Lawyers often pursue new clients at the expense of servicing and marketing to existing clients. This is a mistake. It’s also a mistake to pursue new referral sources at the expense of your existing referral network. Your existing network should ...

It’s almost a certainty that, at some point, every lawyer will have an unhappy client. In his seminal research on loyalty, business strategist Frederick Reichheld concluded that simply satisfying clients is not enough to retain them. Research ...

This is something old-school lawyers say a lot: "Your best sources of referrals are your existing clients." And, for word-of-mouth, referral-based law firms, it’s probably true that referrals from other lawyers or from existing clients are 1-2. ...

Workplace conflicts among colleagues are not only common, they are necessary. Despite most people’s desire to avoid or minimize them, conflicts are normal. In fact, conflicts are not even a bad thing. Most of them are positive, we just tend to ...

Email may be good for maintaining a relationship, but it is not good for building one. Both email and texting are fast, convenient and essentially allow nonstop 24/7 communication. The downside is they are easily misinterpreted — and emails ...

“We can surely do better,” read the last line of the email. “What the hell does that mean?” asked Margaret. The young associate had just helped win a big case, and she was reading a "thank you for your efforts" email from the lead partner to the ...

Have you been avoiding a potentially difficult conversation with a client for fear of it going badly? The good news is that you are in solid company — some of the best and brightest lawyers procrastinate and avoid conflict. Introverts — and ...

Sure, it is no more important to show gratitude for a client on Valentine's Day than any other day of the year. But, confronted with mountains of heart-shaped boxes and an avalanche of sweetheart sales, it's only natural for some to ponder, "Who ...

For every attorney-paralegal relationship that is built on a foundation of mutual respect and admiration, there are several razed under constant consternation, engendered by a sense of entitlement on the lawyer's part. For every long-standing ...

Valentine's Day. You can try to ignore it, hoping to slide right through it (after all, life isn't all candy hearts and silly love songs), or you can dive in, wholeheartedly. At Attorney at Work, we stand with Sir Paul: Love isn't silly at all. ...