trying to figure out the case objectives.
[00:06:10] Scott Benton: Many clients don’t know how to navigate the legal field, and it’s why they’ve come to you in the first place, for your expertise, which includes knowing what their options are, helping them figure out what their goals are that they want to achieve, and then finally, how to get there, how to navigate. If they don’t know the legal goals themselves, or really don’t entirely understand them, then this is where you can help clarify that gap of information, and it’s your opportunity to highlight the value of the case.
[00:06:40] Scott Benton: If a client doesn’t see what they’re potentially getting in return for the money that they’re paying out, then why would they continue paying for legal services? The short answer is, they just wouldn’t. But just for the sake of this illustration, if you’re able to explain to them that if they win the case that they’re [00:07:00] going to receive, let’s say a 500, 000 inheritance and they see that it’s going to cost them 20, 000 to complete the case, then everyone is going to see that 500, 000 is an incredible return on the investment for only 20, 000 that they’ve paid in legal fees.
[00:07:19] Scott Benton: Why wouldn’t the client re engage with their case? And, they’re probably going to replenish their trust account immediately just to move that forward when they understand the value of the case and why the value of the case is so important.
[00:07:34] Scott Benton: So at the end of the day, a client becomes disengaged because they’re just not seeing the value of the work that they’re doing with you and with the firm, and it becomes your job to show them. Remember, when it comes to your cases, you’re always selling the value of the case to the client and showing them where they’re going to win.
[00:07:53] Scott Benton: My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for watching this episode. If you’re finding this to [00:08:00] be valuable information and you’d like to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website.
[00:08:06] Scott Benton: Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two. courtroom dot com. You can leave us your contact information there and we will send out an alert. So that you know a new episode is available. Don’t forget to share and subscribe. And we hope you’ll join us on our next episode of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
[00:08:24] Scott Benton: And we also hope you’ll join us in the meantime of making the world a better place one client at a time. Thank you so much.
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