Law Times

Law Times • February 5, 2018 Page 11 www.lawtimesnews.com Firms should respond to results Client surveys can illuminate issues BY MARG. BRUINEMAN For Law Times C lient surveys can help pinpoint service issues within a firm, allowing them to address issues that might otherwise go unseen. A client survey, although considered a useful tool, is one not often employed by law firms. Canadian Lawyer's annual cor- porate counsel survey last year found that 87.8 per cent of large companies asked were not sur- veyed by law firms, 5.3 per cent had in-person surveys done, 4.8 per cent were over the phone and 2.1 per cent were written. The unspoken assumption behind surveys and asking cli- ents how the firm is doing is that there is a desire to do it better, says lawyer and legal consultant Jordan Furlong, principal of Law21 based in Ottawa. He suggests that those ques- tions be asked during the course of the engagement as well as at the end so lawyers can "shift course" and "change tact" if it's not working. Questions asked during the course of the work should be very limited and short, he adds. The firm should also be clear that it is responding to the re- sults of the survey. "If you don't give people some reason to think that their feed- back matters, they'll stop giving you feedback," says Furlong. "[T]hey'll feel worse about your firm in some ways having been asked to stop what they're doing, take some time to fill out the survey and seeing no results from it whatsoever." While they are often done annually, it may be better when they're conducted at the end of a project or file, says Howard Kaufman, counsel at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Toronto. Kaufman, who was an in- house lawyer at Xerox for years, prefers the more narrow after- engagement surveys because they involve the lawyers who worked on a particular file. At that point, the survey can double as a de-briefing to find out how the firm did and what it can do better. "Either one of them . . . is use- ful to the law firm and the client. Although, I think the one that's more useful is the episodic one, which is narrow and also you deal with the lawyers who you worked with on the file," he says. Kaufman has seen their value. Post-file surveys help to provide a better picture of what went right and what didn't and how things might be improved in the future. If it's the lawyer who worked on the file who is asking the questions, it gives them the opportunity to deal with any issues. However, Kaufman wouldn't have that same lawyer or the re- lationship manager involved in the broader, annual survey. He believes the managing partner or a senior lawyer in the firm might be better suited to gain an overall understanding and critical look at what can be im- proved. Surveys can be an op- portunity to develop a deeper relationship with a client and learn more about their business, he says. "It should be a time at which we should be getting informa- tion about the client, [asking them], 'What are the things keeping you up at night?'" he says. That information should then be shared with the lawyers internally so they, too, have a better understanding of the cli- ent's needs. Legal consultant Stephen Ma- bey, principal of Applied Strate- gies Inc. in Nova Scotia, agrees. He says the challenge with cli- ent surveys is making sure their concerns are addressed, not ig- nored. Mabey believes the most effective surveys are done in person. And he suggests they be conducted in a meeting-like set- ting, giving the client a chance to talk about their business. "I don't know a lot of people who don't like talking about their business . . . ," he says. Electronic surveys or those conducted by third parties can also be useful, says Mabey, such as when a firm-wide survey is conducted. An outside party may also be effective in engen- dering more honesty and blunt- ness from the client, an approach employed by Willms & Shier En- vironmental Lawyers LLP. The Toronto-based firm used its last biennial survey to get a good handle on communication by asking clients their prefer- ences. Typically, its survey provides insight into what clients think of the service they received, possibly unearthing perspectives the law- yers working on the file may not have necessarily gleaned, allow- ing them to make the necessary adjustments, says co-managing partner Marc McAree. Willms & Shier hires a mar- keting consultant to run the sur- vey, which also includes some FOCUS Howard Kaufman says he prefers more narrow surveys of clients, in order to assess performance. See Third-party, page 12 I don't know a lot of people who don't like talking about their business . . . Stephen Mabey The Canadian Lawyer InHouse Innovatio Awards is the preeminent award program recognizing innovation by members of the in-house bar within the Canadian legal market. These awards celebrate in-house counsel, both individuals and teams, who show leadership by becoming more efficient, innovative and creative in meeting the needs of their organizations. The Innovatio awards program draws on a panel of in-house counsel judges to determine the winners, based on a range of criteria. Accepting nominations from large, small and public sector/non-profit legal departments. NOMINATIONS OPEN FROM JANUARY 15 - MARCH 15, 2018 For more information or to nominate visit www.innovatio-awards.com SAVE THE DATE September 20th | Arcadian Court, Toronto NOMINATE AN INDIVIDUAL OR TEAM IN THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES: • Law department leadership • Law department management • Diversity • Best practices in compliance systems • In-house M&A/Dealmakers • Working with external counsel • Litigation management • Risk management • Tomorrow's leader in innovation FORGING A STRONGER FUTURE Untitled-3 1 2018-02-01 8:11 AM

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