Get Prepared for Your
30-Minute Attorney , Lawyer Consultation :
Follow these steps to get
ready for your free 30-minute consultation with your lawyer.
The more prepared you are, the
less time it will take for the lawyer to understand and help you resolve your
legal issue. This could result in savings to you.
· Bring all
documents. Make copies of all the
documents you have collected regarding your case. Give
these copies to the lawyer.
·
Get organized
and take notes! Write down notes
outlining your legal problem, or any questions you may have. The lawyer you are
referred to must have your details in order to decide what is important and how
to move forward in your best interests.
·
Dress for
success. Even though you may be
very emotional about your case, dress as if you are going to a business meeting
or applying for a job. You will feel in control, which is important.
·
Be honest. It is very important that you give an honest
account of your legal problem. This includes issues that may be sensitive to
you or your family. Remember that the conversation your have with your lawyer
is private, and cannot be discussed with others without your permission.
·
Talk about how
much this will cost you. Your
lawyer will be ready to discuss fees during your first meeting. You should be
ready to do the same. It is perfectly okay to discuss payment plans with your
lawyer. Get your agreement in writing and keep a copy for your file.
If you and your lawyer
determine that your legal expenses will be more than $1,000.00 (one thousand
dollars), then the attorney must provide you with a written fee agreement.
·
Ask your lawyer
questions. In order for your lawyer
to serve you better, you must understand your case and the legal process. But
remember, you are paying for your lawyer’s time. It is more cost effective to
ask several questions at once. If you call your lawyer every single time you
have a question, you may be charged for each call.
·
Read all
documents carefully before signing. Before you sign a document, ask your lawyer to
fully explain to you what exactly it is that you are signing. If you do not
understand what the document is about that you are being asked to sign, ask
your lawyer to explain it to you again.
·
Keep your own
files. Don’t hesitate to ask
for copies of all letters and documents prepared on your case. You should also
keep the written fee agreement between you and your lawyer for your records.
·
Listen to your
lawyer. Listen to your lawyer
and think about what your lawyer asks you to do. The lawyer’s judgments are
based on legal training and experience. Remember that lawyers cannot work
magic. No lawyer wins every case, and sometimes the best legal advice may not
be what you want to hear. Your lawyer will provide advice that has your best
interests in mind.
·
Some of us lawyers want to leave the law: We are
unhappy and dissatisfied with our work situation. We suffer long hours. We find
our day-to-day lawyer tasks mostly uninteresting. We are demotivated because we
are not included in the partner track discussions. We feel we receive
little-to-no mentoring. We are weighed down by high student loans.
·
And maybe most important, we feel that our
professional skill set is not really in alignment with the duties and
responsibilities required to be a lawyer. We are not fully confident that we
can be a real good lawyer. It’s turning out that what we are good at doing and
what we enjoy doing isn’t what an attorney does. We’re pretty sure that this
lawyer gig is really not for us.
·
But we don’t leave the law because we have sincere
doubts that any of our legal job skills are transferrable to any non-legal
jobs. We find it unrealistic that someone outside of a law firm would even
consider hiring a lawyer like us. We don’t believe that we have any marketable
skills that a non-legal business would want.
·
But we do. We lawyers who want to leave the law
possess a skill set and an array of talents that are actually in high demand by
many businesses. Let’s see how.
·
Client Management: In a business, any business, whether it sells a
product or provides a service, there are people it sells to or works closely
with that need to be managed and attended to (call them customers or clients or
partners or stakeholders or shareholders or advisors or any number of other
descriptive terms). These real, live, human customers need to be understood,
coddled, directed, serviced, upsold, excited and reigned in.
·
Working with clients is something we lawyers do day-in
and day-out. A lawyer’s ability to listen, issue spot and relate with these
real, live, human people is a skill that not everyone has. This skill is
essential to a company’s relationship building, reputation growth, client
retention and customer support.
·
Upselling: If a business provides value to its customers, the
customers will naturally come back for more. But oftentimes, businesses need to
proactively suggest and highlight potential products and services and future
projects to their captive customer base. This of course helps the business grow
its revenue, and also provides a valuable service to a customer by (sincerely)
suggesting other products and services to which the customer can avail him or
herself.
