Beginnings
How do you start your calls with potential clients?
Do you spend a lot of time learning about them or sharing your interests?
Do you wonder if you’re building enough rapport with potential clients?
The model
Your clients don’t know if you’re a good lawyer. It’s too hard to find out if you’re a good lawyer. But your clients want a good lawyer. So they ask a question they can answer more easily and substitute it for the quality question:
“How do I feel when I’m with this lawyer?”
If the answer is, “Better than before I was with this lawyer,” then they’ll be highly motivated to do what it takes to work with you.
If the answer is, “Worse than before,” then you won’t be able to reduce your prices enough to attract good clients.
I discuss the “How do I feel?” question in more depth in this article.
Friends
If clients make hiring decisions based largely on how you make them feel, shouldn’t you spend time building rapport? Shouldn’t you ask how their family is doing and what TV shows they’re watching?
No. Your clients have enough friends. Their friends might be the one that got them into the mess they’re in. They need an advocate. They need someone who can solve their criminal defense problems. They need someone who relieves their stress and anxiety.
Again, it’s way too hard to find out whether you’re a good lawyer. They didn’t call you because they were bored or because they heard that you have good taste in TV shows. They called you because they’re stressed out and anxious about their criminal case and they’re hoping you can relieve that anxiety a little bit.
The faster you can relieve their anxiety and stress, the faster you start to serve them and the more vividly you help them realize, “I feel better when I’m with this lawyer.”
Relief
How can you relieve their stress and anxiety?
Don’t use fear.
Well, first, don’t consciously try to increase their stress and anxiety. Don’t use fear to try to scare them into hiring you. It’s mean. And it won’t work. They’re already scared. If they’re not scared already, you aren’t going to make them scared with horror stories. And even if you do, they’ll associate you with that fear and hire someone else who doesn’t bum them out so much.
Remain calm.
Second, remain calm. I started therapy about a year and a half ago. I loved my first therapist, but she moved to Germany (hopefully not to get out of therapy with me). She referred me to a colleague, but it wasn’t a good fit. I frequently finished our sessions saying, “She’s more anxious than I am.”
Anxiety and fear are contagious. So are calm and confidence. You’ve been through this process more than the client has. If you’re freaked out your client is going to be much more freaked out. Manage your emotions. Take deep breaths. Even if you’re anxious because you just found out that your dog escaped your yard or your sister’s car got repossessed, you need to regulate your emotions in service to your client. Your client deserves a calm and confident lawyer. Not a stressed out anxious lawyer.
Help them see.
A lot of the client’s stress comes from having no idea what’s going to happen. The unknown is really scary. Help your client see how their case is likely to turn out or how it could turn out so they have something to compare it to.
The best way I know to help them visualize what could happen with their case without making dishonest predictions is to tell them a story about a different client.
I once worked with a firm that was struggling to connect with potential clients. I asked them to write down a sentence each about one of their previous successes. I asked them to put the list next to their phone. I said, “You’re not allowed to quote a fee until you’ve told one of those stories.”
Stories are memorable. They stay with the client when you can’t be with them because you’re sleeping or in trial or eating lunch.
The stories don’t have to be identical. As criminal defense lawyers we see distinctions between cases. “I can’t tell a DUI client about a cocaine distribution trial.” But our clients don’t see all of those distinctions. Most criminal defense cases look pretty similar to them.
Agenda
So what could a potential client call agenda look like? Here’s mine. Feel free to adjust it to your personality. But try to provide value as quickly as possible by giving the client relief from their stress and anxiety.
Introductions (1 minute)
Who are you? Who am I? I’m sorry to hear that you’re dealing with a criminal case.What happened? (5-10 minutes)
Give the client time to tell their story. Sometimes they have to tell you some information you know isn’t relevant. If it gets too long, it will be hard for me to work with them because our communication styles are too different and it’s better to recognize that early.A few questions (2 minutes)
What city did this happen in? Do you have any criminal history? Did you blow into a breath machine (for DUIs)? Did you make a statement to the police?
These questions have two purposes: (1) I need to know enough about the case to have an idea of our position and to quote a fee. (2) I’m showing the client that I know what questions to ask. I’m calm and confident in asking them. I don’t want to appear fearful and confused in most situations. “You did what? I’ve never heard of that before. You’re in big trouble.”What’s the goal? (5 minutes)
This is a really important question and you don’t want to rush it. Early in my career I would ask this in a very open-ended way. “What do you want to have happen? What’s success for you?” My clients hated that. I realized that they didn’t know enough about the range of possible outcomes to answer intelligently. An open-ended question put too much work on the client’s shoulders.
Now I ask this way: “For most of my clients, their most important priorities are (1) staying out of jail, (2) keeping their driver license, and (3) keeping their record clean in that order. But everyone is different. I want to understand what’s important to you. Would you add a priority or order them differently?”
