When building a successful law practice, many attorneys mistakenly believe that legal expertise is the only factor that matters, overlooking the critical role that managing client-lawyer relationships plays in their long-term success.
Key Takeaways
- Control What You Can: While lawyers have total control over their technical work product (outputs), clients rarely have the time or expertise to evaluate it. Service is the only metric completely within a lawyer’s control that the client can accurately grade.
- Results Aren’t Everything: A lawyer’s advocacy is always subject to the facts and the law. Because favorable results can never be entirely guaranteed, exceptional client service acts as your practice’s safety net.
- Experience Drives Referrals: Clients evaluate their experience based on how they are treated, not the complexity of a legal clause. Clear, proactive communication is what ultimately secures repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.
It’s not always easy to convince attorneys that they should prioritize the everyday dynamics of managing client-lawyer relationships. Too many genuinely believe their legal expertise is paramount—the only thing that truly matters when establishing their law practice’s reputation. But lawyers should not underestimate the impact of how they treat their clients: It’s the only part of the lawyer-client experience that we can control, and it is the primary element that can be accurately evaluated and appreciated by any client.
Let’s break down what clients can evaluate, and what lawyers can (or can’t) control, in terms of three things: results, outputs, and client service.
1. Results
Everyone knows what results are. In litigation, you either win or you lose. In transactions, the deal closes or it doesn’t. How much control do we really have over the results of the matters we work on for clients? Truthfully, lawyers don’t have much control, especially in litigation. Many are highly skilled advocates. However, most advocates recognize that “the facts” and “the law” will always trump superior advocacy.
Can clients evaluate results? Yes. Clients can evaluate, but lawyers have little control.
2. Outputs
Outputs are the tangible products lawyers create—litigators create briefs and discovery requests, transactional attorneys create contracts and other documents. How much control do lawyers have over their work product? Litigators and transactional attorneys alike have considerable control. But are clients—even in-house counsel—sophisticated enough to intelligently evaluate the output in either setting? I think not.
Surely, you might think, most clients can tell a good brief from a bad one—especially the more sophisticated ones. I’m not so sure. Having served as in-house counsel for a number of years managing litigation matters, I certainly could tell the difference between a horrible brief and a good one. But in reality, all the lawyers I hired could provide me with a respectable brief. They needed that skill to survive at their law firms. Were some briefs more respectable than others? Yes. But that was only my opinion. I’m sure other lawyers might disagree with me.
As a practical matter, I rarely had the time to carefully review briefs. At the rates being charged, I assumed the lawyer knew how to write a decent brief. That should help you understand why clients are rarely, if ever, “wowed” by the output of a litigator, and there is little to no consensus about what constitutes a stellar work product. Even if they have the knowledge, most clients don’t have the time to make that assessment in today’s fast-paced, hybrid work environments.
The same applies to the outputs of transactional lawyers. Are contract-type outputs evaluated any differently from litigator outputs? I have no reason to think so. Most get a cursory review at best. When was the last time a client said to you, “Section 14, Indemnification, was the best indemnification clause I have ever seen!”
Lawyers have extensive control over outputs. Unfortunately, clients have scant ability or desire to evaluate that output.
3. Service and the Client Experience
By comparison—and this is why client service is so foundational to successfully managing client-lawyer relationships—attorneys have complete control over the way they treat their clients. In an era where secure client portals, rapid response times, and text updates are standard practice, both unsophisticated and sophisticated clients can easily evaluate the quality of service they receive. It doesn’t matter whether they dropped out of high school or earned a Ph.D., they absolutely know if they are happy or not.
So, focus on client service. It’s the one area where you have absolute control over the likelihood of the client returning or making a referral.
Managing Client-Lawyer Relationships FAQ
A: While technical competence is assumed, clients consistently value clear communication, empathy, responsiveness, and feeling respected. According to industry feedback, the number one complaint against attorneys is a failure to keep clients informed, proving that communication often outranks baseline output.
A: Firms can drastically improve service by setting communication expectations early during the initial consultation (e.g., promising a 24-hour callback window) and leaning on modern legal tech—such as secure client portals—to give clients seamless access to updates.
A: A formal relationship typically hinges on the explicit agreement between both parties (often formalized via an engagement letter or retainer). However, even during initial consultations, attorneys owe a prospective client duties of confidentiality and conflict protection if significantly harmful information is shared.
