[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. I am the host of the Classroom to Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. And today we’re going to answer the question of when is it time to go and talk to your supervisor?
[00:00:25] Scott Benton: At what point do you get stuck enough? How long do you wait before you go and talk to your senior attorney supervisor?
[00:00:33] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Now, in general, there are going to be a lot of opportunities where you’re going to want to go And sit down and talk to your senior attorney supervisor, either about a legal process or maybe a nuance that’s come up on a case or even about a client that you’re having some problems with that.
[00:01:39] Scott Benton: You want to keep your cases moving forward. If you get stuck, you want to make sure that you’re getting unstuck as fast as possible. And if you’re sitting there just twisting in the wind, then you don’t want to give yourself permission to do that for very long before you go talk to your senior attorney supervisor.
[00:01:57] Scott Benton: Because the last thing you want to [00:02:00] happen is to stop communicating with your clients and letting them wander off until they stop paying for the legal services that they’ve engaged you to perform and they stop interacting with you as their attorney. Keep in mind that your best prospect is going to be your current client, because it’s easier to work with your current client than it is to go out and find new ones, so you don’t want to lose your current clients if you can help it.
[00:02:26] Scott Benton: So for each case type, there’s gonna be a certain amount of steps that you should be taking. And these are things that you’re gonna learn as you get more and more into your legal career. Now, sometimes it’s gonna feel like you don’t really need to take steps that you can skip steps altogether in a particular process.
[00:02:44] Scott Benton: But what may end up happening if you skip steps is that you really find you get to a point in the process where you’re stuck. And it’s down the line, further down the line because you didn’t do something early on that should have been completed, [00:03:00] but never got done for a variety of reasons. And now, to untangle yourself, you’re gonna need to stop and go talk to your senior attorney supervisor.
[00:03:09] Scott Benton: And the reason you want to go to your senior attorney supervisor is because they will likely have far more experience than you’re going to have as a new or a newer attorney.
[00:03:19] Scott Benton: Eventually you’ll get there. Eventually you’re going to know all this. But right away, they’re going to be far ahead of you typically. And sometimes they’ll even have decades of experience that is going to become a rich well of legal knowledge for you to tap into and solve problems with.
[00:03:35] Scott Benton: without sitting there and twisting in the wind for sometimes hours on end. That’s a lot of billable time that you’re not using, but what if you could twist in the wind for only five or 10 minutes max? That’s it. You’re never going to sit there scratching your head, trying to figure out what to do next.
[00:03:52] Scott Benton: Five or 10 minutes later, that should be your cue where you get up from your desk and you go to your Senior Attorney Supervisor’s [00:04:00] office and you sit down with them or you speak to someone who can provide that key piece of information to get you going.
[00:04:07] Scott Benton: And your Senior Attorney Supervisor is going to be that best valuable resource for you.
[00:04:13] Scott Benton: So for the sake of this discussion, a lot of the time problems arise down the road on a case when you have not dug down deep enough into your client’s backstory to be able to come up with the case nuance or that all important background facts.
[00:04:29] Scott Benton: that really allow you to navigate your case with just more precision, with more strength, with more confidence.
[00:04:36] Scott Benton: Digging deep into their story also helps build the foundation of a strong, connected, working relationship. Now, this is going to allow your client to establish a level of trust with you as their attorney, that they’re going to feel comfortable telling you just about anything about their case, about their life.
[00:04:54] Scott Benton: that while you probably won’t use a lot of these background facts in court, they become [00:05:00] critical in understanding what’s motivating your client to pursue their legal actions. So knowing that key piece of information is going to help you consistently remind your client why they’re there and what their legal objectives are that you are both working towards.
[00:05:16] Scott Benton: But one of the biggest reasons you’re going to want to go talk to your senior attorney supervisor is because your client has started to make what we consider the number one complaint of clients, which is they charged me a lot of money and they didn’t do anything.
[00:05:30] Scott Benton: Now that tends to be the number one complaint.
[00:05:33] Scott Benton: Now, the truth is that it might already be too late in the cases. It’s just it’s either going to die, in which case you want to send a disengagement letter or the client is just they’re going to go out or they’ve already gone out to find another attorney that they feel they can work with and better understand their case from, but hopefully you’ve been able to spot this case is really being potentially troubled, and it might be disappearing soon.
[00:05:58] Scott Benton: That way you can get in front of it. [00:06:00] And you can turn that case around as quickly as possible. Your senior attorney supervisor is also going to help you get that case turned around and get it turned around quickly. And they’re going to get it back on track, which is what you want to do because your client is already invested in their case.
[00:06:14] Scott Benton: They already stand to walk away with a substantial amount of monetary reward. And what’s most likely missing is it’s that critical line of communication that somehow failed. that tells them where the case is. They just don’t know. They want to know what’s currently happening, where it’s going in the near term future, and they want to have, whether they know it or not, a reminder of the value of the case that you need to provide.
[00:06:42] Scott Benton: So it’s those important pieces of information that, that somehow they’ve just been left out of the process, and that leaves your client to assume really the worst, which is that they’re spending a lot of money, And nothing is happening on their case.
[00:06:57] Scott Benton: So this is another reason why you always want to focus on the [00:07:00] relationship building aspect up front when you first begin questioning your client about their background facts and about the story and you’re digging deep.
[00:07:08] Scott Benton: You’re going three levels down. The information you get from this is going to provide you with powerful and critical information. That’s going to help you successfully work on the case from the inside out, as opposed to the outside in.
[00:07:22] Scott Benton: But for the most part, you’re probably gonna find that you’re getting stuck on cases from time to time, especially as a new attorney. That’s just gonna come up until you really have your sea legs. There’s just too much to learn when you start your job as a new attorney, and it could become overwhelming, which may even shut you down further.
[00:07:41] Scott Benton: So these are good reasons to remember that the key to getting unstuck from a fate of twisting in the wind for really any length of time, not even five or 10 minutes for one minute. You need to recognize that it’s time to pay a visit to your senior attorney supervisor and get that issue resolved.
[00:07:59] Scott Benton: So I [00:08:00] hope this has been helpful. I’m scott Benton. I’m the host of the classroom courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If this is material that you’re enjoying, you can sign up to get an alert of a new episode. Whenever we put it out, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom to courtroom dot com.
[00:08:15] Scott Benton: That’s classroom. The number to courtroom dot com. You can leave your contact information and you will receive an alert whenever we put out a new episode And if you are enjoying this material, don’t forget to share and subscribe. Please join us on our next episode of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. And until then, we also hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
[00:08:37] Scott Benton: Thank you so much.
[00:09:00]