That gives the client the option of just saying, “Yes. Those are my exact priorities.” Or they might say, “That’s close. But I’m a commercial driver. So my license is actually probably priority #1.”Let me tell you about someone I worked with who was in a similar situation. (3 minutes)
This is where I tell a story about someone I helped in the past. It’s important to explain a little bit about the other client’s charges and about their priorities.
For example: “I recently worked with a man who was serving in the Air Force. He got accused of domestic violence. A DV conviction means discharge from the military. His whole career was at stake. We fought the case for months and I kept telling the prosecutor that she needed to dismiss the case. She couldn’t prove it. A week before trial, she finally dismissed the case. My client was able to keep his career and keep supporting his family.”Disclaimer (1 minute)
“Every case is different. I haven’t seen the evidence in your case. But I’ve been through this process with many people like you before and I’m confident that we can navigate this process together.”
Don’t give the impression that you can get a dismissal if you know you can’t. Don’t use an outcome that’s never going to happen for this client. It will actually make your life worse because your clients’ expectations will be impossible to meet and they’ll bad mouth you to friends and write mean Google reviews. Also it’s manipulative and wrong.Terms (3 minutes)
“Here’s what it would look like to work with me. My fee for this kind of case is $5,000. That covers all the hearings, reviewing all the evidence, and everything else except trial. If we can’t get a dismissal or work out a plea bargain, we’ll go to trial. That costs an extra $2,000 per day of trial. I offer a payment plan where you pay $1,000 to get started and $1,000/month until the $5,000 is paid. How does all of that sound? Would you like to work with me?”
This is a really scary moment for you and for your client. Your client might really want to work with you. They are worried they can’t afford you. Don’t stall. Don’t put it off. Tell them the terms with confidence.
Try to make the terms as simple as possible and as easy to understand as possible. I made it sound like I list all the terms without taking a breath in one run-on sentence. But that’s not actually how I do it. I try to break it down into smaller bites like this:
“Here’s what it would look like to work with me. My fee for this kind of case is $5,000. I offer a payment plan where you pay $1,000 to get started and $1,000/month until the $5,000 is paid. How does that sound? Would you like to work with me?”
“Yes. I think I can make that work with my budget.”
“Great! The $5,000 covers all the hearings, reviewing all the evidence, and everything else except trial. If we can’t get a dismissal or work out a plea bargain, we’ll go to trial. That costs an extra $2,000 per day of trial. Most cases don’t go to trial, but you never know for sure at the beginning of the case. For this type of case, I usually see 1-2 days of trial, so it would be an extra $2,000 to $4,000 for trial. Do you have any questions about that?”
“I can do that. I just don’t get paid until Thursday. Can I pay you on Thursday?” (You get the idea.)
Also notice that you have to ask, “Would you like to work with me?” And then stop talking so the client can answer. Sometimes the answer will be “no,” or “that’s way too expensive,” or “I talked to someone else who will do the whole case for $500.” Those answers are okay. So is, “I don’t know. I have to think about it.” You aren’t trying to manipulate or coerce every potential client to work with you. You’re trying to decide who you’re willing to work with and who is motivated to work with you and only you. If you do a potential client call with a client who seems great and you never ask them if they want to work with you, that’s a failure. If you ask them to choose and they say, “no,” that’s a success because you gave them a clear choice.Next steps (2 minutes)
They’ve never been through this before. Make it super clear what’s going to happen next and what they can expect.
“As soon as you make your payment, I’m going to notify the court and the prosecutor that I’m your lawyer. I’m going to get all of the prosecutor’s evidence. Then I’ll call you to go over it and make a plan for your hearing on the 28th. I expect that we’ll get the evidence on the 20th, so that gives us plenty of time to review everything and make a plan.”
Criminal cases are miserable. But some of the misery is avoidable. Some of the stress comes from not knowing what’s going to happen. Do what you can to take away that stress and your clients will thank you.
Notice that the whole process takes around 26 minutes even if your client takes 10 minutes to tell their story. Add a buffer of another 10 minutes in case the client has concerns or questions that take a little extra time and we’re talking about 36 minutes. The potential client call or meeting shouldn’t feel rushed, but it shouldn’t feel endless to the client. 45 minutes is a long potential client meeting for me. I can’t think of the last time I got to an hour.
Lawyer as Dentist
I imagine that talking to your criminal defense lawyer is like going to the dentist. No one wants to go to the dentist. I’m dreading it for days in advance. But if my teeth hurt, the only thing worse than going to the dentist is not going to the dentist. And even then, when I’m most motivated to go to the dentist, I don’t want it to take longer than necessary.
You don’t have to draw this process out. In fact, the speed is part of the service. Provide relief as quickly as you can and then help them make the choice of whether to work with you. By providing relief quickly you’ve demonstrated the value you can offer the client and they’ll be motivated to do what it takes to work with you.