Our clients must know that they can depend on us to be there for them when and how they need us to be. Our clients certainly should expect us to be knowledgeable and skilled — but that is not enough. We must also provide excellent “customer service” to our clients. The mark of a professional is not merely providing effective services, but providing services promptly and with courtesy. We want you to know what we demand of ourselves:
- We will always extend our very best efforts to meet your goals. Well never “phone it in”.
- We will provide prompt communications with you about activity in your case.
- We will communicate clearly with you, avoiding jargon and unnecessary legalese.
- We will also comply with your instructions regarding the goals of the engagement.
- We will listen carefully to your views regarding the strategy and methods that we employ for your matter.
- We will always maintain appropriate confidentiality of your affairs. This means that we will never share attorney-client privileged information except if ordered to do so by a court, we will safeguard private information we have about you, and we will seek to avoid identifying to others that you are a client of this firm except as you may permit.
- We will always provide clear and honest billing that informs you of the tasks that we do for you, fairly bills for our time and demonstrates the reasonableness of our charges.
- We will aim to respond substantively to your emails and telephone messages within two business days or we will advise you within that time if we find that we will be unable to provide a substantive response in that timeframe.
- We will honestly acknowledge if we err.
- We will work hard to keep your matter moving along and will work hard to avoid letting a matter stagnate.
Of course, our clients also have an important role to play in helping us to provide efficient and effective services. We expect our clients to respond promptly to our requests for information and documents. We expect our clients to acknowledge our discretion to decide on the strategies and methods used to meet your objectives. We expect our clients to communicate with us in a way that recognizes we are a team. We expect our client to recognize that we cannot extend so many resources to him or her that our fees become unbearable. And we expect our clients to inform us, with courtesy and patience and before a concern becomes a problem, if they believe we are not reaching the standard we have set for ourselves.