·
Whether we realize it or not, we attorneys are always
upselling. Attorneys with close client contact will often suggest other courses
of action, other defenses to approach, other research and analysis angles,
other agreements to put in place, other services to consider, other advisors to
contact. Upselling new ideas is instinctual for us … and can be an extremely
valuable skill set for every business and appreciated by its customers.
·
Issue Spotting: Believe it or not, the “I” in IRAC could be our
ticket to a new gig. In business, there are always issues, messes, projects,
and things to figure out. Something always goes wrong, and a solution to fix it
needs to be hatched. Or something goes phenomenally right and this new
opportunity presents a multitude of new options. As such, decisions need to be
made, strategies need to be devised, communications need to be delivered, next
steps need to be agreed upon, and teams need to be created to execute.
·
This is what we do daily. Who better than an attorney
to jump up to that white board in the conference room, assess the mess of
options and gradually moderate all of the executives to spot the issues that
affect the business most, objectively prioritize actions, and then calmly
delegate to the most responsible employees? We don’t need to necessarily make
the final call; we just need to create the environment for the executive team
to calmly make informed, thorough, and educated decisions on what to do next.
We issue spot for a living for our clients … we can do the same for businesses
out there.
·
Clear and Concise Prose: Attorneys write. A lot.
And we write well. We write clearly, precisely and in a thoughtful, informative
manner.
·
And so much of business nowadays is also about
writing: People from all types of companies write stuff … emails, PowerPoints,
proposals, reviews, reports, bios, pitch books, social media content, marketing
content.
·
And it’s a sad fact, but across many businesses, so
much of this content is not written well: It’s unclear, not spaced correctly,
un-relatable, grammatically incorrect or just plain indecipherable. People go
back and forth trying to understand each other or send multiple versions trying
to come to a final result. Time is wasted, important issues are misunderstood,
frustration grows, productivity is reduced.
·
Our writing style can help. We can craft explanatory
emails. We can draw up informative presentations. We can put together
persuasive pitches. And we can do all of this in less time and with less
confusion than many non-lawyers can. We’ve already been trained to write
understandable, persuasive content for discerning readers (judges, opposing
counsel, clients). In the current Information and Content Age, this is a skill
any business would love to get its hands on.
·
Interpersonal Skills: Even with telecommuting, virtual
offices and the internet, business is won and lost and grows and retracts based
on personal relationships. People do business with whom they trust, with whom
they find commonality and with whom they like. And these relationships are
built on clear communication, exchanges of ideas and getting to know each other.
·
While not all lawyers would rank interpersonal skills
as their top strength, many do. We rain make new business, we build
relationships with opposing counsel, we get to know judges and staff, we become
trusted advisors to companies and organizations. All of these relationship
skills are also in heavy demand by businesses, who need interactive people to
build strong personal relationships and lead important strategic initiatives.
·
Dependable, Disciplined and Loyal: In addition to people they
can trust and like, business owners need workers they can depend on. Things
need to get done, fires need to be put out, projects need to be kickstarted.
The person that just gets stuff done on time, even if it’s not perfect, is of
immense value.
·
We lawyers are solid people. We can be counted on. We
meet deadlines. We are used to keeping confidentiality, professional ethics,
and fiduciary duties. In short, we have been regulated our whole lives and
while this may wear on us or the responsibility may even cause us anxiety as
practicing lawyers, it has distilled in us a distinct sense of responsibility
and duty that is indispensible for businesses looking for solid people to hire.
·
Working Long Hours: People in business put in a lot of
hard work. Nowadays, with the 24/7 cycle, it seems like everyone is always
working.
·
And we of course work hard too. Attorneys work into
the evenings throughout the work week. We come into the office around noon on
Sundays. We work around the clock when the deal or the trial requires it. Going
the extra mile (and miles after that) is expected in our day-to-day as a
lawyer.
·
Of course, these long hours are a major driver for
many wanting to leave the law. But in the non-legal business world, where
people work hard but where “normal lawyer” hours are definitely not the norm,
we will by default often be the hardest worker in the room. This means that we
can achieve some of the reduced hour lifestyle we so desperately want, while
also contributing mightily to our company and its mission.
·
So keep this in mind – what we lawyers do day to day
is not solely reserved for the practice of the law. There is a wide world out
there of other, non-legal roles that may be a fit with our skill set and
strengths.
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To decide which type of insurance adviser you
need you should identify the risks to your business.
