Law Times

Law TiMes • May 26, 2014 Page 3 www.lawtimesnews.com Law firms get primer on how to please their clients BY Yamri Taddese Law Times hen it comes to pleasing your cli- ents, making sure you have the right ones is the No. 1 step, an audience at the Association of Legal Ad- ministrators annual conference in Toronto heard last week. All too oen, lawyers click the start button on the clock before ensuring they can serve the client well and get paid for it, Ronald Seigneur, managing partner at Colorado account- ing and advising firm Seigneur Gustafson LLP, told conference participants on Wednesday. "Two key questions: Do [cli- ents] have the willingness and do they have the ability to pay for the legal services you're going to pro- vide for them?" Seigneur asked. "It seems abundantly simple, doesn't it? But does that question get asked legitimately with every new client that comes in to your firm?" It's an uncomfortable query lawyers tend to ignore, oen to their detriment, said Seigneur. When the client gets the bill later, "they fall off their chair because no one talked to them about how le- gal fees can be expensive." When taking work, lawyers should also ask themselves what opportunities they're giving up and whether their decision to take on a client is worth the compromises they're making, Seigneur noted. "It's all a matter of how do you apply your limited resources — the talent and dollar that you have — to the best opportunities, and when you're stuck doing some loser contingent-fee case, it means that same talent and that same re- source can be applied to a better opportunity." To ensure they've got the right clients, law firms must be willing to put in some due dili- gence, Seigneur added. "ink about investing some time getting out to visit the client and getting some preliminary data before you commit to take on the matter, before you make an ap- pearance in a litigation matter, be- fore you accept a retainer." It's less costly to decide from the beginning that a law firm isn't a fit for the client than to come to a similar conclusion af- ter investing time and money on a matter, according to Seigneur. Find out if the client's matter is legitimate, if it falls within the firm's practice areas, if it's possible to meet the deadlines, and wheth- er the benefit of taking on the case outweighs the risks, said Seigneur, who also teaches legal administra- tion at the University of Denver. Once a firm has accepted cli- ents, it's important to prioritize them, according to Seigneur, who said his firm ranks clients as A, B, C, and D. "e notion is that we want all clients to think they are A clients," he said. "I want to please everybody, but when push comes to a shove, D is going to have to get bumped." It's easier to keep the clients you already have than to get new ones, Seigneur told the audience at the Metro Toronto Conven- tion Centre. He cited an Ameri- can Bar Association survey that found clients' biggest issue with lawyers is lack of com- munication, especially when it comes to re- sponding to e-mails. ere's no deny- ing that work has be- come "invasive," said Seigneur, adding he receives text messages from his clients all of the time. But it's still important to re- spond to correspondence if clients are to feel their lawyers are treating them well, he noted. And when it comes to devel- oping relationships with clients, a good bedside manner isn't just for doctors, according to Seigneur. "Demonstrate that you genu- inely care about them and their business," he said, suggesting that visiting a client's business goes a long way to showing you care. "[With] the best clients, if you want to super please them and you want them to use you over someone else, it's going to be about how you differentiate yourself. ey can talk to you. You become more than just their legal adviser. You become their mentor or their sounding board." Sometimes, law firms can choose to do some work and not charge for it, Seigneur noted. If they haven't billed for something, law firms should make a point of indicating it on their invoice as a no-charge item to ensure the cli- ent appreciates it, he said. On Wednesday, legal adminis- trators at the conference also got a crash course on how to report on their bottom lines and measure their profitability from Andrew Price, chief operating officer of Australian insurance law firm Wotton Kearney. "You can't start reporting until you know what you're reporting on," said Price, adding the vari- ables could be different for in- dividual firms and aren't always strictly financial. Reports must be reliable and relevant, he said, urging law firms to continually review their measurement tools to make sure they're up to date. For Seigneur, tracking bill- able hours properly is a big fac- tor. ere's oen "a black sheep" at law firms who doesn't track time properly, something that has consequences for the other lawyers, he said. LT NEWS Fireman Steinmetz Daya is proud to announce that Earl J. Levy, Q.C., C.S. is joining our team of personal injury litigators. Mr. Levy has more than 50 years of experience as counsel in jury and non-jury criminal trials. Earl will be available for counsel work on personal injury matters. www.fi remanlawyers.com FiremanSteinmetz_LT_May26_14.indd 1 14-05-21 3:17 PM Association of Legal Administrators conference Lawyers urged to move faster on mobile technologies BY Yamri Taddese Law Times f you're not tracking your billable hours as you go, technology entrepreneur John Kuntz is certain you're not getting it right. Kuntz is a co-founder of Bellefield Systems LLC, the company behind an application called iTimeKeep. Although technology has significantly altered the way lawyers communicate, what hasn't changed is the way they keep track of their time, said Kuntz, who spoke about the state of mobile technologies in the le- gal profession at the Association of Legal Administrators annual confer- ence in Toronto on May 21. Kuntz cited a survey that found less than 10 per cent of U.S. lawyers use mobile tech- nologies to track their time. Many lawyers still sit down at the end of the month to recon- struct the time they spent on various tasks, he noted. "ere's no way you can remember a phone call at the dinner table from a client three weeks ago," Kuntz told attendants. "It's costing the firm thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, in a lot of cases." If law firms are trying to get lawyers to adopt an application, the first thing to look for is simplicity, according to Kuntz, who noted keeping time is a pet peeve for many lawyers. "If we have to think about it, we don't want to use it," he said. "If [lawyers] have to think, you have failed." People oen say lawyers are averse to technology but, said Kuntz, "it's not that they are technology averse; they just don't want technology that sucks." Kuntz said 99 per cent of lawyers at large law firms use smartphones, whereas the number is 85 per cent for sole practitioners. More lawyers are using Apple Inc.'s oper- ating system as the BlackBerry platform plummets in popularity, he added. Ac- cording to Bellefield Systems, 22 per cent of lawyers use Android; 16 per cent are still on BlackBerry; and 62 per cent use Apple. Harpaul Sambhi, chief executive offi- cer of Toronto-based Careerify, said law firms are oen reluctant to promote so- cial media use for fear of compromising their reputation. "You guys are very risk averse as an industry," he told an audience of lawyers and legal administrators. But "moving forward is a must," he added. "Our technology moves so fast right now, you need to be on top of it or be le behind." In fact, Sambhi predicts the legal pro- fession may soon adopt a wristband se- curity tool that functions as a password using a person's cardiac rhythm. e technology, called Nymi, would replace vulnerable passwords and per- sonal identification numbers. LT W Professional shared Office space for lease - Oshawa-across from Courthouse. 2 offices available immediately. Use of boardroom, waiting area. Must see! contact Lorraine Jackson 905-576-4111 SHARED OFFICE SPACE Marketplace To advertise call 416-649-8875 I Ronald Seigneur Harpaul Sambhi

• Cover