Wrapping Up a Legal Matter With a Note of Thanks

This series of articles continues to give tips on law office marketing, management and economics that have worked for me for over 33 years. The first topic we’re discussing is clients. After we finish up on this topic, we will talk about administration, getting the work done, billing and collecting.

If you are routinely doing these tips in your office on a day-to-day basis, give yourself five points for each tip. The box on this page sets out the scoring system so you can see how you are doing at the end of each section. We will do a recap at the end of the section so that you can see all of the topics and give yourself five points for each of the tips that you are currently doing in your office.

This week’s topic addresses writing thank you and closure letters to clients when a case is finished or when a legal matter comes to a conclusion.

Communicating with your client when a matter is finished may seem obvious, but there are more lawyers who are not doing this than lawyers who are.

You might wonder what you can say to a client in a thank you or closure letter other than the simple words “thank you.” A thank you and closure letter at the end of a legal matter is a golden opportunity to tell your client about the job that you did for them as their attorney. Such a letter will allow you to go all the way back to your initial contact with the client and remind them of what you told them at that time would be the most likely outcome of their matter in terms of time, money, and results.

One of the most difficult things for a lawyer to do is to tell their client exactly how much time a particular matter will take. Let’s use the example of a lawsuit to illustrate this point.

A lawsuit is made up of five distinct parties who all have a significant role with regard to the timing for various things to happen. First, we have the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff’s attorney. Secondly, we have the Defendant and the Defense attorney. Lastly, we have the Judge. Each of these individuals can play a very significant role in how quickly a matter will move to a conclusion. As the lawyer, you always want to be in as much control as possible. Hopefully if you follow many of the tips that will be in these articles, you will at least be in control of 20 percent of any given lawsuit. This 20 percent obviously is you. The remaining 80 percent of the lawsuit; your client, the opposing client, opposing counsel and the judge can wreck havoc on any time schedule that you may try to impose on a particular piece of litigation. Not being in control of 80 percent of anything is not a very comfortable feeling, and consequently, does not make for very accurate prognostications as to how much time something is going to take.

If you can gain control of your client, at least you are 40 percent in control of the timing of the case. But, not being in control of the other 60 percent is still an incredibly unsettling feeling. Over the years, you begin to get a feel for how things will go, and develop a way of communicating this information to your client so at least you can “be in the ball park,” when you tell your client how long their matter may take.

When trying to discuss with your client how much something will cost, again, if we use the previous example, you are only fully in control of 20 percent of the equation. Being out of control of the other 80 percent could result in a “fudge factor” that amounts to a factor of four or being 400 percent wrong. Needless to say, clients do not like to hear huge amounts quoted with regard to what a matter might cost, but realistically if you are only clearly in charge of 20 percent of it, you need to be careful when quoting fees.

Lastly, when trying to project what type of result you will get for a client, I am reminded of a phrase that I’ve heard repeated over and over in the last year that has come from the current Bush administration. The quote is, “under promise and over deliver.” A better suggestion has never been made concerning a lawyer telling their client what kind of results to expect.

We will talk more about each of these areas; time, money and results, as we continue through these articles involving tips on law office marketing, management and economics. But for now, let’s use this information to show how you can put this information into a letter closing out a particular legal matter with your client. You can remind the client of what you said about the time that it would take; hopefully you were close to being accurate. You can comment on the amount of money that you said it was going to take and whether or not this estimate turned out to be accurate or not. Lastly, you can comment on the result that you got and how that fit into the structure of what you told the client to expect. Hopefully you under promised and over delivered.

The concept here is to find yourself doing something correctly, handling something on a timely basis, charging fairly for it, being a professional, getting your client a result that they desired and letting your client know in writing what you have been able to achieve for them. This is not a matter of self-congratulations, but rather a direct and accurate portrayal of exactly how the legal matter started, progressed and ended for the client. If you have done a good job of communication with the client all along, the letter may be superfluous, but at the same time, bringing the matter to closure by re-capping everything that went on during the handling of the legal matter, certainly brings some specific communication to the client re-capping their matter instead of simply just dropping the matter and sending your client your final bill. In short, catch yourself doing something right and be sure to tell your client about it.

In these closure letters you can, of course, remind your client about items in their file, return of original documents, and file retention. All of these items will be discusses in later articles in more detail.

Again, you always would end such a closure letter with the comment, “please let us know if we can be of any help to you or to anyone who may be in need of our service.” Take every opportunity you can to throw out your “luck line.” Try some of these closure letters with your clients if you are not already doing so to see what reaction you get and what additional legal business that may come in your direction from doing so. Be sure to tell your client in a non-bragging fashion each and everything you did that made their matter successful. Your client needs to know that your legal diagnosis was accurate, your prognosis was on point and your legal prescription for treatment was appropriate, efficient and economical. If you gave your client practical and business advice in addition to legal advice, be sure to point this out as well. A counselor at law does not just give legal advice. Legal advice must be in context. The context is anything and everything that affects your client. To give legal advice out of context is inappropriate, if not malpractice. If your legal prescription for treatment got your client the result that they were looking for, you would be foolish not to point this out to your client.

Often times the practice of law is really trying to gaze into the “legal crystal ball.” I don’t know about you, but no matter how many times I take out my handkerchief and try to shine the crystal ball, it never ever tells me for sure exactly how something is going to turn out. Every legal matter always has its twists and turns. Every client relationship always has its ups and downs. Every legal case has its “speed bumps” and times to use the “express lane.” Reminding your client that you and the client have successfully traveled this legal road together and have come to a desired destination for a price that was reasonable is certainly a very good tool to bring closure to a matter and to keep open opportunities to receive other legal business that the client may have or from people that they may know. Get started on your client thank you closure letters today.

Next week we will talk about marketing for legal business and utilizing breakfast, lunches and dinners as times when potential legal business can be found from potential clients and from other lawyers. The concept is, you are probably going to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on a given day anyway, why not do it with interesting people who can end up as clients or who can refer you legal business? We will discuss this in much more detail in the next article.

Talk with you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.